{christmas EVE}

we spent christmas eve with my mom; we always have so much fun together! some of my favorite memories of the day at grammys: all the yummy snack food; stockings with lottery tickets ; cailyn unwrapping all of her dress up clothes– {she has been in a snow white dress and high heels with a purse ever since!}; eggnog; playing pictionary man {courts polish?!} and sweet asher still sleping through it all! after all the fun, we headed home; played for a little bit and finally convinced cailyn to get out of the snow white dress and into her p.j.s! we read the christmas story and we let cailyn open up one gift! we left out cookies for santa and put the little ones to bed!some of my favorite memories of christmas season at our house this year: cailyn singing christmas songs- especially “we wish you a merry christmas” and she would constantly break out with “its the most wonderful time of the year” {but that was the only line of the song she knew!} ; she also loved jingle bells and did little hand motions to “away in a manager”. she would constantly want to show anything she was excited about to asher “look asher!” “see this, asher”. she is very independent so reading books to her is hard this year; but she would get them out of our little book basket and read them out loud to us. drinking hot chocolate/coffee around a fire with all the decorations up!!

december {20-23}

days of spending endless hours with my three favorite people have come to an end. shaun is back to work and cailyn starts school tomorrow. i am so sad, but it has been such a wonderful time! and i apologize for neglecting our little blog but i took some time away from the computer to enjoy the last of our break!! we are so very blessed and we fit so much in to the two weeks or so we had! i will try to do a few quick posts to catch us back up we had our annual christmas cookie baking day with my mom and sister! cailyn joined in the fun this year; although she made it a little harder to get many cookies baked {we only made about a third of what we normally do!} it was so much fun to have her there! and i am on the search to find her the perfect little matching apron for next year! my dearest friend, vanessa, also came in for two days to meet Asher! what a blessing she was; it was really nice to have some extra hands to help play with cailyn and to hold asher- and it was equally refreshing to have some time for girl talk i dont think we left the house but once! we just played and ate we love you aunt ness and are so very thankful for you. p.s.- so very excited for all her wedding activities starting this month!!sweet friends from high school, annie and jamie came by also to meet asher!annie is an incredible preschool teacher and luck for us, she was here when we decided to do the gingerbread house! cailyn was LOVING having all the attention from annie and ness! here are some pictures of our gingerbread house, or “christmas house” as cailyn called it this year!after vanessa left; molly and gentry arrived in town- so cailyn went and spent the night with grammy and the girls! shaun and i were very thankful as we did all of our last minute shopping and wrapping! mom sent me a picture of the cute little reindeer cupcakes they made while she was there!

:: mErRy ChRiStMaS ::

wishing everyone a very merry christmas!!!

december 18 and 19

last weekend we took a short little getaway and found a spot that we think will become a new family tradition! we stayed at the great wolf lodge in grapevine texas… and it was SO much fun!! the hotel had an indoor waterpark; and has so many neat things to do with kids! it was decorated so pretty for christmas; and we really just had an awesome time being together!this year, cailyn is still terrified of santa!!! we tried several times… but it wasn’t going to happen! so, we got a picture of sweet asher all by himself! he slept right through it all!right across the street from where we stayed was the gorgeous gaylord hotel! shaun & i have been there a couple of times and we knew how pretty it is at christmas! we had to walk through it!we happened to get there when there was no line for the incredible ICE exhibit, so we decided to take cailyn & asher through!! everything is in the exhibit is sculpted out of ice, and it is so cold when you walk through that they give you parkas to wear! this years’ theme was the grinch.. which was incredible.. but a little scary for cailyn at first. by the end she was loving it!this is the inside of the hotel: it was gorgeous! cailyn especially loved the little train tracks that ran through everywhere; shaun had fun pointing them out to her!good times back at the hotel : 
then first thing the next morning we went to the bass pro shop shauns favorite part of the trip for sure! i think he could have happily spent all day there! he had a great time showing cailyn the remote control cars and trucks; marshmallow bow & arrows; and huge fish tank! {i think shaun did feel his age a little bit when he couldn’t get the remote control car to go at first.. and then this little seven year old boy comes up and shows him how!

and here are the only pictures I have of the swim park! sorry these pictures did not turn out so great, but cailyn LOVED the water park! and i think shaun had just has much fun with her!!! they were slides and water splashing down from everywhere! the water was still a little cold, but it was supposed to be about 84 degrees!
after all that we took showers and headed to ft worth for the Bemus family christmas! it was a wonderful time getting to see everyone and asher got to meet another great-grandmother!!

cailyn and aunt see working on a gingerbread man!the little cousins opening up giftscailyn and asher play so well together! i wish we lived closer so they could get together more often; they are too cute!
we had a wonderful little getaway and since then we have been gearing up for christmas!! i’ll post more pictures of that once everything settles down!

