Happy Anniversary!

My parents along with my aunt and uncle celebrated their 39th anniversary on New Years eve. They had a double wedding in 1971 and they have celebrated pretty much every anniversary together since then...awesome! Here's to many more years of wedded bliss!

Uncle Gary, Aunt Joni, Mom and Daddy

Last stop...Round Rock!

We left Llano right after lunch today since the kids are leaving tomorrow to go to their dad's in Pearland for the rest of the Christmas break. We stopped in Round Rock on our way home to celebrate Christmas with Ricky's mom and his brother's family. Our niece, Lisa, was with us this year which was a special treat. The kids, especially Kalyn, were so excited! Pat and Brad cooked fajitas and we were STUFFED yet again. And we had more cookies and candy too! Soon after we finished stuffing ourselves, we sat in the living room and played a couple games. The first was the traditional "pass the candy cane" game which we pass the candy cane each time the word "the" is heard while Mimi reads "The Night Before Christmas." I won this year!! The next game was a gift exchange using numbers. There were 8 bags on the floor and each of us picked a number from a bowl. The first person was Sheldon and he picked a bag of Lifesavers. The next person could steal Sheldon's gift or pick another gift from the floor...and so on. The kids really enjoyed it! Gifts from under the tree were finally opened and the kids were excited with what they got. Kalyn got coveralls from Mimi and a cute Hello Kitty shirt/vest from Uncle Brad, Aunt Damary, and Lisa. Sheldon got a camo coat from Mimi and a foosball table from Uncle Brade, Aunt Damary, and Lisa. The adults enjoyed watching the kids and just being together. We are blessed to be able to see all our family members around the holidays every year!! Merry Christmas!

Santa Came to Llano!

Kalyn, Sheldon, Colten, and Cambry were so excited about Santa coming to the ranch on Christmas this year. We were up pretty early this morning and had so much fun watching the kids thoroughly enjoy themselves. Santa brought Kalyn the "American Girl" doll bed she had been wanting for so long, Sheldon a rifle with a scope and SuperMario Kart for his DS, Colten a Leapster and several different "superhero" toys, and Cambry a bunch of stuff for her babies and a doll house. After we were finished with our Christmas together and ate breakfast, my cousin Dan and his fiancee (they just got engaged last night) showed up. Boppo and Judy soon followed and we opened the rest of the Christmas presents with them. My mom cooked a wonderful lunch and we were all full...again! It was a wonderful Christmas at the ranch again this year and we feel so blessed!!

Christmas Eve

We had our traditional Christmas Eve get together at Granny and Papa O's house tonight. We have been doing this ever since I was born and I think I have only missed one year...wow!! I have been so blessed to be here each year with my family and I know I will always treasure those memories as I get older. Everyone was here this year so we had a FULL house...yay!! Granny had mexican stack for supper and there was a table full of desserts. They were ALL so good. I really ate way too much!! After the kitchen was cleaned up we headed into the living room for the FUN part of the evening...opening presents!! :o) We took our annual family pictures then the frenzy began...and it was all over in less than 30 minutes. The floor could barely be seen with all the wrapping paper and bows all over the place. Love it!

David Wayne

Ricky's cousin, David Wayne, came here to Llano to hunt with Ricky for a couple days. He just lost his dad right after Thanksgiving and it was good for him to be out here with us. He also helped us process the meat and was fun for the kids to play with. Last night Ricky, David, and Michael (Kyndel's hubby) went calling (coyotes, foxes, bobcats, etc) after church. It was c-o-l-d, but that didn't bother them one bit. Ricky said they went to several places on the ranch then several other places at Uncle Gary's place in Valley Spring...they didn't see a thing. Ricky and David didn't get back to the house until close to 2 in the morning!! Crazy!! Then they were up again at 6am to go deer hunting. They both came back to the house about mid morning with two does. David was so excited and ready to go hunting again this evening. I decided to go with Ricky this time and we sat in the tall deer stand in the south pasture. After awhile we didn't see anything so we decided to climb down and drive around the ranch. Just before dark we headed to the north pasture to pick up David and before we even go there Ricky could hear him yelling "Hurry up, hurry up! I'm so excited!!!" Ricky looked at me and said he must have gotten something big. Sure enough, he killed his biggest buck ever and it was so fun to watch him being so excited!! We took lots of pictures and took him back to the house to show everyone before gutting him. David really enjoyed being out here with us and we enjoyed having him as well!!

