A Texas Style Holiday

LouAnn,
For the record...the house is beautifully decorated, the formal dining table is set with Holiday dishes, the gifts are all wrapped with the necessary coordinating papers and ribbon(really beautiful if I do say so myself and yes Rachels message on face book caused a nervous tick to take over my entire body! Who writes names on the gifts with magic marker...just sayin). The house smells delicious tonight from the Yankee Danish cookie candle that is burning and the carols of course are quietly playing. I haven't completely lost my mind. There will be a set of formal pictures taken as the kids unwrap gifts tomorrow night and then come Thursday evening, true to our Texas roots, we will go "redneck" for the holiday. This whole adventure has us all cracking up and we aren't even there yet! I can't wait to share pics of our holiday adventure once I get to Omaha. Trust me I would never publish them for the world to see!

Just wanted you to know I love ya and wish you the merriest of Christmas'. Look forward to seeing you soon. God bless. Trish


Today' temperature here in our portion of the great state of Texas? 78degrees! ON THE FIRST DAY OF WINTER~ONLY FOUR DAYS TILL CHRISTMAS!

So what do we have planned for the evening? We are going ice skating, in the heat! We also hope to have the kids Christmas photo taken in a life sized snow globe! Yup, thats the way we do it in Texas come December. We just fake like its cold outside. Wish me luck getting the kids to wear sweaters and scarfs in that photo I'm after. I think they are old enough to make it miserable on mom and her attempts at making it look like winter time.

Of course we plan on having Mexican food for dinner because its what you do about 4 out of 7 nights a week if you live in Texas.

Come Christmas morning you won't find us sitting around the family room this year. We decided to change things up a bit and make it a "Christmas to remember". Literally, I think none of us will forget this Christmas. My family who had planned on joining us here in Texas are unable to come so we are packing our little family up in the RV complete with wreath on the front grill and Christmas lights on the roof and driving out to the lake. I have a tree packed in the back, fixings for chicken tacos and fajitas in the fridge(you didnt really expect us to have a traditional meal did you?), and the stockings hung along the cabinetry. It will surely be a memory in the making. Actually the kids are pretty excited about doing something so different. We plan on sitting around the fire pit on Christmas Eve, roasting corn and making smores, and opening gifts from our little shopping adventure game. I gave every member of the family a $20 bill and told them they had to shop for all 5 members of the family out of that $20! Its been hysterical so far.

I also packed a table, linen, and holiday dishes to set up at our site to enjoy Christmas dinner out in nature. I'm super excited about pulling this little redneck Christmas off! My holiday photos will not even resemble a Christmas at my house. I can hear the kids sitting around the table 10 years from now, "remember that Christmas that mom and dad went nuts and took us out to the lake?" Ahhh..yes, I'm already smiling about that.

Hoping your holiday is shaping up to be memorable. Ours sure is!

PS
Cathy, Ashley's outfit came from Gymboree and she is wearing a size 6 now(hard to believe it!). Hoping Annabel is getting stronger each day. Merry Christmas