Webb Christmas

We celebrated Christmas with my family at my parents' ranch, and it was wonderful.  The kind of wonderful where you don't get out of your pj's for three days straight.  And all you do is eat, sleep, and play.

I had to work on Christmas Eve, but my boss let us out at 1pm so I can't really complain.  Once we all made it to the ranch, we got started decorating the tree and listening to Mariah Carey's Christmas album.

Next, we moved on to the tradition of making cutout cookies.

Then we ate chicken & dumplings, played a lot of games, opened one present each, and then ate Christmas goodies until we felt sick enough to call it a night.

Then it was Christmas morning.  Santa brought Kolby and me our first pair of cowboy boots!

Kolby is 7' tall in these boots.  Not really, but it's close.

We siblings and siblings-in-law need to apologize to Russell.  We made fun of him for the fact that his Christmas list looked like something an 11-year-old would come up with, but then we all had the BEST TIME EVER playing the Xbox Kinect that Santa brought him.  Holy cow was this thing amazing!

Pictures of the gaming will dominate the rest of this post, so I apologize if you don't find these pictures as amusing as I do. My photography skills suffered quite a bit because of the tears from laughing so hard clouding my vision.  Watching my parents play beach volleyball will go down as one of my top 5 moments of 2010.

 A little whitewater rafting and adventure games:

 Mom vs. Russell in the 110-meter hurdles:

It did not take long to work up a sweat when playing Kinect.  I think the picture below is one of my favorites from the weekend--  my mom had to go stand by the door to let some cold air in after her intense bout against Russell (cough... hot flash...):

 Nothing screams Christmas morning like a good old-fashioned Wii dance-off.  Kolby won by a long-shot, repeatedly.  Although Remy gets all the style points, especially with a baby on board:

Speaking of baby on board, the picture below is of Remy's baby belly at about 14 weeks pregnant, and my food-baby belly at about 14 minutes post Christmas meal.  Can you tell which is which?!?!  :) 

[sorry for the bad glare from the sun... it's hard to get good photo help around here!]

I asked everyone to put on some real clothes for just a minute so that we could snap a quick family picture. Poor Kolby has had to get used to being asked to stand in the picture spot while I get my camera adjusted, especially if we're using the self-timer.  He knows the drill.  I was so caught up in trying to figure out how to deal with all the natural light coming in that I didn't notice his little photo shoot until I just uploaded these to my computer:

Way to put out the vibe, honey.

Anyway, back to the family picture.  It isn't great, but at least everyone has their eyes open:

It was a little strange to be at the ranch without the 20+ additional family members from one side or the other, but it was nice to have our rooms to ourselves, and my mom baked as though she were feeding the entire western hemisphere.  

We are so grateful for the fun we were able to have with both of our families this year, but most of all we are grateful for the birth of Jesus.  Take it away, Linus.

Merry Christmas to all!

Three Years!

Three years ago:

Can you believe it's been three years?  More shockingly, can you believe my arms used to look like that?  Lol.  This picture (almost) makes me want to dust off my Jillian Michaels 30-Day Shred DVD and get back in that kind of shape.

I always get really sentimental about our marriage and our life together this time of year.  Yes, our anniversary is a big part of that.  But even more than that, it's the cold weather.  Let me explain.  Kolby and I had quite a lengthy courtship, if you recall.  Not sure why I just called it a courtship.  But anyway, I'd say the latter 4 years or so that we were dating we got really hung up on this thought of how great it will be to one day not have to say goodbye to each other after an evening of hanging out, but instead just say goodnight and fall asleep together.  When the frigid Texas winters would set in (ha!), the feeling was always much stronger because we always had a tumultuous time debating whose house we would go hang out at and thus who would have to be the one to face the cold drive home.  Our houses were 7 minutes apart which isn't really enough time for the car to get warm, and it is completely stuck in my memory how miserable those drives were.  I spent 6 long years waiting to be able to say "goodnight" to him, and I try my best not to take it for granted that I finally have that privilege.

Back to the anniversary.  I would say that the thing that stands out most about our third year of marriage is how much fun we had together.  Kolby makes me laugh every day, several times a day.  I can't tell you how much I love that.  He is super witty, and he also has a killer knack for flawlessly quoting TV shows (Arrested Development and 30 Rock, mostly) at just the perfect times.  Speaking of TV, Kolby is the kind of person that laughs out loud at a funny line on TV, and that has become one of my favorite silly things about him lately.  Isn't it so much more fun to hang out and watch TV with someone like that?!?

Among the favorite Kolby/Emily pastimes at our house are singing silly, dancing silly, and talking on behalf of Maya.  I can't imagine how ridiculous those things probably sound to an outsider, but Kolby and I genuinely have such a fun time together and I hope we never lose this sense of childish humor.  Our lives aren't too stressful, and we are taking advantage of it!

This third year brought us some wonderful time with family, and the wonderfully hectic transition to both of us working full-time.  Also of note this year is our involvement in our new church, and the many new friendships it has brought into our lives, particularly for Kolby. 

