Our final Christmas

Sunday we spent the day with my mom and Dan for our final Christmas celebration. We went over right away in the morning again and it was snowing so hard! It was beautiful (however Matt's [parents were driving back to Missouri so we were worried about the roads) and it was coming down so fast. We opened presents and had breakfast.



Carter got a set of golf clubs with a bag just his size. This was a very exciting moment for him because for those of you that do not know, Carter LOVES to golf! I used to say he was my Tiger Woods but I will be looking for a new nickname for him. He was so excited when he opened this gift and I am so glad I was able to get it on video.

We took a break again this year from opening presents because there are so many of us and it takes a long time to open them. After present we had the annual Bake Off competition. Unfortunately we did not remember to take pictures!!! I made a Tres Leches Cake (it means 3 milks) and Riley made a Red Velvet Cake. I think I took 3rd and Riley took 5th (sorry if this is incorrect). My step-sister took 1st place this year with a pumpkin roll. Everything tasted so good this year, so it was very difficult to judge. The snow kept falling and the idea of playing golf in the snow became a reality as the 1st annual Christmas Golf Classic took place. The boys decided to drill holes in golf balls and tie ribbons on them so they would be able to find them in the snow.



Well, I am officially caught up on the blog. I apologize for so many new posts in a row but for those of you that stay in touch through this, I wanted to share our holiday with you! I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and you are ready to ring in 2010!!!! Happy New Year!

Christmas with Dad and Phyllis

Saturday morning we went over to Dad and Phyllis' bright and early. We opened gifts and had a great breakfast. Riley got her first bow and it is pink!!!!



Riley was able to go out and shoot her bow with Papa Ron and Papa Jerry. She did great!

We spent the day playing with the new stuff and playing cards. It was another great day!

Christmas Day

The kids slept until 7, so that is when we started Christmas. The kids were so excited that the cookies were gone, the carrots were eaten but Santa did not drink all of the milk. Carter is still talking about that! We opened the presents and then made a wonderful breakfast. We drank champagne and ate way too much...again. In the afternoon we went to my mom's house for dinner. The food was plenty, the egg nog was strong and the company was wonderful.





Christmas at Mom's

Christmas Eve

Matt's parents came in on Christmas Eve. We spent the morning finishing up the cooking, cleaning and shopping before they arrived. They got here right before the roads turned to ice. We opened presents with them, decorated cookies and had fondue for dinner. Our version of fondue is cooking chicken nuggets, shrimp, deep fried onions, pickles and mushrooms. The kids love cooking their own food. We planned on going out to look at lights but the weather was too bad.

Carter playing with Matt's bumpers for the boat

Opening the family gift from Mom and Dad Hughes-A new grill for the boat!

Papa opening a gift with his little helpers

Carter and Grandma playing Wii Bowling

Decorating cookies for Santa

Riley getting the milk for Santa

Matt putting Carter's reindeer food on the roof. He insisted it went in a line because the reindeer are in a line behind Santa's sleigh.

Papa and Carter watching him put out the food (it was raining/sleeting and just darn yucky out there!)

Ready for bed. The cookies and milk were all ready for Santa

Christmas with Boompa and Pam

Tuesday night we had Christmas at DaBoompa and d and Phyllis' with Boompa and Pam. Again we ate a lot of food! We had a nice time with them. I only captured a couple pictures from that evening.

Christmas with the Cousins

Last Monday night we had Christmas with Abby, Tim, Mason and Emily. We spent the day making ornaments to give the grandparents as gifts and eating lots of food. It was a great time.

Christmas Parties

Riley and Carter both had their Christmas parties at school today. Riley really loves to give gifts. She is very thoughtful when deciding what to give. She decided several weeks ago what to give her teacher. When she got home today she was most excited to tell me how much her teacher liked her gift and she loved that Riley even made her dog some dog treats. I LOVED that she was more excited to tell me about the gifts she gave than the ones she got. She truly enjoyed today for the right reasons.
Carter was very excited about having a Christmas party at school. He was asked to bring a book for another boy and they would be doing a book exchange, He did not understand the concept and was positive that he was giving his book to his friend Joshua. he wanted to write Joshua on the tag when he wrapped it and everything! I was concerned that he would be upset when he had to give his book to someone else but I heard it went fine(Aunt Abby was at the party so I got the scoop). When we were leaving his school, I received the best gift of all! One of Santa's Elves was going into the school and Carter was so in awe. He was convinced that Santa had sent the elf to check on boys and girls at school to see if they were being good! He was so good today!!!!! He kept saying "I cannot believe I saw a real Elf!" It was so cute and to me it was priceless. For those who have not heard my stories about Carter and being "good for Santa", let me fill you in. Whenever he has been misbehaving in the last few weeks I have reminded him that Santa is watching. He usually continues doing whatever it is he is doing and pays no attention. I have gotten to the point where I will yell to the sky (not sure why because the north pole is not in heaven!) "Santa, Carter is not listening!" To which he has replied more than once to me, "It's ok mom, I like coal and I want coal for Christmas." So as you can tell, he has been acting like he does not care! Hence, the excitement I experienced today when he acted like he was nervous about Santa really knowing if he was bod or good!

After school we exchanged our gifts with the girls that I get to spend my days with. So I do have one picture to share from our busy day.

Decorating for Christmas

We started working on the decorations a week ago and finally finished them last night. We started with the outside lights which usually takes the longest and spent three evenings working on them.


Friday night we went and picked out our tree. We are lucky there is a place 2 minutes from our house with cheap and nice trees. We also added a train this year around the tree from Grandma and Papa Hughes. SO far the dog and Carter have played nicely with it. :)