Gilbert Christmas

We spent actual Christmas Day in Oklahoma with Micah's family and drove back to Houston the day after Christmas.  That same day my brother and sister also arrived in Houston to get our family festivities started.  This was the first time my siblings and their families met Hailey!

The following morning we got the Christmas festivities started with our mass chaos opening of gifts. I've always loved the chaos, excitement, and craziness of opening gifts Christmas morning!  Once again, Hailey was so impressed it put her right to sleep.  For some reason Jacob was so unimpressed that we could barely get him to open one single present.  He eventually just went outside to play.  We finally were able to get him to open one and he immediately sat down to play with it.  It was fun to get to share in the joy and fun of exchanging gifts.

Last year we decided to start an annual "Dirty Santa" party with the siblings and parentals.  We decided with all the kiddos it was time to stop trying to really buy each other gifts and just have a fun little adult party of our own.  Micah and I had the perfect gift that we bought in Thailand but we could NOT find it ANYWHERE!  I'm so sad.  I'm really hopeful we will have it for next year.  Anyways, the gifts this year were highly entertaining as usual.  Selena got some "beer goggles" to label beer...the red-neck version of wine charms.  There was sunscreen flask, smelly toilet paper, OU golf balls (which I sadly was stuck with), and shot gun shell Christmas lights plus much more.  Once again we had a blast laughing together.

Of course we had to have our annual Christmas PJ pictures.  I love that the one with Bailey doing the splits Selena and I are being silly and Mom and Traci look perfectly normal.  They made up for it on the next one!

 My Mom had a fabulous idea as a gift for all the girls to book a private mani-pedi party at the nail place she always goes to.  It was obvious she goes often with the welcome she received when we walked in!  The party was at night so we decided to go in our pjs.  We made Margaritas to bring with us and picked up Chick-fil-A on the way.   It was so much fun!!  I think it should be an annual tradition.... ;)

Our whole family made the journey to Silsbee, TX, where my Mom grew up, to visit my Grandma and for Hailey to meet her Great Grannie.

Before the mad dash out the door to Silsbee we took a few family pictures. For some reason Selena's family is the only one I have of them alone!

Selena and her family had to leave to head back to Louisiana to get ready for their annual New Years Eve Bash.  I must say it looked like so much fun and maybe one year we will join them.  A couple of days after New Years, we headed to St. Arnold's Brewery close to downtown Houston for a brewery tour.  The entrance fee includes 4 tokens for beer.  We brought along chips, dip, and some games and had fun tasting out all the beers.  In hind sight I think we wish we would have gotten there earlier to enjoy hanging out more before the tour.  The tour was interesting but pretty short so the best part was hanging out tasting all the beer.  Luckily for us, Traci is not a beer fan so she was willing to drive everyone home.  I cannot believe this, but Bailey stayed home with Jacob and baby sat for us!! How is she old enough to babysit?!  We brought Hailey along and I think she enjoyed her visit.

We had a pretty fantastic time being with family and celebrating Christmas. Can't wait to do it again next year.