Alamo bowl

Baylor vs. Washington! What a great game!!  Our friends gave us free tickets (and parking-AWESOME) to the Alamo bowl.  It is my first bowl game, and we all had sooo much fun!  Julia was off with Grandma Judy doing a "ghost tour" downtown for her birthday.  It was so fun to be part of such a big game!  There were 65,000 loud and crazy fans there!

Silly girls

Half time

Eden's first bowl game!

Family picture outside of the alamo dome with the Tower of Americas in the background.Elaina fell asleep on the way home! Way too late!!

Bart and Cory and Carter Barnett

Riverwalk Christmas lights

The riverwalk has always been something they painted in pictures with these beautiful lights hanging from the tree.  This year they changed it up.  Its the 1st year they decorated with led lights, but instead of hanging lights they wrapped the trees.  I am not so sure I like it.  Its pretty and festive, but I loved the hanging lights. (Excuse the cell phone pictures)

Christmas day

I can say with confidence that our family had a great Christmas together.  I had such a good time just being TOGETHER with our family of 6.  We enjoyed spending time with each other, and can say for the most part the kids got along quite well with  each other.  It was a nice change! Eden started Christmas morning out strong, but tired after playing with the paper of only one present, and tuckered out shorthly after trying to eat the paper.

We always try to get a picture of the kids scrambling down the stairs to see what Santa brought them.  Its really quite cruel on our part to make them "wait till I get the camera" but funny too.  I know when I am scrambling around, they are just DYING to run down the stairs.  I am waiting for the year that one of them trips down the stairs trying to beat the others.

See what I mean?  She was OUT!

Julia is 11 now, and all she is interested in is name brand clothes, and gift cards. Abercrombie, Miss Me (not on my wallet) Joe's Jeans, Vera Bradley, anything else over $100.00

Daddy got one of the two pecans that Grandpa Jimmy's pecan tree produced this year.  He LOVES pecans, and we gave him a pecan tree two Christmases ago, and it's growing slowly but surely.  He has even nursed it through the record drought we had here in Texas this year.

Connor playing his Pokemon gameboy.  He is interested in anything electronic, but his big gift requests were Skylanders and Pokemon anything.

Elaina doesn't care what she gets, really.  As long as its not Dora, because Dora is for babies. She is over the moon, because she told Santa she wanted a princess radio (and told him how to BUILD it) and a go-go dog, that walks.  She got both.  And can't stop singing Katy Perry's Fireworks song on her princess kareoke. 

I am so blessed by my family. 

Hut hut....

Eden has torticollis.  Her muscle on one side of her neck is tight, so she has this tilt to her neck, because of the tightness.  I noticed it early on, and brought it up to the pediatrician at her two month appointment and I was brushed off.  She was developing a large flat spot on one side of the back of her head (cone head too).   She started physical therapy through Easter Seals.  We went to STAR Cranial Center, and had a 3D scan of her head done to tell us how crooked her head was.  She had a decent "deviation", meaning she was fairly crooked.  One month later went back for a second scan to see if it had changed.  Her head had grown one centimeter, as do most babied heads this age, but it followed the EXACT SAME path as it was previously, following the crooked path. After deliberating we decided to pay for her to have a helmet, to try to correct the problem.  While she remains in physical therapy for her neck, after only two weeks, there is already a significant difference in her head shape from the helmet. They put this cotton sock like thing over her head to get a more accurate depiction of her head shape.  They lay her n this little box snd in seconds these light lasers scan the outside of her head. 

Here she is on the day we picked up her helmet....She smiled for the first ten minutes.  She HATES this helmet now.  So do I.  It stinks, literally.  She sweats like crazy in it.  She pulls at it.  The velcro sticks to everything.  She wakes up every hour and a half through the night with it.  It is both of our NEMESIS.  I thought she would get used to it, but she hasn't yet, and its been over 2 weeks. BUT, her head is turning into a more beautiful round head again. I just want her to be the best she can be, and I will love her no matter what.

Meeeet BEVO!

Bevo is our new dog!  He is a rescue dog, that was in a foster home.  He is the sweetest little thing ever.  A long haired dachshund/ chow mix or some sort.  His legs are about 3 inches high... sooo sweet! since Celi our french bulldog died, Maggie had been so sad.  she was not herself at all.  We knew she needed another little buddy.  Now she is back to her normal self again.  They sleep together, and love playing together. He is 2-3 years old, and sweet as pie.  The perfect addition to our family!

Council of toes

Eden has this thing.  She LOVES her toes.  I know all babies at this age love thier toes, but she REALLY loves her toes.  I mean, can't stop playing with them, loves her toes.  She has become a round little butterball, who grunts as she grabs at her toes.  I love it.  If you talk to her, her first reaction is to grab her toes before she talks back, or makes faces back to you.  So, we call them her "council of toes".  We joke, that she has to meet with her council, or have a meeting with her council every time she grabs them.  If socks come of its like she has this magnetic force ulling her feet and hands together.  She cracks me up.  I love those fat puffy feet so much.

Serious Business: First time seeing Santa

Eden yanked the HECK out of this Santa's beard!!  It was a REAL BEARD.  Poor guy.

Here he is saying "Is this YOUR KID?"

"Seriously Mom?  I gotta sit on that guy's lap?"

Eden saw Santa for the first time at the Rivercenter Mall on the Riverwalk.