Christmas Ornaments

The week before Christmas Jill invited us over to make Christmas ornaments.  We bent pipe cleaner into different shapes and put hooks on them.  Then we hung them on pencils into jars full of hot water and Borax mixed together.  They eventually were covered in crystals and turned out really neat.
 Time to shape the pipe cleaners.

Peter wasn't to sure about all of my picture taking.

 Jillian watching the big kids.

 Harry getting it all figured out.

 Time to hang them and add the borax.

 Here they are soaking in the water and borax.

 Caroline was just taking all the action in.

 Then my girls had to check Caroline out.

 And now for the finished product.

These turned out really neat.  The crystals are huge.  Thanks Jill and crew for having us over.

Christmas in Kansas

We headed to Kansas on the 26th to celebrate Christmas with our extended family.  It was nice to be home on Christmas but we were excited to celebrate with the whole family.  We headed to my mom's first.  I have a hard time keeping a secret and had kept her present a secret for too long.  The first thing I did was have mom open her present.  I made her a wreath.  I got the idea here. 

When we first got to mom's, Sophia was napping so Hadley and Jillian got all of  Auntie Jessica's attention.  They love their Auntie Jessica.

Sisters

 We didn't have to wait too long for Sophia or Fi Fi, as my girls call her, to wake up.  Here is the cutie with her big smile.

 Jessica, Jordan and I headed out to visit my Uncle Doug and Aunt Sandy while Mike and Matt watched the girls.  Mike being the great daddy he is took some pictures for us. 
 This pictures sums up what my girls thought of Sophia.  If she was in the room they wanted to be with her.  It was almost like they wanted to pet her.  It was very funny to watch.

 Lady and her girls minus Brylee.

 Sophia and Jillian hanging in the chair.

 That night we celebrated Christmas with my mom's family.  There were 33 of us all together.  Present opening was a little bit of craziness.  Here are the girls in their red, ready for the celebration to start.

 Alex and his girlfriend Loryn.

 Brennen did not want me to take his picture but I caught him under the table.

 Jessica brought her ipad and it was a hit.

 Drew and Kayla in their favorite spot :)

 Sophia was all smiles.

Hadley and Aunt Kim

  Brennen and Isaak waiting for present time.

 Jordan and his family.

 Granny Jean and Grandpa Kirby.

 All of my sibling aren't together very often so we had to get a picture together.

We ended the night with the girls talking on the new phones they got.

On Monday we had Christmas at my Dad and Terry's house. We started the day with family pictures.  We took most of them with Jessica's camera so I will have to get them from her. 
Here is one of Grandma and Grandpa with Hadley and Jillian.

The Bryson family

We were staying at Dad and Terry's for the trip.  When Jessica, Matt and Sophia got there Jillian was watching her favorite Elmo.  Sophia also has a love for Elmo.  Here are the girls watching Elmo.

Daddy and Hadley waiting to open more presents.

 Jillian playing on the Sit 'n Spin.

 Hadley showing Brennen her new game.

 Mike checking out Jessica's ipad.

 Brennen and Brylee got a really neat trampoline from Grandma and Grandpa.  All the kids got to try it out.  I only ended up with a picture of Jillian on it.

 I didn't get as many pictures as I would like that day.  I will have to blame it on my lack of sleep.  Jillian decided that sleep was not on the agenda in Kansas.  She was up at 2:45am to start her day on Monday and 4am the following two days.  That meant not much sleep for Mommy and Daddy.

 On Tuesday we headed back over to Winfield for the day.  We started with a cousin photo shoot by Laura.  I can't wait to see what she got.  Then we spent the afternoon at Lady's house.  Lady and Papa got Hadley a really neat sticker book and she made sure to put it right to use.

Later that afternoon we headed over to Megan's for a BFE get together.  Here are the few pictures I got.
Laura loving on baby Cal.

 Jillian got right to work playing.

 Barrett

 Norah Kate

Caroline

Lydia and Hadley were there too but I didn't get any pictures of them. 
That pretty much wraps up our trip to Kansas.  It was fun but we are glad to be home.  Jillian is getting back to sleeping and so are Mike and I.  Mike still has a few more days off so we are enjoying having him home with us.