Spring has Sprung!

My flowers are blooming! Okay, so spring isn't actually here yet. (Try telling my plant that, which really is blooming!) But still, our Thanksgiving/Christmas updates are long overdue. I really don't know what has kept me too busy to post. But for anyone with great endurance, here is a post to catch y'all up! I have no pictures from Thanksgiving, but we had a great time! We had Papa and Grandma Linda, the Dallas Ritters, and the Oehrings all here for Thanksgiving dinner. My sister and her family hung around for the weekend. We toured Mission San Jose, played games, climbed trees, and saw the Christmas lights on the San Antonio river walk. December passed quickly! I baked cookies for a cookie exchange, which helped me to create awesome treat plates! We also finally got around to baking and decorating our annual Christmas sugar cookies. On Christmas Eve, the Smith's were nice to have us over for tamales, a telling of the Christmas story, and we walked to look at Christmas lights in the neighborhood! The boys had a great time spending Christmas Eve with their buddies! At home we hung our stockings and hopped into bed. The next morning they boys had a blast opening their presents! Jim and I each got them a new outfit and I wrapped up some socks just for them to have another gift to open. I didn't realize how thrilled they would be over socks! But even the excitement of socks was outdone by Santa. Logan saw a RC Dinosaur in the store and he initially insisted and kept insisting that he could get it when he was 5 years old (we said okay!); however, he would frequently cry that he wasn't growing fast enough to be 5. It was quite sad. He didn't even think Santa would bring it because he wasn't 5 years old. Seth wrote a special letter to Santa on Christmas Eve asking for him to bring Logan a "dragon dinosaur" and to make sure to leave our dog, Chomp, something. Santa delivered. Logan got his special "dragon dinosaur" and Seth got a Lego Knights Kingdom Castle set with 973 pieces!!!


They were both really excited! After opening presents and a nap (while the boys played with their new toys!) we went to a Christmas party for lunch. It was a perfect morning of family, presents, relaxing, and friends. We planned on leaving that evening for Houston and Austin to see more family, but Logan came down with strep throat. Jim and Seth went on without us, but Seth got a 24 hour stomach bug while they traveled. But we didn't let that stop us from seeing our family and having more fun! We finally all made it to Austin and met everyone at Papa Ritter's house. There were more presents exchanged, yummy food, and cousin fun!