An Evening with the Hoaglands

 
 
 
 
Saturday evening we went to dinner with my uncle and his family. We got to meet the newest Hoagland, Gavin James, who is just shy of 2 months old. We enjoyed the fellowship over dinner and then went back to their house to eat some dessert and spend a little more time together. My cousin, Andrea just recently got engaged so it was fun to see her and her fiance, JW. I only had 2 girl cousins growing up. (There have been some added since I moved away from home and was already grown up.) Andrea is 8 years younger than me and I was so excited when she came along. Now I am super excited for her as she gets to plan her wedding!

The last picture is my Uncle Mark showing Ian how the hooey stick works. :) It was my grandfather's and it was fun to see him show something that Grandpa would have done.

A Visit from an Old Friend

 
Getting to see my lifelong friend Lisa while I was home was a special treat. Lisa and her husband Rick stopped by my parents' house on the way to her parents' house on Saturday morning. She came bringing Dunkin Donuts which was super sweet of her. We had a lovely visit and it was so great to be able to spend some time with her.

Happy Birthday, Jesus Birthday Party

 
 
 
 


Because my mom's family has suffered some great losses in the past year or so, no one really felt like celebrating "Christmas" in the traditional sense. My mom was pretty depressed to think that because her sister wasn't here that no one wanted to get together so she schemed up a "Birthday party" and sent out invitations as such. Everyone came and I am so glad they did! There were birthday streamers and party horns and a big cake. My uncle's big joke was that he was going to bring a pinata since he heard that it was Jesus' birthday and thought it might be one of our Hispanic friends. :) That got everyone laughing and we all enjoyed eating ham and turkey, shrimp, relish and all sorts of sweets. We didn't really give gifts to anyone but my grandmother and then all the younger kids received a party favor bag with a few sweet treats. We also got out the old family videos and tortured everyone! I think the birthday party was more fun than the traditional Christmas would have been anyway. We still missed our missing loved ones, but the true meaning of the day was held first and foremost and that was what was most important. Happy Birthday, Jesus! We're so glad you came!

Christmas Morning

 
 
 
 

Santa was very good to us! He delivered our gifts to Indiana after I sent him a quick email to make sure he knew we wouldn't be in Texas. Ian so excited that Santa filled his request for a Shake N Go race track. He also loved his Zhu Zhu pets and puzzles. Daddy and Mommy gave him a Nintendo DS so he made out like a bandit.
Aaron got some Duplos, some puzzles and a Zhu Zhu pet. He also got a basketball set and other goodies. He really wasn't all that interested in opening gifts and Ian helped him quite a bit.

December 23rd

 

We headed north after I got off work on Wednesday. We drove through a pretty bad storm and arrived at our hotel on the south side of Little Rock, AR at 10:30pm. This is my ornery boy who was wide awake when I was so tired and just wanting to go to bed!

 

Of course, I can't forget this little guy! He slept just like he was supposed to.

A Little Christmas

 
 
 
 


We have decided rather than stay here and Texas and celebrating Christmas alone that we will travel to Indiana to celebrate with my family. This is a 16 hour trip minimum if you travel straight through so if you add the 15 minutes per hour when you travel with children, we are looking at about 20 hours. Please pray for our safe travels. I am hoping that we can get to Bryant, AR tomorrow evening after I get off work and finish the trip on Christmas Eve.

With that said, we decided to have ourself a little Christmas this evening with the gifts that Bill, GG, Grandma and Papaw Hoagland and Uncle David sent. The boys both had a grand time opening gifts and loved each and every item. They are currently playing with them now. It's going to be hard to get them to go to bed!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Brothers

 
My good friend Jen sent these shirts to the boys. I had a hard time getting a picture, but you can see that one says "little brother" and the other says "big brother." Ian thought he was big stuff! Thanks Jen for the great brothers shirts. We love them!