A Texas Christmas!

We are back in Germany now.  Christmas in Texas was GREAT!!!  All 6 of them (that doesn't include the one we had for ourselves here in Germany...).  We were home for 2 weeks.  And it was a busy 2 weeks at that.  We were traveling non-stop.  And Jesse was working while we were there.  He preached both Sundays that we were in Texas.  I'll give you a run-down of our travels, and then put some pictures.  It's going to be highly condensed, otherwise it would be forever long.

We got there on Monday, 13 December.  First stop, Chick-Fil-A!!!  Where we saw the Chick-Fil-A cow dressed up as Santa!!!

Tuesday, the 14th, we drove up to Longview to visit with our friends, Larry and Terra Camp, and meet their adorable little boy, Titus (who fell in love with me, and is my new boyfriend- hehe).  We had a great couple of days with them.

We drove back to Houston on Thursday, the 16th, after having lunch with our friend Mike Thomley.  We drove straight to the new FreeBird's that they opened up in Baytown.

Friday, we went to the west side of Houston to go to our nieces' Christmas party at school.  They were SO excited that we were coming.  We stayed for a little bit, then took them with us to Beaumont, and to Chuck-E-Cheese!  They had a blast!!!  We're the coolest aunt and uncle!

We stayed in Vidor for the weekend.  Saturday was Christmas at Ma-maw & Pa-paw's with my whole family.

Me and Mini-Me :)

Ashton and her Mini-Me :)

Sunday, Jesse preached at Vidor both services, and we had our Christmas with the Thompson side that afternoon!  It was a really fun weekend.

Monday, the 20th, was the LaRue Christmas.  Ashley and Adam had gotten some pancake mix that we used that morning.  It was a delicious "Christmas" breakfast!  Ashley and I even put out milk and cookies for Santa Sunday night!  We had a really good time opening presents and spending time with one another.

 Cookies for Santa, and "Christmas" breakfast!

They liked their presents from Germany!

 Silly boys...  :)

That week went by really quickly.  We had dinner with the Noonans, went to Bible study at Alief, had dinner with Jessica and J-Kil, went shopping, I had a girl's day out with the nieces, and then went to spend Christmas with my family.

They both got haircuts

 Getting their nails done!

Thursday night, the girls stayed with us, and we made snowman cupcakes!

 Making the cupcakes.

 They really liked making them!

We spent Christmas Eve at my sister's house with our family.  We got to go out and see how my parents' house was coming along, ate a yummy dinner, opened presents, and played with the girls.

Uncle Jesse pushing the girls in the swings.

The cat really liked to climb in the bag full of wrapping paper...

They liked their German sign!

Cupcakes on display on my new Cupcake Tree!

Christmas day was fast and furious.  We got to see what Santa left for the girls, went to Groves to have Christmas with my other side of the family, and then went to visit Jesse's family in Groves.  Fast and furious, but great all the same!

Grand-mother & Grand-daddy with their German sign

Sunday, Jesse preached at Eastside, and had quite the audience for it!  Lots of family!

Monday was full of errands; mailing boxes to ourselves here in Germany, returning a few things, and getting ready to leave the following day.  We did have the pleasure of going out to the Murffs' for dinner.  We always enjoy spending time with the Murffs.  Wonderful people!!!

Tuesday morning we drove to Galveston to drop our car off at the port, had breakfast at IHop, then drove to the airport.  And here we are, home again.  It was a great, and busy, couple of weeks.  It was wonderful to see our family and friends again, but it's good to be home (I hate living out of a suitcase).

We are getting ready for our New Year's Eve celebration tomorrow!  I hope everyone has a wonderful New Year!!!  (this post ended up being long anyway... sorry)

Jesse & Amber's Christmas

Thursday night, we celebrated our Christmas with each other.  I know it's early, but we leave Monday to go back to the states, so we wanted a chance to exchange our gifts with just the 2 of us.  We had a great day!  In the morning we built a snowman!  But it turned out to be a snowwoman instead (b/c I put a pink scarf on her).