Asher:: One Month Old::

It is so hard to believe that today Asher turns one month old!!! It seems like these four weeks have just flown by. At one month, Asher, you are still the most laid back baby. Everyone comments about how easy going you are. You rarely cry, and when you do, you quickly calm yourself down. We are still waking you up every three hours to eat, and are amazed at how quickly you just fall right back asleep! You sleep through your sister dancing and singing all around you! You even slept through the whole DeLord Christmas You are waking up a little more and love laying on your little playmat! In your one month, you have already traveled to houston, beaumont, fort worth and dallas. you’ve made your rounds and have met all the great grandparents and spent a lot of time with your grandparents, aunts and uncles. you are so adored by all of us!

{14th, 15th, 16th}

this week we’ve been up to some more brother and sister bonding
making some rice krispie treats:coloring some ornaments:
and cailyn’s dance class also had a little program! they were all so precious! we are so thankful for this little dance class! it is def the highlight to cailyn’s week!!

asher is awake a little more these days…. so it is getting harder and harder to take pictures can’t believe he has already been with us for almost a month!!!! time is just flying by wayyyyy too fast!

{beaumont and houston}

asher is still sleeping through everything!! here is some proof that his little cheeks are starting to put a little meat on them sweet picture of cailyn and uncle will. she is looking so much older to me!over the weekend we headed down to beaumont for the DeLord family christmas! Asher met all of his great-aunts!and his Nana:and his Great Uncle Joe:cailyn had a great time playing with all of the cousins! here she is with Jennifer:Jennifer was so sweet to let her be the angel in the play! unfortunately, by the time it rolled around to them actually performing… cailyn had had enough of the wings! so she just watched!shaun got her out there with all the cousins after the play… and thanks aunt see… do you notice what face she is making she def loved opening up the gifts! it was a really great time! on sunday, we woke up and hung out with everyone for a little bit and then made a quick stop in houston to let Asher meet his papaw for the first time! it was wonderful to see him, but we didnt get to stay long.. because as you can tell from the picture, cailyn was ready to be running around, getting out some energy! so we took her to the galleria to see the big tree!
cailyn loves to help “push” Asher:and we even got to ride a little train around the mall! cailyn was yelling “choo choo” so loud and waving to everyone! she loves trains!

it was a wonderful weekend.. but i think we were all excited to be home!! we’ve had a great week, full of christmas parties and lots of fun santa secret stuff!! i’ll try to get an update on all of that later tonight!!

8th, 9th and 10th :)

sorry, i already got a little behind!! but we have been busy making popcorn garland:: {this was fun for a little bit, but cailyn would MUCH rather just eat the popcorn!}
and sweet asher again, just slept through it all!

can you believe these toes!! i love them!!
we also made some snowflake ornaments out of gumdrops!

and some more asher lovin’!

and cailyn figured out a way to peek inside to see Asher when he is in his bed!

the {7th}

today was all about rudolph!! we sang the song, read the book, watched the little movie, and cailyn even colored a reindeer!! i’d say she makes one super cute little reindeer!and lastly a picture of our little “rockstar”! we are so thankful; he has been a little more awake these past few days and is eating every two hours!! i guess he is making up for lost time! 

december 4TH and 5TH

saturday morning we had a little birthday party for our friends’ George & Amie’s sweet one year old,Natalie. Here is a picture of Cailyn with Rob & Katie’s daughter, Madisoncailyn got to try out her first pinata!  she got the hang of it real quick!
saturday, our santa’s secret was to go out to central park to see the lights and watch her dance company perform… but it was SOSO cold!! we couldn’t take a chance getting cailyn and asher sick! so we stayed around the house again; drank hot chocolate… and watched football with daddy! we also had our friends, Tim & Kristen of Fidelis Studio Photography come and take Asher’s newborn pictures!! we can’t wait to see how they turned out!

Sunday… santa’s secret was to head out to the parade!! it was raining, of course, as it seems to every year… but thankfully grammy offered to watch Asher for us and we bundled Cailyn up and took her out!! she wore her Santa shirt that papaw & buddy got her… it looked so cute on her! here she is right before we left the house!and here we are at the parade!!! it was freezing, but Cailyn was a trooper! She was so excited… she was waving and shouting “Merry Christmas” to everyone as they went by! she had a few people toss her candy; and it cracked me up… one guy gave her this ad for sonic.. and cailyn would NOT let it go the rest of the day! i’m not sure what she thought it was!! she especially loved the cheerleaders and she was dancing to all the music. It was a great time! {the rain did pick up a bit.. so we left before we got to see the Santa float… but Cailyn thinks anyone in a Santa’s hat is Santa Claus.. so she was satisfied!!} we spent the rest of the rainy day at grammys watching the cowboys and drinking coffee it was a great day!!