christmas day lunch

after the santa gifts had created chaos at our house, we headed over to grandmo and pep's to see what was waiting over there. amazingly santa had also left a few fun gifts for us there. the boys were pumped.
here they were in the outfits they chose to wear on christmas morning opening a fun new table and chairs.
dad got his new turkey decoy, all 3 boys were thrilled.

uncle clay scored some super cute adventure vests and hats. they were so fun.

cy is a serious adventurer!!!

after all the santa gifts were opened and the family gifts, we had a wonderful gluten free lunch! thanks mom, you rock! we spent the day just hanging, playing games with nanny, and visiting papa at the hospital. we did enjoy our white christmas the next day on an adventure outside!
oh and we love our new santa stocking caps!

santa came to town and a very happy birthday!

it was finally christmas eve and time for santa to come. last year we fed santa and his reindeer and we had to do the same this time.

dad helping us with the reindeer food!
a good nite cheese with santas cookies....

for as long as i can remember we slept in the floor of my parents bedroom. this just stopped in the last couple of years, yes we even did it when we had nate around. so i wanted to start this tradition with my boys. so here they are in the tiny floor space of our bedroom. so fun!

aaahhhh santa gifts here we come..... i do have to add here though that we prayed and sang a wonderful rendition of "happy birthday jesus," before the running down the hallway madness began! so thankful to celebrate the birth of our King with my little fam!

gifts we asked for and some surprises too......

classic cy face.......this is a "thanks mom and dad, this is great face"

and a "oh man, yes!" face from colby.......want to remember these innocent looks forever!

everything in this house really needs to come in pairs!!!! they really are 2 peas in a pod. i love it!

christmas eve with the watson family

each year on christmas eve my dad's family gets together to celebrate the holiday. we have done this for as long as i can remember. they don't live too far away so the drive is not too bad! there are not many little ones so cy and colby were in rare form. lots of singing and gift opening!
so thankful for my sweet dad.....

crazy uncle clay getting cy. it is usually a 100 degrees in my grandparents house, so clay wore a tee just to be safe.

nate and good ol' cousin joe!

we even took nanny, my moms mom, with us this year. that was a fun treat. we got to spend christmas day with her as well!

another year with grandad! something to be thankful for!

Lankford christmas- minus a few:(

christmas eve lunch was to be a nonni's house. my crew was very excited and ready to get the christmas party started. can't lie and say that there was not a part of me that was really missing our s. african counterparts. it just was not quite the same without them. BUT we made the most of it and just took things slow and simple. it was great visiting and just hanging out with everyone.
the boys loved having pop's attention!

this festive crew was posed and ready to sing once we had our oversea friends ready to go. bummer for us, they were out and the skype thing did not happen. bummer for them, they missed a crazy christmas treat!

the snowman was showing all our disappointment at this point....

colby was about done listening to big people talk.....lets get to the presents people!

cy and pop still had a song or two in their hearts to share. one last Rudolph song!

thanks pop and non for the cool cabin. can't wait to build it out back.

colby loved his new set of power tools. non was even so thoughtful to make sure we have extra batteries! thanks non!!!??

jadie bug needed her own lady bug pillow pet from cy and colby. she is too cute for words!!

court would have made sure we lined all the cousins up for a pic. this was the best we got! missing several sweet faces, but loving on the ones we have here!

Dickson Lankford family christmas

it is always an adventure when you load up and head to dickson for the lankford fam christmas gathering. you never no if there will be 50 people or 100? this year i really think there were about 70ish. it was hard to go without my good sis in law in tow. but i had to be brave without her and try to remember A LOT of little cousin names.
the boys were sooo pumped they are big fans of going to "peyton and hannah ontana's" house they love playing with all the kids.
colby loves letting peyton wag him around.....
sweet cousins that we hardly ever see and grandpa and helen......

cy also loves his big cousins and thinks running free at their house is super fun.....

the traditional, all male, singing of "up on the house top." colby loved it, cy did not?

the three jerry's, as grandpa gave a few encouraging words.....

we love to get a little chuckle about the dynamics of this crew, but truly the Lord has and continues to do a mighty work in this family!

christmas activities......

December is always full of fun family activities. here are a few we did in the days leading up to christmas......

Cookie decorating with pep, grandmo, uncle clay and uncle tuck. the cookies turned into large misshapen objects so no good pics to show! super fun and yummy though.... nate and tuck trying to figure out how to get the dough to roll out. yikes...

right before felix left for the year he decided to play a trick on us. he snuck into the boys room and stole several pairs of under roos. we found them the next morning hanging all over the tree. silly felix! he also rode in our car with us christmas eve just to be super sure we were being nice.

and the rockettes*..... always a major highlight for our crew. grandmo gets the tickets back in august i think so we have tons of time to get pumped up about the nite. this year we went on the 23rd and sat on the 2nd row. it was awesome! great way to get the festive mood started.

thanks for taking us again pep and g-mo!

joyful noise part 2

this time my sweet colby got in on the performing action. this is the first year for him to be on stage at the little school christmas program. man did he and his girl, caroline feel good up there. she had some great moves and it really helped spur colb along. no tears and a big smile for dad at the end. way to go little buddy! ( he claimed that he was going to sing so loud that we would need to cover our ears. fortunately for us, he had no clue what the words to the song were!)

cy, again was in his element performing on stage. he knew his words and his motions. so fun when they are old enough to really participate and have fun doing their "thing."

if i can find the pic from cy's first little school program, i will have to compare!

post 4- snow and grandmo's birthday

yeah for the snow, bummer dad was not home to take the boys out in it! that just meant that mom and grandmo had to. it was so pretty and so cold. we had fun chasing grandmo's dog and making race tracks in the snow. what a fun birthday to spend with our grand mo!

birthday dinner at pancho's. love the hat!!!

december post 3.... make a joyful noise

disclaimer: this post can do the actual performance no real justice with out the video on facebook*

this is just a post to help me remember this sweet event.
about a month ago, someone at church casually mentions that "oh yeah, cy has a part, in the preschool program." huh? cy? yes, singing with his girl, sophie up front, alone! i laughed and hoped it was all wrong and the embarrassment of my child crying on stage was just going to be a bad dream.
ultimately the time came and they still kept saying cy was going to sing in a little trio, front and center on stage. i just crossed my fingers and prayed. again, why doubt something the Lord plans. it was beyond anything nate or i expected!!!!!!!

he sang, he danced (slight pelvic thrusting), he did it twice, and he was sooo proud! he will be the first to tell you that really everyone loved his dancing! yes, cy it was the talk of the crowd, sweet boy!

thanks to the brave souls that decided putting cy lankford on stage was going to be okay.

here we are with his fan section, they were as stunned as we were!

sweet friends

i think he is dancing in this pic, but the video really is way better