Other December Pictures...

Ivy ended the year strong in her Activity Day group. She starts her last year in the Primary at our church in 2022! Sadly... all the girls she loves move up on her so she's the only girl her age in Primary right now!!

One of Daniel's favorite past times.... taking out all of his guns, lining them up, cleaning them, admiring them, etc... I think we have too many... what do you think? 

Is there ever a month when I don't post one of these beauties?

We all had to be Covid tested before we left for our cruise. That was an interesting experience!! Definitely unpleasant, that's for sure! Luckily, we were all negative!

This pup is our absolute favorite!!

This was how we rang in the New Year! Ha!! We had just gotten home from the cruise on New Year's Eve so I was in a post cruise funk. Daniel had the older kids watching the football game over at Heather and Ryan's and I came home early to get this kiddo to bed at a decent hour. I put myself to bed as well and vaguely remember Daniel giving me a smootch at the New Year. Honestly, I can't think of a single thing I wanted to be doing more than snuggling with my Boo in my own comfy cozy bed!! Here's to 2022!!

 

Christmas Cruise

We decided this year we would give the kids a cruise for Christmas. We are in the middle of building a house and our goal is to clean everything out that we've acquired over the last 18 years... the last thing we wanted to do was buy them a bunch more stuff!! Santa brought them a few gifts and their stockings and most of the presents under the tree were pieces of paper with words and/or letters that spelled out "We Are Go-ing On A C-R-U-I-S-E." Although everyone was excited it wasn't quite the jumping up and down and complete and utter bliss I had envisioned in my mind. Oh well... can't win them all!! Christmas was on Saturday and we left for the cruise Monday. Well, come Monday everyone was plenty excited!!! And we had the best time!! It helped that we had Grandma and Godad and the Jordan Munns family joining us!! Some of the cruise highlights were.... the waterslides, the surf rider, ice skating, the water park on Coco Cay, unlimited ice cream, the pool and hot tub, dinner, movies, pizza, and the kids club. It truly was so fun!! The best way to spend the last week of Christmas break!!

CHRISTMAS

Santa showed up at our house for Christmas this year!! He brought fishing poles for all, Ivy a new wake surf, Benny a left-handed bow with a target, and Hey Dudes for Jackerton among many other things. We had very happy children. 

Snuggled in bed together before the big reveal!

After the opening of the stockings we went over to Heather and Ryan's to meet up with everyone for our traditional creamed shrimp on toast breakfast:

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is equally anticipated with Christmas over here. We always go over to Grandma Vicky's for a delicious dinner of prime rib and the kids get spoiled with gifts. She has yummy desserts for us and we always have a fun evening. Driving home is always so cheerful because we know Christmas is the next day! 

Drive Shack

We usually have the Munns family Thai Christmas dinner on December 23rd every year. Well we had folks out of town for Christmas this year so we decided to have it earlier. That left us with the evening of the 23rd to do something together a family and we went to Drive Shack!! It was the first time for me and the kids. We had an absolute blast! I wish I had taken more pictures! Kids had a great time. We will definitely go back!

Christmas Pins

 I have a slight obsession with Christmas pins. Not sure when it started but my mother-in-law has a rather large collection of them. One Christmas, years ago, she let me pick a pin! It was the most darling little Santa with the cutest beard. Shortly after, Ranier gave all his daughters a cute little felt beaded Christmas tree pin. I had the urge to make this a Christmas tradition. So my sister-in-law Heather, in her gift-giving wisdom, the year her family was assigned to give gifts to my family gave me an entire stocking full of an assortment of Christmas pins. It was the most thoughtful gift!! But she didn't stop there... every Christmas since, she has added to my collection and this year was no exception!! I used to have to make my kids (the boys really) wear Christmas pins on Sunday but now they willingly oblige (because it makes me so happy!!) Here are a few of my Christmas pin pictures!

Christmas in the air...

I do love Christmas time!! It is a busy time, but a good busy!! I didn't take enough pictures for everything we had going on but here are a few...

Christmas Sunday. Our Sunday program at church was so so good this year!! Lots of beautiful music and well coordinated messages with a special musical number by our very own Ivy!! She was prepping to sing in primary when she was asked to sing in front of the whole congregation instead! She nailed it!! It was so so good. So proud of her. 

Kids got to meet Santa at our church's Christmas Party. It was a struggle to get them all together. Don't know how much longer this will last...

Daniel and I at the Wild Florida Christmas Party! There were several yummy food trucks, great music and the evening weather was absolutely perfect!! A fun night was had by all!

I got to go to a couple school Christmas programs this year!! Ivy's was a Christmas around the world presentation which was very fun and Benny's class sang a variety of Christmas carols!! Tis the season!!