December Festivites!

Its hard to believe that December is over and a new year has begun! We had a wonderful Christmas with lots of fun festivities. Here's a few of the activities we enjoyed last month. 

On December 1st, Brett had to work at the Hidalgo lights parade. He was just planning on doing the weather, but ended up emceeing the entire event. He did a great job, of course! We didn't go to this parade because we've been before but we watched him on TV. 

At the beginning of December, the City of McAllen hosted a huge holiday parade with celebrities and giant Macy's Parade balloons! Brett was asked to ride the float for his station, but we really wanted to take the kids. I enlisted the help of my great friends to come along and brave the 200,000 people that went to the parade. The kids were wonderfully behaved and Kayla loved the floats! She got excited to see Daddy in the parade too! 

Francesca and her husband Miguel came with us for the fun! Good thing or Kayla'd would probably be lost. It was so crowded!

My happy girl enjoying the parade!

The girl on the left is Primrose Everdeen from the Hunger Games. Brett met her later and got his picture with her and Mario Lopez, aka AC Slater. :) His job has some perks!

I really love baking! The problem is eating all the yummy food and still losing the baby weight. One of the best parts of Christmas is an excuse to bake and sample all sorts of yummy treats and then happily bestowing them upon friends and neighbors!  I invited one of the young women in my ward to come help. She's our neighbor, babysitter, and a good friend, so it was fun having Jihyun over to bake with. Brett wasn't terribly excited about the idea until we got going and then I think he had fun baking with me. He's a good husband. :)

It was a calorie-filled labor of love. 

I loved showing Kayla movies about Santa Claus. My favorite is Miracle on 34th Street. She loved watching Santa Claus on TV but in person, she's pretty darn terrified. Maybe next year will be their year to bond. :)

We attended an ugly sweater party with many of our friends. We took the theme literally and enlisted my dad to bring some old ugly sweaters from home when we came. Too bad it was 75 degrees that night. We were festive but roasting! It was a fun party!

Kayla didn't have an ugly sweater, so she's just cute and festive. She loves Bailey!

I didn't put this on her to wear all night. I'm not that crazy, but she looked pretty funny with it! 

On Christmas Eve, Brett worked so we planned our big meal for Christmas day. I still wanted to be festive though, so we made homemade pizza that looked a Christmas tree and a candy cane. It looked fun, but I made some cooking booboos and after a picture was taken, it was thrown in the trash. Its the thought that counts, right? :)

The kids got to open one present on Christmas Eve, and we had them open the Frosty and Rudolph movies. Kayla loved watching the old classics. She had a cold all through the holidays, so she was pretty chill and lethargic. Watching Christmas movies was quite the treat for our little lady. 

And this guy was just happy to be here!

I tried getting a good photo of the kids on Christmas Eve. This is about the best one. She really didn't feel good. Poor thing. 

We loved having Grandpa Kelly here with us for the holidays!

I really love our little house all lit up for Christmas. 

We love Christmas time! I'll blog about Christmas Day and beyond next time. Stay tuned! :)