we are family

the day after Christmas we had began our Christmas celebration with my side of the family as they made the trip in from alabama.

with an assortment of finger foods too tasty for pictures ready for their arrival, we welcomed them in after the long ten-hour drive.  brendan was happy and a little overwhelmed at first over all the excitement, but he quickly remembered how wonderful it is to have everyone around.

we decided to open presents after we ate...ok, i decided we should go ahead and open presents.  we opened brendan's presents first.  wow.  the kid was loaded with new clothes, books, light-up toys, and more!  we are so grateful to everyone who came (and had to stay back in alabama) for thinking of him in such a sweet way.  afterward, lee and i opened our gifts...which we were very much appreciated as well...and the rest of the family opened their gifts from us, which i was really pumped about.  i think everyone was very pleased.

after a good night's rest, we shared a Christmas meal of ham and some of my mom's casseroles that she made extra of in alabama just for our meal.  i must say that my first time to bake a ham was successful, but that was largely due to the help of my mom. 

after our yummy lunch, we all loaded up in my mom's suburban and took off for college station.  tyler was the only one of my family to have ever been to college station so we drove to campus and walked around for a while.  katy met up with us, and lee pointed out some of his favorite places on campus and we ate dinner at wings-n-more (a typical college station pit-stop for us).  the main reason for the drive was to visit santa's wonderland, an awesome drive-thru Christmas light display.  seriously, if you live in texas, you need to experience this.  santa's wonderland is, by far, the coolest light display i have ever driven through.  the great part is that they also have santa town that you can enjoy if you have more time and the weather is nice.  we opted for the drive-thru version in the car so brendan would not get too cold.

during our last full day, we made an IKEA shopping trip for my mom to use her Christmas gift card and capped that off with freebirds and crave cupcakes.  a big thanks goes to grandma and papa for hanging out with brendan that night so the rest of us could go hang out with erin and zach for a little while.

we had a wonderful visit!  it was such a treat for me to host Christmas for the first time and show off our decorations here to my family for the first time.  thanks for making brendan's first Christmas so special!