Our First Texas Christmas

Christmas this year was so much fun! Presley was really into it and it's hard not to catch a child's excitement during such a magical holiday! Plus it was our first one in Texas (without being with any of our family) so we had to make it great!

Christmas Eve we had a few final preparations to attend to. Presley and I made chocolate chip cookies for Santa...

…and Presley enjoyed some good Daddy time while I worked on dinner and finished wrapping.

We decided to keep with my family's tradition of having a nice, prime rib dinner on Christmas Eve.

Our menu included prime rib, twice baked potatoes, pear salad, and, of course, the 11-layer Christmas jello. Ashley usually makes this bad-boy and I was not excited to have to make my own this year. But, it turned out great and it's worth it because Jeff loves it.

After dinner we went outside to spread the reindeer food that our elf, Tinsel, left for Presley. We did this last year and spent a ton of time outside spreading the food. Clearly, that was a Florida luxury. It was so cold here that it was more of a dump-and-run effort.

We opened our Christmas jammies, read Luke 2 via FaceTime with the Peepers,

and put out the cookies and milk for Santa.

Presley took this job very seriously. No one goes hungry at our house!

When Presley was fast asleep, Jeff and I got up to make sure Santa had visited our house. He sure did!

Of course, all of the cookies got eaten!

Presley was so excited to see if Santa came. Daddy lead her out...

and she was so excited to see that he had definitely visited our house and left plenty of presents behind!

Jeff was excited about his Texas-style boots.

And I was equally excited about the beautiful handbag he picked out for me.

Jeff's big gift was a "power tower"--a workout station that will help him reach his fitness goals for the year. I've resigned myself to have a "formal gym" instead of a "formal dining room" while we are in our rental house.

We spent most of the rest of the day playing with all of Presley's new toys!

And she was so happy to wear the purple dress that Santa brought her. It was the only thing she asked Santa for!

I love this picture because she's laying in her "carriage" in her purple "cinderella dress" looking lovingly at her Flynn Rider doll (whom she has a crush on).

After naps, we were very glad to be able to join the Copeland family for dinner. It was fun to let the kids run wild, eat good food, and enjoy good company--especially since we didn't have any of our own family to spend it with. The Copelands have kind of adopted us and we are grateful. 

We had such a wonderful and relaxing holiday. I enjoyed the time with my little family to reflect and show my gratitude for our Saviors birth and begin some of our own Christmas traditions. 

The tradition lives on

We had the Copelands over for the annual graham cracker house build. There were not many pictures taken but, I assure you, it happened, a good time was had by all, and we ate more candy in one night than we do all year.

A special visit to Santa

We heard that Santa was visiting the Gaylord Texan hotel so we jumped in the car to go and meet him. It was a fun way to spend the morning. The hotel was all decked out for Christmas and Presley loved exploring while I waited in line.

She was so excited to finally meet Santa and to tell him that she's been a really good girl and wants a purple dress for Christmas. She was definitely more excited than these pictures let on. She clammed up when everyone started trying to get her to look at the camera and smile.

You mean to tell me you're going to squeeze down our chimney on Christmas Eve? I just don't see how that's possible.

The Polar Express

This year we were excited to take the Polar Express to see Santa! Grapevine has an old Victorian train that turns into the Polar Express each Christmas and after reading about it, we couldn't wait to take Presley.

She was pretty excited to ride on the train and liked singing carols and watching the elves as we chugged along.

All of the kids got a magic bell,  just like the book.

The train arrived at the North Pole, to be greeted by a forest of Christmas trees and plenty of "snow"

The elves put on a little musical program that all led to the introduction of the big-guy himself.

Presley loved the music and dancing and was so excited to see Santa that she ran up and gave him a hug.

After enjoying her frosty milk, she was happy to cruise the tot-lot on her choice of bikes.

We were happy that it was magical enough for Presley. Jeff and I were a little disappointed at the quality of the production but, maybe that's just because we're used to living so close to Disney ;-)

O Christmas Tree

I feel like we got a late start with Christmas this year since Thanksgiving was so late in November! We finally got our tree…our biggest one yet! It was so fun to see Presley get into decorating it this year. I made sure to replace all of our glass ornaments with the non-breakable kind so that we could really enjoy it!

We started a new tradition where the cousins on my side of the family exchange ornaments. Presley was so excited to open her Woody and Buzz ornament from her cousin, Tripp. It took a little while to convince her that it belonged on the tree and not in the playroom!

Here's our tree. It sure is girthy! It fell over twice before we got the stand on tight enough and I had to replace two strands of lights all ready. Here's hoping that it stays upright and lit for the rest of the season!

We're Iced In!

All week we'd been hearing about the impending ice storm but, we definitely didn't expect to wake up to this! We had about 4-5 inches of solid ice…make not mistake, that's not snow, ICE! These Florida-transplants actually enjoyed being iced in for a few days. It was kind of cozy and fun!

We especially enjoyed having Daddy home for an extra day. Jeff's truck was frozen shut (mostly because he thought it'd be a good idea to put a sheet over it to keep it from icing shut but, the sheet got wet and just turned 4-5 inches of ice) and the roads were to treacherous to drive so the clinic was closed.

Presley was pretty impressed with the icicles.

She especially enjoyed eating them.

It sure made for a beautiful start to the Christmas season!

Although,I have to say that I definitely have some things to learn about navigating real winter conditions. I was walking through the parking lot and the ice got the better of me. One minute I was walking, the next I was looking straight at the sky…wet, cold, severely bruised hip, and an even more severely bruised ego. I didn't even attempt to drive.

Giving Thanks

This was my first Thanksgiving outside of Florida in many, many years and it sure was weird! Thankfully, a large chunk of the Tobler-clan gathered in Houston to celebrate the holiday. While we spent Thanksgiving Day in the car (which was a total bummer), we had plenty of fun over the weekend!

We spent one day at Kemma Boardwalk, enjoying walking the boardwalk and riding the rides.

Presley was especially excited about the carousel…

…and the airplane ride. Every time our little plane went up, she'd tell me we were "flying to Florida"!

Presley wasn't so sure about having to share Grampa Karl. But, Grampa didn't seem to mind all of the little girls clamoring for his attention!

We had a fun ride on the choo-choo train. Presley really enjoyed cruising the Boardwalk on the train while eating her snacks.

We also spent a day out a cute little park right on Galveston Bay. It reminded us so much of Florida and it was so nice to enjoy the sunshine and the beautiful view!

Presley was very curious about a lady bug that made itself comfortable on Gramma Jan.

Our last morning there, Violet, Lucia and Ben's elf arrived to kick-off the Christmas season. He brought the girls chocolate for breakfast. Presley was thrilled (and I was grateful to give her a multivitamin to make up for it).

The boys got all gussied up to bless Ben. A pretty handsome crew!

And in what can only be described as herding cats…we attempted to get a picture with all of the cousins in the matching Christmas outfits Janet kindly gave them. This is the best we got. Our sweet little Presley just sat there smiling the whole time. We were very proud.

We started a new tradition this year with a "thankful tree." Every night we each wrote down something we were thankful for on a leaf and added it to our tree. It was such a fun way to help us remember how blessed we are. We truly have much to be thankful for!