Thursday, December 26, 2013

Celebrating the Holidays...

To catch up on the blog, this post is about our celebration of the holidays this fall...from Halloween fun, Thanksgiving, to Christmas and a little surprise too:)

We had a nice stay at the Bay Landing Thousand Trails RV campground this fall. While we were there, we enjoyed attending a local church (FBC of Bridgeport).  They were very welcoming and we all made new friends.  The boys enjoyed the children's programs, and I had the chance to attend a ladies Bible study on Tuesday nights as well. (I loved the girl time and I made some dear friends too!)

In October, we had fun carving pumpkins...




Oh my! Scary faces!!!



 Here are my boys smiling all nice and sweet for the camera...


...and then it was time for the  SCARY face picture!


Pretty cool pumpkins, huh?


On Halloween, we stopped by Alan's cousin's house for a short visit with her family, take a few photos, and go trick-or-treating in the neighborhood.  I played the part of Lois Lane, and I was accompanied by my super heroes...Clark Kent, Superman, the Hulk, Batman and Robin! I felt very safe with this crew:)


Trick or Treat fun...


After a short trip around the neighborhood, we took the boys to the fall festival at church.  There were tons of games, candy, and fun!


I LOVED this lady's costume in the photo below!! She dressed up as "Flo" from the Progressive Insurance commercials!!



All of the boys enjoyed the cupcake walk...


For the Thanksgiving holiday we spent the week visiting with my Mom and my sister's family.  They flew out all the way from California!  We were SO excited...the boys were thrilled to see their California cousins!!  


We also had a great visit with our dear, close friend, Mary Ellen...


The week involved lots of playing and being silly...


The kids made a fort out of a fallen tree in the backyard...


We spent lots of time building puzzles and playing games...





There was also lots of time outside playing "keep away", "monkey in the middle", "spud" and just tossing around the ball...









What a good looking bunch! (We missed you Calvert Cousins!)


OK--yes...you can be silly now:)


On Thanksgiving day, we drove up to meet some of Alan's extended family for lunch...


Many enjoyed the family tradition of playing "42"




Caleb enjoyed playing "hard to get" with cousin Alyssa:)


It was a fun time for young and old!


We drove back to have a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner at my Mom's house that evening. Yes- we had TWO turkey meals that day! Talk about being STUFFED!:)




After Thanksgiving, we headed south to the Thousand Trails campground in Willis, Texas.  We spent some time visiting with friends in the area and decorating for Christmas.





We can still have a Christmas tree while living in an RV...it just has to be a lot smaller!! Ha! Decorating the tree sure takes a lot less time though!

Happy Campers!
We drove up north to visit our extended family again and to celebrate an early Christmas together.   We enjoyed a visit with my Mom, and some time with Alan's family.  

Do you notice something funny in this picture above? That is not a fancy crown that Alan is "wearing"! We didn't realize that the tree behind him was just the right height to look like he was wearing a fancy gold headdress! HA!
The Haigoods (Alan's brother and family)
The Franks (Alan's sister and family)
Alan's Parents
Before we started our annual Christmas party games and gift exchange, it was time to read the Bible story of Jesus' birth. Every year, the youngest grandchild gets to read the story.  It was Caleb's turn, so with some help from Mommy, he read from a children's Bible story book. He did a GREAT job!


Then time for some silly reindeer games!






After our weekend with family in North Texas, we headed back down near Houston. This is the surprise I mentioned at the beginning of the blog post:)  We actually did not spend Christmas in the RV this year! We have some AMAZING news about where God has led our family!  I will save the details about that for the next post :)

I hope you all had a very blessed and Merry Christmas!

Blessings to you and yours,

Jill and the boys:)