Checkin' out the deer stands on the ranch

Cleaning the does

Me at the top of the deer stand...it is HIGH

On the lookout for deer

David Wayne and his buck

Processing Meat

My parents bought a lot of pork butts for themselves, Carie's family, and our family to share. Ricky and I helped my dad, Uncle Gary, and Vaughn (Uncle Gary's brother) process it all yesterday and today. We made ground hamburger meat, breakfast sausage, ring sausage, and jalapeno ring sausage. Uncle Gary has all the fancy processing machines so it went pretty fast and it was amazing to see how much meat we had to work with. We are really looking forward to taking our share home with us...especially the hamburger meat!! Thanks mom and dad!!!

Ricky and Daddy cutting all the pork butts...getting ready!

Matching shirts...my mom and me

Day 1...making sausage rings...look at our assembly line

Vaughn stuffing sausage into the casings

Close-up...this takes alot of concentration

Mom tying the ends

Putting the sausage rings on pipes to hang in smokehouse

Inside the smokehouse

Kalyn wanted to play with our camera

Day 2...packaging the sausage

Sealing the bags

Ready to put in the freezer...YUM!!

Christmas at home

We all decided to open our gifts to each other at home before going to Llano for Christmas. I always enjoy that special time just with the kids and Ricky without everyone around us. Ricky only had to work yesterday so we had our Christmas early this morning. It was very low-key and we all just really enjoyed taking our time and watching each other open gifts. Enjoy the slideshow!!

Only one present!

Ricky and I let Kalyn and Sheldon open ONE present tonight before bed. They were excited to see that they got new Christmas pajamas to wear this week. Sweet dreams..

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Christmas Picture Session

Each year we try to come up with something unique for our Christmas card pictures. In the past we all wore Santa hats while sitting on our 4-wheelers, the kids sitting on Ricky's tractor wearing their cowboy hats, and last year we posed with a deer. This year we decided to involve guns and hay in our pictures. I think they turned out pretty cute and we had loads of fun doing it together!! The first three pictures below are the ones we picked for our Christmas card. The last one was just for fun. Merry Christmas from our home to yours!!

Santa came to LES!

Kalyn and Sheldon got to sit on Santa's lap at school last week. Kalyn said she knew who this Santa was...the president of her 4-H club! HA!

Where is "Elfie" today??

"Elfie" came to our house for the first time two years ago. He brought a book from Santa with him. Santa explained that he decided to send an elf to our house to help him out and we could name him whatever we wanted to. Kalyn and Sheldon decided on the name "Elfie" and were so excited to have him with us. Santa told the kids that "Elfie's" job was to watch their behavior throughout the day then report back to him during the night. Elfie was almost always in a different spot each morning and the kids could talk to him all they wanted, but they had one rule from Santa that they not touch him or he would disappear. It has been SO fun to watch the kids jump out of bed almost every morning in December and run out to search for "Elfie." I am so glad we have this tradition and hope "Elfie" comes back to visit us for a few more years!!! :o)

The Christmas Bells

Our church put on a Christmas play this afternoon about the Christmas Bells learning about how Jesus came into the world. It was a really cute play and it was fun for the kids and adults who were in it. It was held at a community center so there would be more room and other people from the community could attend. Sheldon and his friends were shepherds, Kalyn and her friends were angels, and Ricky and several other adults were "adults" at the end of the play. I was one of the party coordinators so I was busy setting up and taking pictures in between! It was a success and we all had fun. Thanks Mary for doing such a wonderful job directing the play!!!

Cookies...and more cookies!

285...that's the number of cookies Kalyn counted on our dining table as we finished up our full day of baking today. WOW!! I think that is a record because I added another kind of cookie this year. I started baking at 9am this morning and the kids helped some throughout the day when they wanted to jump in. I started this tradition the first year I was married back in 1997 and have enojoyed making those cookies for family and friends throughout the years. It just isn't Christmas without one full day of baking! :o) Gotta go get those cookies packed to be given to different people so we don't eat them ALLL!!!!

Mmmm...it smells like cinnamon!

Ever since I made those cinnamon ornaments for Kalyn's Christmas party in kindergarten three years ago it has been tradition for us to make them every year. Sheldon and Kalyn really enjoy getting into the dough, rolling it out, picking out their shape and then pressing the cookie cutters into the dough, etc. So...that's what we did tonight to kick off our Christmas break! Ricky left tonight to go hunting with his cousin so the kids and I decided to do something fun together...well, Sheldon only did a couple ornaments before he was ready to get back to his hunting game...that boy! Kalyn and I worked on the rest of the ornaments and had fun together. The best part of all is the fact that the house already smells so Christmas-y !!! :o)

Happy kids already gettin' dirty...

See what I mean by DIRTY?!

Kalyn still workin' the dough...

Sheldon just waitin' patiently...for now anyway!

Now here comes the FUN part...rollin' out the dough

And cutting out the shapes...looks like a snowman and candy cane

Kalyn hard at work...finishing up the ornaments

The finished product!!