My Birthday and New Year's Eve

On Christmas night since it was my birthday, we went out to South Fork Texas Steakhouse for a nice dinner! My friends Susan and Vanessa were also there with their families so it was fun to actually see friends on my birthday! Susan even sent over a sweet birthday dessert. I couldn't have asked for a more perfect birthday!

On New Year's Eve, Grandpa and Nanna Steward came up to exchange Christmas gifts with us, and they generously offered to baby-sit the kids while Daniel and I went out with Cody, Amy, Lindsay, and Jason for dinner! After dinner we went to South Fork Texas Steakhouse for some drinks and live music, and I got to see my friends Susan and Holly! We went back to our house with Cody and Amy for games and TV to ring in the new year! Aidan and Avery were still wide awake and riding their new scooters from Grandpa and Nanna around the kitchen, so we let them stay up for the New York new year, then we sent them to bed.

2015 in a nutshell: Blessings in Abundance. Daniel made partner at PWC in May and the two of us went to a partner meeting in gorgeous California. Aidan turned 9 and started 4th grade. He did basketball, soccer, football, went to his first overnight camp, and just started guitar! Avery turned 8 and started 2nd grade. She did cheer, soccer, bridged to Brownies (I'm still troop leader and loving it!), and started piano! Our sweet dog Griffin still makes us smile daily. New cousin Jack joined the family! We went to Florida to visit my parents this summer. I took a fabulous trip to Cabo with dear friends. We cheered on our Baylor Bears through a tough but awesome season! My brother gave us a scare for a few days by contracting meningitis, then was thankfully healed and on the road to recovery. We also lost a good friend. Emily is missed but leaves behind a legacy of family, friendship, fun, and finding joy in every day...a great example to live by. Most noteworthy is our new home in which to make new memories. We've hosted Thanksgiving with my side of the family and Christmas with Daniel's. This house was protected last week and we are so thankful. We are grateful to God for this amazing year and are looking forward to what He has in store for us in 2016!

Merry Christmas!

We started off Christmas with brunch at the Dixons' house! We opened presents with them, the Halls, Cookie, Jeff, and Gigi. Daniel's Uncle David and Aunt Phyllis also came to join the fun!

On Christmas Eve we baked cookies for Santa, and went to a Christmas Eve service at the Dixons' church:

Christmas morning we opened presents from Santa! Gigi was there to share the fun with us. Avery got a remote-control "Migosaur", Aidan got a Robert Griffin III "fathead," and they also got Guitar Hero for the Wii, games, clothes, stuffed animals, and toys! The kids also had wrapped up sweet notes for us which we loved :) Later that morning the rest of the family came over for Christmas lunch!

'Tis the Season

All of the elementary students at GCA went on a field trip to to see "The Best Christmas Pageant Ever" and I got to chaperone!

After that I took them to Northpark Mall for our annual Santa visit! We also saw a gingerbread house display and the famous mini trains.

A couple of days later they had their class parties and their last day of school for the year!

Programs and Gingerbread Houses and Friends, Oh My!

Aidan and Avery had their elementary program at school. It was a great show!

We also went to a gingerbread decorating party at school. Our icing bag malfunctioned so we had to use our fingers to spread the icing...needless to say, our house was a FAIL! The teachers all put on a funny skit.

But we redeemed ourselves at our church gingerbread decorating contest, where we came in 3rd place! We made a gingerbread Whataburger complete with drive-thru. I guess when it's a competition, we turn our game up!

My friends and I went out for our annual Secret Santa Reveal dinner, where we also celebrated December birthdays (mine and Susan's!). Love these girls!

Sports and Music

We went to the last Baylor game of the season, which was a disheartening one but one that still made us proud! We were down THREE quarterbacks this season due to injuries so I think a 23-17 loss to UT is nothing to sneeze at. Sic 'Em Bears! My friend Courtney and I also met up with our friend Heather from KD days and it was great to see her!

Aidan started playing basketball through a new league! He and his Braden have played together a few times together through different leagues and they are great teammates!

Both kids are still loving their music lessons! Aidan hasn't had a recital yet but Avery's first piano recital was this Sunday and she did GREAT! She played "Merrily We Roll Along" and played it perfectly. She practiced really hard and we are so proud of her! (The very overdressed little girl sitting next to her absolutely cracked us up)