Christmas on the River

My grandparents live on the river.  It's awesome.  We spent our Christmas with them over New Year's weekend.  The weather was awesome - we spent plenty of time out on the back porch.  And lots of great time with family...and lots of pictures!

 Father & Son - my dad is a clone of his dad.

 FIRE!!!!!

 Deborah and Stephen were "there"

Christmas Day

Ahhh Christmas day - breakfast, snow, fun with family.  It was a great day!  I loved that the snow kept us in all day and that we got to just sit by the fire and watch it all come down.  Snow on Christmas is certainly one of my favorite things.

 Baked french toast with blackberries and bacon - perfect for Christmas morning!

 Mom- taking more pictures. 

 The snow starts to come down!!!  Sarah starts to get giddy!

Present time!

 Lots and lots of snow!!!

On the Eve of Christmas

Christmas Eve was a lot of fun this year.  We were at my parent's house in Amarillo.  My aunt and uncle came in that afternoon.  We had presents from Santa Clause, went to church, played spades, and had the first annual white elephant gift exchange.  Overall, it was great fun and I just loved being with my family.

 Mom takes lots of pictures! (like I have room to talk)

 Family pic!

 Spades, spades, spades!

 It was determined playing spades with OR against each other wasn't good for Deborah and Stephen's marriage.

 Jeff & I dominated

 Welch girls!

First annual family White Elephant gift exchange.

Super flattering Uncle Jeff!

 Blender - so many family inside jokes.

 Our die hard Aggie loved her Sooner pillow pet!  Could not have been a more perfect person to open that!

This one some might think morbid, but Deborah had just opened Mama's glass eye.  It was completely priceless.  I only wish the picture wasn't blurry!

Senior Year Ski Trip

We left on ski trip the week before Christmas.  This year we went to Taos, NM which made for a shorter bus ride, which was amazing!  The snow was wonderful and I had such a great time with my girls.  I had three of my small group girls and two of their friends, who are now a part of my small group.  We had some great conversations and a whole lot of fun skiing.

 Fun on the bus.  Love me some Maddie!

 Me & Leanne

 Karley & Maddie helping out with some Power Point

 Megan, Karley, & Rachel

 Karley, Rachel, & Megan

 Maddie, Karley, & Rachel

Hayden, Megan, Karley, Maddie & Rachel. 

Small Group Christmas

I love my high school girls and our Christmas parties every year.  This year they requested that I make my enchiladas and that we do a gift exchange - easy enough!  We had a lot of fun eating and laughing at the crazy things that made an appearance at the gift exchange.  It's hard to believe that this was our last Christmas party with them being in high school.  But they did inform me that we'll be carrying on the tradition when they are home from college next year, so I do have that to look forward to! :)

 Who doesn't love a pirate pinata!?

 Tori, Karley, Maddie, Rachel, & Maddie

Leader Christmas Party

And the great blog catch up begins.  Back at the beginning of December (oh yes, this is how far behind I am) we had our student ministries leader Christmas party.  They went with the tacky Christmas theme this year, and it was really fun.  It was a fun night hanging out with friends and made for some great pictures. 

 Me & SarahBeth

 Game Time - love the ridiculousness!

 Jen, Leanne, Lindsay, and me

 Community Group - Jen, Leanne, Lindsay, Sarah, Katie, me, & Alex

 Roommates!

SarahBeth & Julie