"Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates." Deuteronomy 4: 6-9

Friday, December 30, 2011

Sea World

We took one last Sea World trip before our passes expired during Winter break. There are always new things to see everytime we go! This time we visited the sea lions, and Carson could have stayed all day! We saw the "Pets Ahoy" show and the boys loved watching the dogs and cats do all kinds of tricks. My favorite was the jump roping dog! We went to the "hidden" aquarium again and Tanner chased his little stingray friend all over the floor.
Surprisingly there were hardly any people at Sea World the day we went. Especially in the kids area. We rode the carousel 3 times in a row! Tanner was giddy with excitement! He loves being a big boy! After our fun carousel time, we rode the train...3 times too! On our 3rd time around, Carson rode up front all by himself. To end our fun day, the boys enjoyed a delicious cookie from the bakery shop. Love these special times with my sweet boys!

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Frye Christmas

Our final Christmas of 2011 with the Frye's! I'm pretty sure at this point, the boys thought opening gifts had become an every morning, afternoon, and night occurence! The excitement never grew old though!Our sweet Hannah Grace got her first tricycle from Nana and Papa! Her true excitement and gratitude in this sweet face brings me to tears! She was so excited!
What do you get when you add a 3 year old who likes to play with everyone else's presents, a potty training 2 year old, and a 1 year old who has mastered the word "NO!"??? Pure chaos. Or beautiful chaos as my friend calls it! The adults still managed to get their presents opened!
Carson was having a blast jamming out with Tanner's guitar with Hannah's Rock n' Roll Mickey! They all swapped presents all day! Aunt Kim, Uncle Scott, Alex, Maddy, and Grandma and Grandpa all came for lunch. Great Grandma got lots of hugs and kisses from the boys! We ate lunch, had dessert, and opened more presents! We played the gift card game, and had a great time hanging out together.
After a fun time outside, we took some family Christmas pictures.We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas as well!

Christmas Day

Christmas Day was a bit different for us this year. Usually we spend Christmas Eve with Matt's family, and Christmas Day with mine, but Jamie and Will were in Ocala, and Jacob and Brooke were in Jacksonville, so we decided to do our traditional "Frye Christmas" with everyone together the day after Christmas. After our nice family time on Christmas morning, Matt and I and the boys went to Nana and Papa's house. My parents let the boys open up a small gift. My mom made a delicious lasagna, salad, green beans, and garlic bread for lunch. We had a nice quiet Christmas lunch together! After lunch, my mom and I took the boys on a long bike ride to look at all of the Christmas decorations. We did some swinging too! We had some dessert and Carson explained the manger and baby Jesus to us! :) We headed home for a nice Christmas nap - my best present all day!! After naps, Marie, Sharon, Sarah, and Michael all came over for dinner. The kids played with their new toys. Then I made homemade hot chocolate with candy canes, and we all loaded up in our van to drive around and look at Christmas lights. We had a great low-key family Christmas day!

Christmas Morning

Carson was so excited Jesus' birthday was finally here! We've been counting down the days all month! We actually had to wake Tanner on Christmas morning, he was a sleepy head from all the fun we had with the DeMoor's the night before. Here are our sweet angels on Christmas morning... Tanner's "big" gift was his very own toolbench. He loves playing with Carson's, but this is more age appropriate. I love his smile in these pictures, he was so happy! Carson loved opening his presents too! I'm not sure who was more excited about the Buzz Lightyear, Carson or Daddy!
While we waited for our Christmas morning breakfast casserole to bake, we had a great time as a family playing with all of our fun gifts!

Saturday, December 24, 2011

Christmas Eve

We started off our Christmas weekend attending Northland's Christmas Eve service with Marie, Sharon, Sarah, and Michael the day before Christmas Eve! The service was beautiful and the music was amazing as always. The boys did great attending the children's classes!
Matt and I spent the majority of Christmas Eve morning cooking and gearing up for the big DeMoor Family Christmas Eve. We had the honor of hosting this year since Steve and Lori are expecting their 3rd child anyday! I had fun decorating too! All of the cousins played really well together and had a great time dancing to the Veggie Tales Christmas movie. It's such a blessing for the boys to grow up near their cousins! Our Christmas Eve dinner was delicious, and there was hardly any room left for all of these wonderful desserts! Opening presents was so much fun, even though it was a bit chaotic with 7 kids! :) We were happy to have Aunt Mary Ann from Missouri with us this year too! Aunt Lori and Ali digging right into those presents! And Baby "Bob" too. :) Carson and Tanner LOVED all of their presents, and we had such a wonderful night spending time together as a family.