Family Christmas!

   A week before Christmas my mom's side of the family got together for our annual Christmas party. We of course eat way too much. All the cousins' kids run around and play together. And this year we added bingo... yes, you read correctly B-I-N-G-O!

Petting Keller with my cousins!

   Harrison was in love with watching the big kids play. He took a turn at air hockey - thank god we didn't get any fingers smooshed. 

Thank goodness for Cousin Rachel!

   His true love was the shuffleboard. Between the sand and the sliding discs it was love at first sight. Thankfully Cousin Rachel helped lift him (each of the one thousand times) and she was an extra set of eyes on him.  

Yep she lifted me each time. I avoided the step stool. 

   After stuffing our faces, we busted out the bingo boards. Normally we do a white elephant exchange, but this year we switched it up. To play bingo you brought a $10 prize and paid $1 per bingo board. 

It was very intense!

   I started out with two bingo boards but had to step it up to four. Adam left early to take Harrison home for bed. I'm pretty sure bingo went on for at least 2 hours. After much frustration I won twice! My prizes included a football for Harrison and a $10 Target gift card! Whoot whoot!!

Read it and weep! BINGO!!

   Once all of the prizes were accounted for we played for a blackout. The winner got the whopping $82 collected from the players!! Needless to say with that many bingo boards in use we ran out of chips. We started using whatever we could find to cover our numbers - money, pretzels, trail mix..

You have to admit, it's hilarious.

   Finally a winner was found and we were free from the grip of Family Christmas Bingo 2011!

Until next year... I have got to find those bingo dotters between now and then.

~Emily

Holiday fun!

   This holiday season we've had a lot of fun things going on. To kick off December our church had its annual Children's Christmas Party. I was there, but unfortunately Harrison sat this one out. He was fighting his first cough. 

   Next on tap was our friend Calen's 5th birthday party! The party was at a local indoor pool. Harrison and I made it to the party but decided cough + swimming maybe wasn't the best thing. Harrison loved running around with the big kids though! He even let us put on a pirate eye patch.

Really mom.... Arg.

   The day after Calen's pirate birthday we went on a holiday lights tour. It was amazing! About 33 of us from my mom's group at church loaded up on a party bus (complete with strobe lights and.. ahem... poles... ). 

Sitting like a big boy on the party bus!

   We headed out around 5pm. We all had dinner and snacks on the bus, listened to Christmas music and all the kiddos enjoyed playing with each other. Our destination was Longview Lake. They have a big drive thru light display. When we got to the display Harrison was glued to the window!

Look at all these lights momma!!

   We had a blast! Riding the bus was definitely the way to do it. Harrison loved watching the other kids on the bus and looking at all of the lights. We had space to spread out and didn't have to worry about driving there ourselves. 

Almost every display had some kind of movement. Awesome!

Until our next adventure!

~Emily

The big visit!

   Last year we saw Santa on Thanksgiving. It was awesome! We went to Bass Pro Shop and there were no lines! This year, it just didn't work out on Thanksgiving. We were off to a late start and I didn't have any Christmas clothes for Harrison. Seriously, boy clothes can be so tricky! So we went to Bass Pro Shop the first weekend in December. Adam was off that Sunday so we made sure to get there right when Santa arrived!

So where is this Santa Claus?

   We were lucky to get there so early - we only waited 5-10 minutes. My parents met us up there as well. 

Daddy did you see these cars over here?

   Harrison was fine during the wait. He scoped out the other kids. Watched the toy cars on the track. As soon as it was our turn, he was ready!

Um hi there strange guy with a beard...

   Adam said Harrison kinda waved and smiled at Santa when he first sat down. Then he caught himself and wasn't so sure. However, there were no tears so we're totally counting this as a success!

Sorry Mom. This is as good as it gets!

   Santa was amazing as usual! I LOVE that all the Santas now sport real beards! He was very patient with Harrison and other than Harrison's tummy sticking out, he did a great job! After our Santa adventure, we headed to Mimi's Cafe for a nice breakfast together!

Look who's sitting in a booster seat!

All in all, it was a great day! I just love this family stuff!!

~Emily