Texas Christmas

We weren't leaving for Maryland until late in December, so we had lots of time to fit in some Christmas at home too. 

Our neighborhood is awesome! They had Santa come and take pictures with the kids. It was totally free too! We weren't sure how Russell would handle Santa this year. Last year he was too little to care who was holding him. 

They had a fun photo op while you were waiting in line. 

Hanging out with Mrs. Claus before seeing Santa 

Santa points too!

Each child alway got a goody bag from Santa! 

And he brought some reindeer 

We missed our ward Christmas party because Russell had s nasty flu bug, but Robin was in charge of their wards party and let us crash it. 

My cute Christmas family 

Russell needed some crazy hair to match the You-vile theme

Checking out the snowman who makes snow. And a brief glimps at the amazing decorations going on in there!

And of course, the event Stephen had been waiting for- Star Wars Episode 7! We got tickets to a "midnight showing" of the movie (aka 7pm). He wanted to one of the first people to see it so no one could spoil the plot for him. 

Star Wars date night!

Empty theater- that quickly filled up haha

Speaking of Star Wars, Russell was pretty sure we needed this in our front yard. He always wanted to see it when we went to Walmart and would sing the Darth Vader theme song. 

And we did other random Christmassy things to:

Be an elf in a sink

Get some good winter shoes

Decorate the Christmas tree- and try to keep Russell and Zoey from undecorating it!

Made delicious cookies

Played outside in the beautiful weather

Destroyed dads home office 

Went to church on Christmas Sunday looking very handsome 

Became an official cookie tester- even plastic cookies!

Ate giant Star Wars waffles thanks to some early Christmas presents from GBear, Papa and aunt Ashee! 

And figured out how to put some lights on our house! 

We had lots of fun, but we're still counting down until we got to party with everyone in Maryland!!

Zoey Dog

It started with a picture... Actually first with a picture of her brother, but he was taken. A few days later and she was ours! A shock to all...( I blame Dave- he was the one who started the process.) But we found ourselves with this cutie as part of our family. 

After some deliberation her name was changed to Zoey. Ruby will always remind me of our rat named Ruby growing up. 

Our first family picture! 

I was a little nervous about how Russell would handle this change, but he has loved having someone else to play with besides boring old mom!

And she has water to play in! 

Not sure which one should be locked up in the crate more! They are both pretty naughty in their own way

Zoey got to join in all the Thanksgiving events too

She got to chew on a turkey

And eat some too! 

She adjusted quickly to life with us- after the chaos of thanksgiving 

Like true siblings they always want what the other one has...

She is pretty mellow and lets Russell mess with her!

They both love to be outside!!

We may be crazy to adopt a puppy after just buying a nice new house, but seeing her with Russell makes it all worth it. 

Thanksgiving Fun

Since we were doing Christmas with my family, Thanksgiving was a big Koford family event. Everyone was in town. We even had Alex and Loraine staying at our house! Because Thanksgiving break is such a short time, we had to cram lots of fun into a few days!

One of our adventures was to the Grapevine Mills mall to check out their little aquarium. For being inside a mall it was pretty impressive. It was dark in there so we weren't able to take too many pictures. Russell liked looking at the fish and was a pretty good sport even though he was starving by the end! 

Getting up close and personal with the fish

We also got to go as a family to the Dallas Arboretum again! There were still pumpkins that hadn't been sold or gone bad, so Russell got to enjoy them again. We also explored more of the grounds since they had the 12 Days of Christmas displayed in various parts. I didn't take any pictures of those... Oops. 

Family pictures with the pumpkins

Dave and Alex enjoying a break from all the walking. 

Ashlyn in the rose garden 

View of the lake from the Arboretum 

Russell explored and found a leaf to eat

This pumpkin is just my size

Relaxing on the fence 

Then it was time for the main event- food! Robin put me in charge of adding some decor to the table for the family to write on. I was nervous about making it look like it did on Pinterest, but it turned out okay. And dinner was delicious of course!! Love thanksgiving food!! 

Russell wanted to play with the pumpkin decor

Courtney had a fun idea to make shirts to wear while we enjoyed our post-dinner activities and dessert. They were fun to make and see all the different creative ideas!

Had to have a classic Koford family selfie