Claire hatching her Hatchimal!

The Hatchimal was a huge hit this year! After playing with the egg for about 30 min, the bird started to peck at the egg!

 It was a long 40 minutes, but finally the Hatchimal hatched!

 Now Claire gets to play with it and help it to go through the life stages. It is definitely an interesting toy!

Happy birthday Jesus!

We started off Christmas morning by singing Happy Birthday to Jesus and reading Luke 2:1-20. This was followed by our healthy breakfast of monkey bread!

 Claire was excited to give her dogs their present.

She was also excited to give Grandma her present and had fun helping her put it together!

 Doing Grandma's saran ball was awesome...

 and the prizes inside were pretty awesome too!

 Claire got some pretty cool things from her Grandma and Grandpa Naustdal also!

She loves her secret diary and her new towel!

 A few of her favorite gifts...a cool mermaid tail towel from Grandma,

 squishies from Santa,

 and a Hatchimal!!!

Serving at George R Brown

We got to spend 6 hours today living out the real meaning of the season...we got to serve the less fortunate at the Great Christmas Feast held in Houston. We had some extra time after setting up so we got to get a few fun pictures.

 Claire was amazing today! She worked so hard and loved every minute of it! She helped get the lines made for the servers and then spent a few hours delivering drinks to the guests. What a rewarding experience this was for all of us!

 Some of the area high school queens were there to serve and Claire was able to get a picture with all of them!

Getting ready for Jesus' birthday!

Yesterday Claire worked hard on our yearly tradition of making a birthday cake for Jesus. She did everything herself except take the cake out of the oven! She has definitely become quite the little baker and I know her Snugglebunny would be very proud of her (especially since he was the one who taught her all she knows about baking!).

 She decorated the cake with her piping bag and then added some sprinkles. You can't have a birthday cake without sprinkles!

 Then she got to work and made signs for when Santa comes. Santa had told her that he likes chocolate chip cookies and his reindeer like carrots.

 So we got to work making chocolate chip cookies for Santa to set out tonight!

 Of course you can't make cookies without tasting the dough! We learned that from Snugglebunny!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

 It is rough getting a nice family photo in this house so while we have Grandma here to help us, we

have tried taking a few good pictures.

Such a great picture of Claire and her G-Ma!

 We let Claire open two of her presents early due to great behavior. She has loved this game called Pet Me and we have played it more times that I can count! She has yet to lose to any of us!

 Super excited to be allowed to open a few presents before Christmas!

Little Beakers with G Ma!

Since Claire got done with school after her holiday party this morning, we decided to have some fun at Little Beakers. Claire had a good time creating slime, bubbles, secret messages, and elephant toothpaste with her helper, G-Ma Rachel! So thankful for all of the wonderful memories we are making with G-Ma is here visiting us!

Claire's 3rd grade Christmas party

Claire had her holiday party at school today. They did a craft, had cookie cake, and played games. It was a fun time. Claire was the first one to score any points in the ring toss game!

 Claire and her friend Allison.

 Averi, Allison, and Claire....good buddies!

 Claire and her homeroom teacher, Ms. Price

Children's choir at church

Claire was able to sing in the church Christmas choir this past Sunday morning. The choir sang "Away in a Manger" and they sounded so beautiful! Claire really enjoyed being in the choir!

Did we wake up in Minnesota?!

What happened the other night? We woke in the morning to see we had MORE snow on the ground in Cypress, TX than our family had in Minnesota! That is about the most crazy thing I have ever heard! However, we did have one very happy child for a little while! So pretty and so much fun when you know it won't stay on the ground!