I can honestly say that I'm happier than I ever thought I would be, and that being married to Kolby is so much better than I ever thought it would be.  He is such a blessing.  I could go on and on about him, but I imagine that anyone who knows him well could easily imagine what a wonderful husband he is to me.  I am so thankful.

K + E = MFEO

[Meant For Each Other]

Here's to another great year!

Getting Ready for Christmas

We are officially ready for Christmas at our house.  

On Saturday, we put up our lights.  Kolby pulled roof duty last year, so it was my turn.  It is not as easy to get up on a roof as you might think, by the way.  It was worth it, though.  Here I am making it happen (hello front teeth!):

  Kolby convinced me that the best way to get down was to climb from the roof into a tree.  Which went well, but then I was just stuck in a tree and not any closer to the ground than I was on the roof.  It was touch and go for a bit, but then I climbed onto Kolby's shoulders and eventually made it down.  This was all in the front yard, as several neighbors were out raking leaves and thinking we were crazy.

The final result:

Then on Sunday, we went out to some of my family's nearby farmland to chop down a Christmas tree.  It was  super cold and windy, but we found a winner.

Did I mention it was rather cold out?

Our friend Jay came to help out.

  
After dusting off a wasp nest and some bird feathers, we brought it in and gave it a little trim.

Then we put on some Christmas music and went to work.  I think it turned out awesome.  I love people's reaction when they walk in and see it.  It may not look it in this picture, but it is really big and takes up a fair share of the living room.  It is also not a type of tree that is typically used for Christmas.  A friend that was over last night and asked if it was a shrub.  But then another friend walked in and said she absolutely loved it and said it was "Charlie Brown meets Anthropologie."  Best compliment ever.

***

On Tuesday night we hosted a Christmas Party for our Bible study group.  We had 18 people over for dinner and a gingerbread house contest.  It was nuts.  I *may* have taken a few moments during a seminar at work to game plan how we were going to fit that many people in our house for a meal when we don't have a dining room and our kitchen table sits 6 at best. 

By 7:30pm our house was super loud and nearly splitting at the seams, but it was so great to have our friends over for such a great night.  I love a full house.  I feel like it was one of those nights that Kolby and I will look back on years from now and remember very nostalgically.  This is our first house.  It is rather small.  Our kitchen has one drawer, two cabinets, and virtually no counter space.  But man did it strut it's stuff last night.  It was warm, cozy, and smelled like Christmas, and everyone had a great time gathering together here-- eating, laughing, building gingerbread houses, and chatting.  We felt very blessed.  We also blew a fuse (twice).

The night in pictures:

(Yes, Kolby made a baseball stadium.  Obsessed, much?)

 One of the couples has three of the most precious children, and they joined us last night.

I love these two pictures above because neither of the guys holding these sweet little boys are the kids' dad.  Our group has definitely become more like a family than anything else, and I love seeing the tangible ways that plays out.  Mike let that baby drool ALL OVER his hand.  Also, the little toddler-- my oh my does that kid melt my heart.  We are in BIG trouble if we ever have a kid half as cute as him, because he could get away with anything with that sweet little voice.  And he is so mellow.  Kolby and I may or may not have debated taking him home with us after a Christmas concert we had at church last week.

***
Then today we celebrated Christmas with Kolby's family.  I love having Christmas twice.  We gathered with Kolby's extended family for a delicious meal at his grandparents' house.  It was a wonderful day!

Mimi's famous extra-large dinner table:

  

 One of Grandfather's barns:

 The beautiful house:

Kolby's lovely grandmother (Mimi):

 Mmmmmmm.......

 Mimi's awesome chocolate pie:

 Grandfather reigning at the head of the table:

So glad Christmastime is finally here!  Kolby is off work already (lucky dog!).  It's been a very busy week, but we're happy to get to celebrate Christmas with our friends and family.  Let the festivities continue....

Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful time celebrating Thanksgiving in Wimberley with Kolby's family.  There was plenty of eating, relaxing, reading, college football, and more eating.

We even managed to take a few family pictures while everyone was together: 

We tried to get a picture for our Christmas card, but we failed for two reasons.  1) Maya got into some wild mushrooms, went on a bad trip and then threw up twice, resulting in her being less than eager to cooperate.  2) After we took several pictures, figuring we had surely gotten at least one good one, we called it quits--- only to look at the pictures later and see that Kolby looked rather.... crippled.  Somehow his skinny legs combined with a weird camera angle, ghostly pale ankles and Toms shoes to make him look a bit like Tiny Tim.  I laughed so hard it almost made it worth it :)

When she wasn't off hunting for shrooms, Maya would find a peaceful spot to keep watch and refused to come to us when we called for her since she knew she was well within our eyesight.  Too bad she wasn't aware of how hard she is to find out there:

On our way home today, we took the back roads to avoid traffic and stopped off in a small town along the way for a quick lunch.  When we came back out to our car, guess who had parked next to us?

There was a plastic bag filled with who-knows-what stuffed inside the deer, and its eyes were open and its tongue hanging out.  Keeping it classy.

Now we're home, watching The Muppet Christmas Carol and counting the days until we can go get our tree and put our lights up!