The Phillips: Jumping the Gun on Christmas a little....

Well, I said I wanted to post more than just once a month, and looks like that ain't happenin'! Oops! Life just gets in the way! Oh well!

This month has been kind of crazy. We just got through the whirlwind of Thanksgiving travels thinking we were just staying here as a family for Christmas, but we were persuaded to go back down to the ranch for after Christmas. Then, Matt found out that he would be out on a well site for actual Christmas, so I thought, "There's NO WAY I'm going to spend Christmas by ourselves with just the girls here!". So, I changed my plane ticket and we'll be in Humble for Christmas, then going to the Ranch the day after. Matt was supposed to be out at his well site since Tuesday, but they've kept him so busy at the office that he can't even get away for work! It's just crazy! So, tomorrow we leave for Humble, and I'm pretty excited, but pretty stressed because I still need to do laundry and pack all of us!

Anyway, my point to the whole above story was that since we'll be out of town for Christmas, we had Christmas here early. Santa came early, and he knew he needed to because we left a message with Woody, our elf on the shelf. Here's a couple pictures of the girls opening gifts....Aubrey got a new bike from Santa, and Maci got a giraffe rocker :)

Of course, We had to keep an eye on Maci, because her favorite thing was ribbons and paper! And this little piano/xylophone thing :)

I also want to add a few of the pictures that my best friend, Taryn, took of us at Thanksgiving. They're some great Christmas pictures of the girls, and then a few family shots. I'm sure most of these were seen through facebook or our Christmas card, but I'll add a few more here...

Isn't she an amazing photographer?! My only regret is that I didn't bring outfits to get more that were non Christmas photos. Because these are also serving as Maci's 6 month pictures. Oh well...I'll take the beautiful ones that I got! :)

Now that I've updated on our early Christmas, I should probably say a little about Thanksgiving! I already mentioned that we traveled home for that time, too...the girls and I flew in to Houston and spent a few days with my family, and then we went over to the Ranch and spent time there with Matt's whole side of the family, plus my parents and grandma came up there for a couple of days, too. It was a wonderful, relaxing visit with everyone, and of course, the boys got to hunt! Matt's brother, Ryan, shot a whitetail buck during his first Thanksgiving hunt, then my dad shot a hog (and got the pleasure of seeing LOTS of wildlife out there!), and on the last hunt, Todd (Matt's younger brother) was able to take down a trophy Axis buck. Matt shot nothing. Sad for him (and our freezer! :() There was lots and lots of delicious food prepared by everyone (mainly Jane and Paul!), and we also had a little bit of our Christmas after the big dinner with the Phillips' side of the family. All that being said, I'll just leave you with a few pictures!