Christmas Part Three: Hoelzle Cousins

Mabry had so much fun being with all her cousins over the Christmas holidays. Our family is so blessed with such great little ones. Here are some pics of all the wee ones.......

All the Hoelzle cousins with Great-Grandma and Great-Grandpa Andrews!

Sweet Jacob (Scott & Michele's son)

Big boy Caden (Braden & Bethany's sweet baby boy)

Ella Grace (Scott & Michele's fun-loving little girl)
Aunt Rebekah with Mabry and Ella
Jacob and Conner (Todd & Jen's oldest son)

Carter, Cooper and Jacob

Carter and Cooper with Cookie-dog (Todd & Jen's youngest and middle child)

Aunt Rebekah reading to the sweet babies. It is so much fun for
Mabry to have cousins her own age! We can't wait to watch them grow up together.

We are so thankful to God for the many children He has blessed our lives with. They are truly a gift from God!

Christmas Part Two: Hoelzle Family.....Oh the games we will play!

We headed to Longview for our Hoelzle family Christmas a couple of days after Christmas and stayed until New Year's Day. We had a great time spending time with the whole fam as always. These pics aren't very good but they can give you a little taste of how our time was spent. It seems we have turned into quite the gaming family......

Run Bethany!!

Good old fashioned "Around the World" ping pong was a blast.....especially late at night while the kids were sleeping! Don't you love Scott's visor??!

And then there were the exciting games of late-night Catch Phrase!

Pappy gets a little worked up if you can't tell.........
and then we all get worked up because he is laughing so hard......
Just plain overcome with excitement!

We had our annual white elephant gift exchange. Lots of fun as usual with lots of great goodies!

Braden is being counseled by his loving wife to steal the "stock pot" from Mom so she can have it.............but, did he listen??
Nope! And what did he get........a great make-up bag! The lesson of this story....ALWAYS listen to your wife!!

Braden, Bethany, Andy and Hilliard spent LOTS of time playing this game. It's called "Settlers of Catan" and looks unbearably boring but they promise it is loads of fun!
Andy is up to something, as always.
The boys set out for many adventures of Frisbee Golf.
Sweet Jacob
Go Andy Go!
And, that's a wrap!


Stay tuned for more pics from the Hoelzle family Christmas since I know you haven't had enough yet!:)

Christmas: Part One

I know everybody is probably sick of hearing about Christmas by now so I will try and make this as painless as possible! We spent Christmas Eve and Christmas morning at our house with just the three of us and had a great time. We baked, decorated cookies and went to look at Christmas lights on Christmas Eve. The next morning Mabry opened her gifts from Santa along with her stocking. Around lunch time we headed over to Jason and Brielle's to celebrate Christmas with them and the Venables. We had such a great time being with family, exchanging gifts and had a WONDERFUL Christmas dinner. I am so sad to say that it seems we didn't get any pics of our time with the Gages and Venables on Christmas. I could have sworn we took pics....but they are no where to be found! You will have to trust me in saying we had a great time! Here are some pics of our Christmas Eve and Christmas Morning.......

Family pic on Christmas Eve (I hated to post this pic because I look horrible, but at least Andy and Mabry look cute. That's all that matters, right??:)

Here are the cookies we decorated and left for Santa. Of course, mine is the one that looks like an alien with chicken-pox! Andy, as always, showed me up and made his look extra cute. That is what life is like being married to an engineer.....he ALWAYS thinks things through before doing them and his projects usually end up spectacular, while mine.....well, you see the cookie.:( I think I redeemed myself a little on Mabry's cookie......better luck next year for me!

Mabry with her stocking on Christmas Morning

Mabry and her gifts from Santa

Mabry kissing her baby doll from Santa....so sweet!

Mabry LOVES her red wagon! She loves for Daddy to pull her around the house in it and likes to put her toys, laundry and anything else she can find in the wagon, too.

Christmas Season!

Okay, I have about 5,000 pictures I want to post from our Christmas holidays so I have decided to do multiple posts to get us all caught up! Here goes for the first one.......

These are some pics of the days leading up to Christmas and the excitement in our house! As I have said before.....Mabry loved the lights, presents, and decorations. She was so much fun this year and we know next year will be even better!

We took Mabry to the mall to see Santa but were too cheap to pay for a picture of her screaming in his lap. Since we weren't allowed to take pics with our own camera of her with Santa we went to the other side of the big Christmas tree and tried to get some cute pics of her for a possible Christmas card.........

No such luck! She was too busy looking at all the fun decorations to look at the camera.

We even tried putting her on the other "forbidden" side of the railing in direct contact with the decorations......but no....she still wouldn't cooperate.

While at the mall, Mabry spotted this 4-wheeler and decided this is just what she wanted for Christmas! And yes, she is once again on the "wrong" side of the chains. She and her Daddy are quite the rule-breakers!

Good ol' family fun on the couch

Mabry and the ottoman got into a tiff and Mabry received her first black eye about a week before Christmas.

You lookin' at me?

Stay tuned for more of this Christmas girl to come!

Our Big One-Year-Old!!

Okay, so I'm a little behind on the updates once again.....so sorry! We had a wonderful Christmas which I will get to soon enough, but first I must post about our big one-year-old! That's right......our baby girl turned the big ONE on December 9th! I can't believe our sweet little baby is growing up so quickly. She had a great birthday party with family, friends and her first taste of yummy cake. She loaded up on lots of great toys and clothes just in time for Christmas!:) It is so crazy how quickly this year has passed and yet how LONG it seemed to take at times. Our little angel has changed our lives and our hearts forever with her sweet smile and laughter. She brings such joy to us everyday and we are so thankful God handpicked this little one just for us.