Meet Mrs. Frosty!

For dinner I made ham (in the crockpot), garlic mashed potatoes, green been bundles, and Texas Toast!

It was yummy!  Dessert was a pumpkin chocolate cake w/ a brown sugar glaze with powdered sugar added in!

Then we got to open presents!!!

He got Super Mario Bros., Sports Resort, and Call of Duty for the Wii!

Jesse picked out this Vera Bradley bag all by himself!!!

It was great!  I got some great gifts, and so did Jesse!

My dishes, CorningWare, and my Vera Bradley bag!

We had fun playing the Wii after.  I played Mario Bros, and the Sports Resort game.  But Jesse did his shooting game by himself.  That is NOT my kind of game.  But he liked it!

Happy boy!

We had a great night!  One Christmas down, 15 to go... haha

Ornament & Cookie Exchange

Since we have been in Germany, I've been trying to help organize "social events" to help get everyone together.  We started doing a potluck once a month, and a Ladies' Bible Study every other week.  When we were in Lubbock, the ladies got together every year at Christmas time to do an ornament exchange.  I LoVeD this tradition!  If you know me, you know how much I'm in love with Christmas!!!  And how much I LOVE to decorate the tree!  This was right up my alley :)  I thought this would be a good tradition to start with the ladies here.  My friend Amanda had the idea to combine it with a cookie exchange.  So this past Saturday, we had the 1st Annual Ladies' Ornament & Cookie Exchange!  It was great.  Amanda was gracious enough to let us do it at her place again.  Amanda set the table and used her wedding china!  It was very fancy and SO beautiful!

The Exchange was at 10:00; brunch!  We had a chicken ring, breakfast casserole, pumpkin-cranberry muffins, apples with fruit dip, and cinnamon-mocha cupcakes!  Yummy!!!

Cinnamon-mocha cupcakes.  I was pretty proud of them!  They were delicious and oh so cute!

Everyone came with a wrapped ornament, and 2 dozen cookies!

To trade ornaments, we read a right/left story of The Night Before Christmas.  It was really cute.  Everytime she said right, we passed to the right.  When she said left...  You get it.  At the end of the story, the gift in your hands is the one you open.  ALL of the ornaments were really cute.  I love the ones I ended up with!  And yes I said the "ones", because mine had 2!!!  Bonus!  I got a wooden snowman!!!!!  And a pickle!  Haha.  It's a german tradition.  Ma-maw started doing it a couple of years ago.  They are both on my tree, and someone already found the pickle.  hehe.  But I didn't have a prize for him...

All in all, I would say the Ornament & Cookie Exchange was a success!  We had a lot of fun together.  We ended up sitting around the table talking and laughing for several hours!  What a great tradition!!!  I can't wait until next year!

snow. Snow. Snow! SNOW!!

As I said in my last post, we got our first snow on Thanksgiving.  Well, it has snowed almost everyday since.  It's so pretty!  Snow makes everything look prettier!

Our backyard

"Christmas Tree" in the front yard

Jesse's motorcycle (before he moved it under the carport)

Our patio

Backyard from the patio

Neighbors

The puppies had to get used to it.  Rusty had no problem.  He charged right out there, sniffing everything.

Rusty, checking out the backyard

Checking out the tree limbs cut from our apple trees

Investigating the front yard

Has to check out everything

Weezel was not so adventurous.  If I have not mentioned this before, Weezel is a BIG baby.  He's such a momma's boy...  He's not all that fond of cold and wet.  He finally ventured out, but he's still not too crazy about it.

Weezel preferred to stay under the carport where it was dry.

At first, he stayed on the sidewalk in the front.

He finally went into the side-yard to "say hi" to (aka bark at) our neighbor.

Later, I let him out onto our patio to check it out.  He discovered that you can lick snow and it's like water!

Not so sure about this...

Yummy!  A water bowl outside!

He had to show his brother his discovery!

Needless to say, we're enjoying the snow!  The cold is something to get used to, but we stay bundled up :)

I love the puppy prints in the snow!