This year Landon and I spent four days in New Orleans with my family, visiting my grandparents and some extended family for Christmas. It was so good to see Pop and Mere (my mom's parent's) since it had almost been a year since we'd been out there. Aside from visiting with them and eating all of the good gumbo that Pop cooked for us, we spent our days...

getting delicious beignets and hot chocolate at the Cafe Du Monde by their house, opening presents at my cousins house and finishing up my Pop and Mere's Christmas present (it was a picture that spells out their last name with letters we found while we were out...so much fun to make!),

watching YouTube videos and playing cards with my brothers until late in the night...lots of Rummy 500 and lots of Spades,

and celebrating Matt's birthday with a good meal out, delicious cake and a sibling night out on the town to see Invictus.

We are so blessed and it was so good to be around family. Next time we won't wait so long to make the trip out there again. It's a nice break from reality, from the fast paced life we tend to live and so nice to see family around the holidays. :)

Newhouser family Christmas

This year we spent Christmas day with my family and had a blast. We enjoyed a leisurely morning talking and laughing and opening presents and then had a yummy meal of crawfish etouffee together. I love family and I love Christmas and it was such a fun day.

Landon and I with our stockings :)

it was a dog party--we are SO glad our dogs and my family's dog are finally becoming friends...or at least not enemies :)

my brothers with their stockings

I love my dad!

One of our family traditions is to put clues on the presents that the person has to figure out...sometimes the clues are very helpful and sometimes they're not, but it's fun to try and figure out.

My mom (and Baby) helping Landon figure out his clue so he could open his bike pump

Another one of our family traditions is finding the pickle in the tree. It's a German tradition, I think, but we got the pickle from my Uncle Mark about 10 years ago and it's something we do each year now. On Christmas Eve my parents hide this little pickle ornament in the tree and then after the presents have been opened the kids search the tree to find the pickle (which is very hard, I might add, since it's green) and the winner gets a prize. This year, my brothers were trying to get a head start on the searching while getting presents for people. :)

This is what Baby did every time we told her to go back and lay on her mat...she was just waiting for her opportunity to sneak off.

Michael trying out his new headphones.

Afterwords we hung around with my Dad outside while he cleaned the pool and then all helped to get our Christmas lunch ready.

And while we worked, the dogs took a little nap...I guess their first family Christmas just wore them out! :)

Merry Christmas! We love you guys! :)

Speights Family Christmas X2

This year we celebrated Christmas with the Speights a week early--and had 2 Christmases in one day! That morning we had the immediate family Christmas at Landon's parents house, with just his parents and brother and sister (and families). Then, that evening all of his extended family on his dad's side came over for dinner and a game night--so much fun!

Abagael handed out all of our presents before we began

Everybody's ready...let the fun begin!

Uncle Landon and Abagael getting in a quick round of Gator Golf in the middle of opening presents

Landon's mom's reaction as she found out (because of her Christmas present) that Landon was doing the Ironman in June. Priceless.

Landon's dad's reaction. Possibly even more priceless.

After presents, Abagael tried on her dress up wedding dress that GranPam made for her...and proposed to my husband! :)

the happy couple (she referred to him as "my husband" for the rest of the day :))

We then spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and then getting ready for Speights Family Christmas that night--everyone was cooking and cleaning and had various craft/food projects going on. It was fun to all work together to pull it together...and I think everything turned out really nice.

putting the final touches on the food

Pam's towel animals, which were some of the prizes for the night

Abagael and I's cake pop reindeer--which everyone referred to as antenna balls :)

Abagael and her husband putting the final touches on the Speights cake--making a chart so everyone would know where their cake was inside of the huge cake.

she was so cute helping him :)

the family, relaxing a little before dinner

visiting during dinner

and, as promised...the final product, before anyone cut in to it. It wasn't perfect, but we were happy with how it came out. And, we had a blast making it. :)

Thanks for a wonderful day, Speights family. I feel so blessed to not only to have been born into a wonderful family, but to also have married in to one. I am one lucky girl. :)