Christmas Traditions!

Jeff and I talked last year about the traditions we'd like to start with our family and we never really came up with much of anything outside of stockings--at least not that I can remember!

I was just looking through pictures of the past month and I realized we're doing things that I know we'll continue in the years to come and got so excited that we have TRADITIONS!!!

Tradition #1--Train (around the tree)

Daddy--hard at work setting it up--and super excited about the finished product!

Bennett--hard at work destroying it--and super excited when it went around the track!

Loving playing with puzzles in the middle of the train....or just destroying the train again!

"Eh, eh, eh (think of how a monkey sounds!)"  Wanting the train--imagine that!

 

Tradition #2:  Santa Visit

 

With Miss Donna--he knew something was up...

Oh yeah....our kid's got it figured out!

Mom!!!  I'm SO not happy right now!!!

 

Tradition #3:  Lights

Gilbane gave tickets to their employees for the Festival of Lights, so we hit it up the 2nd weekend of December.  Bennett did great and the lights were beautiful--a long walk through them, which at 8 months pregnant, I wasn't so fond of, but it was a great night nonetheless!

Poinsettia tree at Moody Gardens--beautiful!

Kisses from daddy in front of the nativity scene

Boat on the water

Santa's Workshop!

 

 

We also always do the lights at the park in Cuero.  This year, we had plans on going at 5:45, and even though it turned into going around 6:15, Bennett was already exhausted from the day of fun opening presents and playing with cousins, so Jeff stayed with him and put him to bed!  Last year, the line was so long and we ran out of milk for 4 month old Bennett and this year he was too tired.  Wonder what next year will be?  One day it will all work out though!  :)





Traditions

I love traditions!  I like doing the same things over and over.  Not a big fan of change here...can you tell?  :)  We had a hard time deciding traditions over Christmas, but there's one I'm so glad we figured out:  Mother's Day and Father's Day!

We just so happened (meaning:  Jeff had to work on something at the zoo, so we made it a family day) to go to the Houston Zoo the day before Mother's Day.  As we were leaving I told Jeff that it was possibly the best way to spend Mother's Day:  time together!  I'm not big on flowers and having to get/give a gift just for these things and I think it would be much more meaningful to spend the time together, so I told him I thought that this should be our tradition from now on and he agreed!

So, from now on, we decided that we will try to do something as a family for both Mother's and Father's Day!

Here's our Mother's Day adventure at the Houston Zoo:

First outing for the wagon!  We left a little room for B in it!

Ankole Cattle (AKA:  Longhorns in my book!)

Koolookamba!  These were all over the African Exhibit (which Daddy's company worked on) and we loved finding them!)

A little rhino booty!

Family pic at the giraffe!

To say he LOVED the carousel is saying it lightly!

He even tried "riding" the animal he was on!

Shoebill stork!  The most interesting creature of the day!

Flying high with Daddy!

Whew! Taking a break!  Love him!

The tradition continued for Father's Day.  Jeff had to work in San Antonio, so we made sure to do something special there for his 1st Father's Day as well!  We stayed in downtown near the Riverwalk for one of our first trips as a family while Jeff worked, so we did a lot of touristy stuff there.  The day we left we decided to make an outing to Hemisfair Tower.  I've been to San Antonio tons, but have never done this and it was great (even though I'm not a fan of elevators, which you obviously have to take to get to the top!)

 

Lunch at Charthouse after our tour outside.  Mmmm.....limes make me happy daddy!

Daddy and B enjoying  the breeze at the top.

Man, this is an AWESOME view!  (love his hair--SO windy!)

View from the top of Hemisfair Tower.  The Riverwalk is diagonally behind the red monument in the bottom left corner.

Yep...a little windy!

Family pic! (If anyone knows how to turn this, let me know!  It's from a camera is is normal on my computer, but flipped on the blog.  Oh well....such is life!  :)   )