Christmas

 Christmas this year was a bit quieter then usual...after the kids went to bed I set up the room. I miss Zac sleeping on the couch while I put the room together. It was super awesome to have him with us Sunday morning through Skype...wish I had a picture of that.

My kids are fully aware that Santa isn't real but still insist on writing their letters. I love them every year.

Andrew was VERY excited about his new Lego set. Could be interesting without Zac here to help put it together.

Jackson love love loved opening presents this year. He opened every one's presents for them this year if they didn't get to them fast enough.

Anne and her new bike...thank goodness we have wonderful neighbors to help me get those brakes right...I have to admit I was pretty proud that I successfully put together the rest of the bike myself.

Andrew loves books with pictures that go along. He was super excited to get these new books.

Jackson got a new "soft soft" blanket...he loves it but still prefers the old one.

The year of books here in our house. Anne is holding only a few of the books she received from us...not to mention the books she got from other family. She is one happy girl.

Marble Works...I might have bought this for myself...it was my favorite Christmas as a child when we got ours. The kids seemed to love it too although somehow all the marbles were lost by Sunday evening. 

Wet hair...bring on 9am church.

We are missing Zac in our Christmas picture this year...

Bass Pro Shop Santa

We aren't huge on Santa around here but we needed something fun to do one Saturday and we had heard that there was fun to have so we heading on over to the Bass Pro Shop. It was fun. There were a lot of dead animals which put Anne up in arms...I think we have a Animal Rights Activist on our hands. The older kids rode the animal carousel, Jackson refused...he never stops surprising me. We saw Santa...Jackson just about refused that too until he saw the huge basket of candy canes. There isn't much Jackson wouldn't do for a candy cane. Of course because we were at the Bass Pro Shop which is basically a huge hunting store there were plenty of shooting games which the kids thoroughly enjoyed. All in all a fun Saturday activity.

Making Christmas Ornaments

While Zac is gone the weekdays are just fine. We manage to stay busy with school and such. The weekends are a different story. Saturdays being the worst. In a effort to keep the kids busy one Saturday in December we made some ornaments to add to our Christmas tree. I love these ones. They have the kids hand prints so I will be able to have their tiny hand on my tree forever. The kids loved painting their hands too, especially Jackson. As soon as we put the paint on we had to grab his hand to pain didn't get everywhere. It took both Anne and I to get his print on the canvas without getting paint all over the place. 

 This is mostly what Jackson did...he is a bit addicted to my IPhone.

Thanksgiving

This year we had visitors for Thanksgiving. I baked all the pies the day before so all we had to do was the dinner on the day of. It was so much fun. We all cooked and baked together in the kitchen (I love my big kitchen) and Dad Turner washed all the dishes while we dirtied all the dishes. It was the best! I told him he could move in any time...really! I never knew it was so much fun to just cook and not have to clean up after myself. 

Grandma helped the kids make her famous oatmeal rolls. They were so yummy.

Zac doing his magic with the mashed potatoes.

Anne showing off our uncooked pumpkin pastie.

The pies were heavenly and the pumpkin pasties delish. We will be making more in the future.

Because Zac was leaving the next day we decided to set up our tree a day early. I love that all the lights were done for me. SO NICE. It was a perfect day.

Mission San Jose

The week before Thanksgiving we had Zac's parents for a visit. The kids had the whole week off of school and so did Zac. We decided to finally see a bit of San Antonio. First stop...Mission San Jose. It was really very cool. Kind of puts the Alamo to shame...sorry Alamo. Anne had just been there on a field trip a few weeks before so we had our own personal guide which was nice because there wasn't a whole lot of information around the place and Anne really loved telling us all about everything.