A Very Merry Christmas in Texas! Part One:

Despite the stomach bug that traveled with us to Texas, we had such a wonderful time visiting our family in Houston during Christmas!  Here are some of the pics we took highlighting the "first leg" of our visit. 

Here are the kids laying in our kitchen floor the morning we were leaving...both of them had gotten sick the night before. 

A couple of pics of what my great-grandpa referred to as a "sun dog"...no clue why, but it sure does look neat!  Kind of like a rainbow but it's just a spot instead of an arch.  Took these on the trip to Texas!

We stopped at a Holiday Inn Express along the way and the kids were so excited to stay in a hotel that we had to take some pics!  They were running all over checking everything out.  It was too cute!!!

Ella in her pj's picking flowers outside PapPap and Nana's house the day we arrived...obviously feeling much better!

Ella with cousin Shea...SUCH beautiful girls!

Here are the kids with Aunt Nikki making magical reindeer food.

Cousin Cole showing Neil the ropes of making the reindeer food!

Aunt Nikki sharing her special reindeer-food-making secrets with Neil! 

Neil:  "I think we need MORE glitter!"

This is SERIOUS people!  LOVE all the kids' faces in this one...now that's concentration! ;)

Neil spreading his reindeer food so Rudolph could have a treat!

I LOVE how Neil went for his stocking first, walking right past his big gift from Santa!  We were quite surprised by this!

Especially since his big gift from Santa was the Buzz Lightyear Wing Pack and Laser Beam gadget that he had been asking for for MONTHS!

 Once he did see it, he got very excited.  Thank Goodness!!!

I believe this was, "Look Mom!  It's the Buzz Lightyear Wing Pack that I have been wanting!"  Boy, that Santa sure is on top of things! ;)

Trying it out for the first time!

Then Ella woke up to see what Santa brought for her.

Ella with Nana coming to see what all the excitement is about!

Oooooh!  What's this?!!

Santa knows how much Ella likes her brother's keyboard, so he brought her a Leap Frog Learn-n-Groove Musical Table for Christmas!

Notice the mouth full of snacks as I am trying to get her to look at her stocking...

Here you can see that the snacks won out!!!

Still snacking...and even Neil was getting impatient to see what was in the stocking!

"Okay, Mom, if you insist, I guess I will reach in there..."

She finally did humor me, but not for long! ;)  Then it was back to snacking!

Neil and Ella with PapPap and Nana after all the gifts from Santa were opened.

Hugs for Daddy from his little girl...

Daddy helping Ella open a present.

Looking at the gift together.

Neil got me a scarf for Christmas.  Bobby took him and let him pick it out himself.  I just LOVE the colors!

Thank you hugs!

Ella got me some wonderfully scented lotion from B&BW!  Such great gifts from my precious kiddos!

This completes the "first leg" of our Christmas trip to Texas!  Bobby and I got each other a new camera for Christmas, so we ended up taking over 300 pics during the trip!  Needless to say, it is very difficult to choose which ones to share when you have that many to choose from!  There will be more to come in Part Two!