My Parents' Visit

My parents came out to visit for a few days before Christmas so we could celebrate Christmas together and so they could check out where we live now. It was a quick visit, but as always it was filled with fun. They were coming in on Thursday which the weather was forecast to have a huge snow storm in the Midwest so a few days before they came out they switched their flights to have a layover in Houston rather than Kansas City. It was a good thing that they did because the flight to Kansas City was cancelled and they would have never made it...well not never, according to my dad they would have had to drive down because my mom would have not been happy at all. We started telling Chloe a few days ahead of time that mama and papa were coming to visit and started counting days until they were here. She doesn't really understand the difference in numbers because she started at 3 days and then the next day she said 4 days, regardless, she knew they were coming. The night before they came we reminded Chloe that she had to share mama and papa with Levi because they were coming to see Levi too. So her rationalization was that Papa could hold and play with Levi and Mama could hold and play with her. No matter how many times we told her that Mama can play and hold Levi too she just kept going back to her original plan. She is kind of a mama's girl and when mama is around no one else can do anything for her.

We took a trip to the Gaylord Texan to catch all the lights, miniature trains and Christmas decorations and we hoped to catch Santa too. We went during the day so the lights didn't really shine, but it was still a great time. Chloe loved all the trains and she partially cared about the life size gingerbread house. She just wanted to go around and around to see all the train sets that were around the hotel. We also missed Santa because he was only there in the evening...which is kind of bogus if you ask me because this is a place that is known for its Christmas decorations and it was just 4 days before Christmas so he should have been there for most of the day. Later that day Zach's parents and uncle came over for some dessert and we were suppose to play dominoes, but everyone ended up just swapping stories, which was perfectly fine. I would have hated to beat everyone at dominoes right before Christmas!

We also celebrated Christmas and opened up presents and had some traditional Allen snack foods, had a lot of time just playing with the kids and talking with my parents, played a lot of hearts and just had a great time with my parents. It was hard to see them go, but they will be back for Levi's birthday in a few months so it is always easier to know the next visit is just around the corner. Below are some of our pictures from the weekend with them.

Chloe fascinated by the trains at the Gaylord Texan. She would have stood there for hours if we let her.

Chloe showing Levi how to ride the frog. She likes to rock him on the frog, but she first makes sure that he is holding onto the handles so the crazy rocking doesn't throw him off.

Chloe loves to watch videos and look at pictures on our phones. This visit she was glued to my mom's phone and the video of her, Sydney and Carter painting pumpkins while we were in Indiana in October.

Chloe being silly with her Cheeseburger Happy Meal. I'm not sure where she gets some of her ideas, but she thinks she is hilarious...and I would have to agree.

Well we all made it into the picture...that is about as good as it gets when Mama is around.

I just had to put this in because of Levi's face...he loves the camera.

Well at least there was one good picture of our kids at the Gaylord.

Chloe loved the cash register that my mom got her. She play with that for what seemed like forever. It was cute to see her scan the items and actually use the cash register for what it is suppose to be used for. It is amazing to see how much she picks up for being only 2 years old.

This was in front of the life size gingerbread house. Chloe was knocking on the door and trying to go in. She also was very curious about the candy on the walls and I caught her trying to pull off a piece.

Levi and Papa on the Carousel. Levi loved the carousel. This was a picture while they were standing still. As soon as it started moving Levi had a huge grin on his face and my dad had to take out his pacifier because it wouldn't stay in his mouth.

This was the first time that Chloe actually enjoyed the Carousel. She did not have as huge of a grin on her face, but she said she liked it and gave her horse a hug and a kiss when they were done. She still asks if we are going to go ride on the horse up and down with mama.

