Dallas Christmas

The week of Christmas my parent, the kids and I took a trip to Dallas. Oh what an adventure. Thank God for my Ipad and William's DVD player I might have gone nuts. The drive up there took FOREVER. We stopped 3 or 4 times for potty breaks and to feed Ryder. On the way home we got a flat tire in Centerville and almost got involved in a fender bender that happened right in front of us. Despite our drama our visit was awesome. My Tia Carmen was visiting from Venezuela and it's a rare opportunity to see her and I wanted her to meet Ryder so bad. She is my Nanny's sister and the two of them resemble each other so much. I love being around her because everything she does reminds me so much of my grandmother. I am so happy she got to see the kids. Her soft kindness melted my heart.







Finally...I got some awesome pictures of the kids with their Nana, Nanny and Papa!

Warren Family Christmas

We have tried to make this an annual event and so far the past 2 years have been successful! I just love watching the kids grow up each year. It's so awesome that Staci (Chris' cousin) is now living here for good and I get to be a part of her kids life. I swear I could eat those twins up...Ashley is too big to smother, however I will keep trying!

In an effort to help William behave even better we included Buddy the elf. We followed the Elf on a Shelf system and William named his elf Buddy. Each night he would end up in a different spot and William loved to find him each morning. Chris and I tried our hardest to get creative. He got into the Christmas cookies, and another day wrote a note. He would climb the Christmas tree and even play with William's Nerf basketball net. It was a fun treat to do each day with him, I can't wait for Ryder to have fun with this next year!

Santa Jim

This party was the highlight of my December!! A customer of mine hired me to photograph their Santa Jim adventure and I thought what a great idea for our group of friends. We rented Santa and had the best party for all the kids!! He read stories, took pictures and had a little magic show. It was so fun to watch the kids hug and basically burst with excitement that Santa was there to visit! There is no doubt about it, we have a new tradition among our group of friends.

Austin Get-Away

There is one thing Chris and I don't do enough of and that's take a little "us" time. In November we decided it was time. We had a little get-away to Austin and spent 2 nights in a hotel kid free. It was a big deal for me because it was my first time away from Ryder in over 5 months. Chris' mom Becky came to Houston and took awesome care of Ryder and we dropped William off at my parents in Austin. We went to Eddie V's (our favorite restaurant) on Friday night and went to see Joshua Radin play on Saturday night. If you don't know who Joshua Radin is, get to know him. He's awesome and I absolutely LOVE his music!! We also did a couples message and caught up on some much needed R&R. On Sunday we didn't want to get back to reality but what can you do? I can't wait to do it again, Chris and I had a BLAST!! I love that man!!

It's funny, when it's just the two of us, this is how all our pictures look!

William's "Friends"

I just had to mark this memory and create a post for this. William's "friends" as he calls them are a HUGE part of his life. They are a collection of animals he's come across from birth to now. He sleeps with ALL of them. It's so funny that he tucks them all in at night and makes sure each one is accounted for. They don't have special names, what you see is who they are. Momma lamb, baby lamb, ducky, monkey, bear, giraffe, kitty, doggy, and basically anything else he decides to include in his "party". Not only do they sleep with him, they are a captive audience. I've walked in on him preforming for them...and yes I thought it was the cutest thing ever! As a bonus William has this thing he has done since he was a baby. He sucks and chews on the tails of his animals. It's the weirdest thing but as you can see after years of chewing and washing the tails are almost gone. These fellas are so special to him, I will try my hardest to keep them in one piece as long as they are in his life.