First a look back.......

These pics are of Mabry the day after she was born....what a sweetheart. And yes, Andy and I are wearing matching t-shirts! Total accident but very funny. You can also see from these pics that Mabry got her Daddy's beautiful blue eyes. I am so thankful for this.....her eyes even match....what a relief!!

Mabry didn't get too crazy with the cake or even eat that much of it. She thought the most fun was having everybody staring at her waiting to see what she would do. The girl loves attention!

This is Mabry "reading" her card she got in the mail from her Great Aunt Jan. I love the expression on her face here.....she is like, "WHOA....mail for me?!!"


Here are a few (or 13) facts about our big one-year-old:

• Mabry is quite the walker these days! She took her first real steps around 11 months but really mastered the walking thing just in time for her first birthday. She is so proud of herself!

• Mabry loves to put toys on her arm like a bracelet and carry them around the house that way. I think this girl is ready for some "accessories".
  


• She has just recently gotten really interested in her books. She will sit down and look at them quietly by herself as she turns the pages. She will pick one up and bring it over to me as if saying, "Mommy, please read this to me." I love it! The cutest thing is that she will sit in your lap while you read the book to her and she will look up at you as you read and crinkle her little nose and smile at you as if she is having the best time. Melts my heart!



• Mabry gives great hugs and kisses (open-mouth of course). I love it when she wraps her arms around my neck and presses her head against mine as if to say, "I love you."
  
  


• She just learned about her nose, eyes and mouth thanks to her Aunt Rebekah's teachings. She likes to point at her nose and touch my eyes to show me where they are when I ask.
  
  


• Mabry is a sweet snuggler sometimes in the morning.



• Our precious little girl still doesn't sleep through the night but likes to wake Mommy up a few times a night for some quality time.:)



• Our baby girl is DEFINITELY a Christmas baby! She LOVED all the Christmas lights and decorations this year. She got pretty good at pointing and saying, "Lightsshh!" Looking for Christmas lights out the car window was our favorite distraction for her when she was fussy in the car. Boy do we hate that Christmas is over and the lights are gone!



• Mabry loves to smile at everybody when we are out in public. She is quite the little flirt as long as you aren't an older-looking man in which case if you touch her or get too close she will most likely begin to wail.
  

• Our little girl has quite the personality. She is a DRAMA QUEEN! (I have no idea where she got this from:) She knows exactly what she wants and when she wants it. Not quite the easy-going baby, if things aren't going her way she will let you know about it. Along with this strong personality comes the positive too, however. When this little girl is happy, she is HAPPY! She is so sweet and fun-loving most of the time and keeps us laughing always with her endearing personality.



• Mabry loves her "rubs" as we like to call them around here. She LOVES to have her feet tickled or lightly scratched/stroked along with her back, arms, legs, and tummy. If you are scratching one of her feet or legs, she will stick the other one out with an "uuh" sound ready for you to switch to the other foot/leg......and on and on we go. She most DEFINITELY gets this trait from her daddy as he is CONSTANTLY asking for his head rubs and back scratches. Between the two of them, Mom stays quite busy!



• Mae Mae is definitely a Mommy's girl, but she sure loves her Daddy too. It is so cute to watch how excited she gets when she hears him get home from work in the evenings. A big smile stretches across her face as she waits for him to walk through the back door. She and Daddy love to play silly together and Mabry loves it when Daddy chases her around the house on all fours.



• Andy was watching a duck-hunting video on Christmas eve and then took Mabry to change her diaper. While he was changing her diaper she began making gun-shot noises! Quite possibly her Daddy's proudest moment! Now, whenever Andy tells Mabry to "get the ducks!" she makes a noise like she is shooting them. (She has also been known to make the noise at dogs and other things as well......we have some fine-tuning to do.) It is super funny but also a little disturbing at the same time.:) Our poor daughter doesn't stand a chance.

Okay....sorry I got a little out of control there. I could go on and on of course but I will spare you all! Thanks to Mabry for making this the greatest and most fulfilling, joyous year of our life! We can't wait to see what the future will bring with this bright-eyed bundle of joy!

A Birthday and A Christmas Tree

Our sweet nephew Bryce turned 3 and had a great birthday party a couple of weekends ago. We really enjoyed playing at the party and getting to spend time with the Venables and Gage families.

Bryce got a toy chainsaw for his birthday and decided to cut down one of the pine trees in the back yard. What a cutie!
They had one of those big blow-up jumpy things for the kids.

Mabry enjoyed crawling around in the bouncy thing (I don't know what it is called in case you can't tell!) and bouncing with her Daddy.

She also LOVED this little bouncy "Rody".

Mabry thought she was such a big girl sitting in this kid chair. I thought she looked awful big and wanted to cry! My sweet baby is getting to be so grown up!

After the birthday party we went with the Gages to cut down a Christmas Tree. So much fun!

Poor little Bryce was tuckered out and slept on the hayride out to the trees.

Mabry and Dad on the hayride to find the perfect tree!

Mabry and Daddy found a good one!

Mabry and Mommy on the hayride.

Mabry loves the Christmas tree and lights. She is a Christmas girl all around!

We hope you feel as blessed as we do this holiday season. Merry Christmas!!