Getting Ready for Christmas

Christmas is my favorite time of year and if it were up to me I would have my Christmas decorations and Christmas music playing all year long. But before we can get to Christmas there are a lot of things that need to happen. First we have to make our lists and turn them in to my sisters and mom by Thanksgiving, then we have to have Thanksgiving, do our Christmas shopping, decorate the tree and the house, make cookies, decorate a gingerbread house, go look at lights, wrap presents, etc. As you can see there is a lot that needs to happen before we can get to Christmas. Below are some of the photos showing what we did to prepare for Christmas this year...our first year in Texas.

This is how we cooked our turkey this year for Thanksgiving. A little nervous it would catch on fire, but the end result was a very juicy and tender turkey. When Zach was trying to carve it the meat would just literally fall off the bone. He was actually able to pull out one of the leg bones completely clean from the meat. It was pretty yummy, this coming from a girl that doesn't really like turkey.

Our Thanksgiving spread....yeast rolls (the best I've ever made), green beans, dumplings and turkey. We also had some pumpkin pie for dessert.

 

After dinner our wild child decided she wanted to try to climb on the back of the couch and slipped off and hit her chin. I first thought it wasn't anything big until I saw the blood building up in her mouth. Zach looked at it and it was a pretty big cut, but it wasn't deep so we just put on "boo boo bunny" and everything was better. The bunny is just a case for ice that makes it not cold for Chloe to hold. Chloe actually didn't mind the cold on her lip. It soon stopped bleeding and our child went back to being wild. She did a good job at keeping the bunny on her lip the rest of the night and part of the next day. There was only minimal swelling because of that.

The decorated tree and fireplace...what more could you ask for.

Chloe was proud of her gingerbread house. She did pretty well for the first half of the roof. Then she realized it was candy we were decorating with and decided to eat some of the candy and just point to where she wanted me to put things. She had fun so that's all that matters. We set it up on our counter in the kitchen and after a few weeks of it being there she remembered that it was candy on the house and started to climb up and steal pieces off. The candy was nasty, but she still liked it.

Levi enjoys helping his daddy work around the house. He was trying to help Zach hold the tape measure and put up a door on our guest room door before my parents came for Christmas.

We had a lot of leaves to clean up since it was finally getting cold out and they all came off the tree. I forgot what living in the Midwest was like with the big trees...I was quickly reminded. Zach taught Chloe how to play and jump in the leaves. She thought it was the greatest thing. She did through her baby doll in the leaves and then Zach jumped after...we lost baby for about 10 minutes until we spread a big chunk of the leaves out in the yard to find baby. He then had to rake them up again and then once we finally bagged them there were about 8 big black trash bags filled with leaves...the joys of having mature trees.

Chloe finally able to enjoy her birthday present that her daddy built. It was chilly, but she has been able to enjoy her new play set.

Chloe became very interested in the presents and the tree. When Zach caught her checking out the presents she said she was just "watching" them. She was so excited about opening presents this year. She did try to steal a few and run away to open them and we had to partially wrap back up a few that she did "accidentally" poke holes in or tear pieces off before Christmas.

We went out searching for lights and spent about an hour driving around looking at lights. Chloe took Minnie Mouse with us and she had to hold Minnie up to the truck window so Minnie could see them too. Then when we got home she had to show Minnie our lights. She wanted to go light by light one by one and show Minnie every single one...she got about 5 or 10 in before we made her come in side because it was cold.

Chloe had a lot of fun sprinkling and decorating the cookies. There were many cookies that just had a bunch of sprinkles in one place, but she didn't care. I tried to have her help me cut out the cookies, but she would just use one cookie cutter and then when I would try to pull it out she would put another one on top. So I decided against that and sent her back over to the other side of the table to decorate.

We always hear about how every year the Batsche boys (including Steve) would get in front of the fireplace and get a picture taken from the back while their butts were in the air and their faces were towards the fire. So this is only fitting that Levi was drawn to the fire and crawled under his daddy's legs and stood up to help with the fire.

Levi again helping daddy light the first fire of the season.

Who could forget the Christmas cheese balls?!?!?!?