These boots...

 were made for walkin.

So this past weekend I went out and purchased myself my first pair of boots!

Pretty exciting in my sheltered world!  I hate spending a  lot of money on clothes and boots can be fairly expensive.  However, they really are cute with outfits and a few weeks ago I bought a pair of special "peek-a-boot" socks to wear with my non-existent boots.  

I love them!  Wore them to church last night.

Guess who else loves them?

Maggie & Colin :)

 Lookin good Mags!

She could barely stand up in them, let alone walk...

Colin the cowboy!

Just another usual night at our house...

Merry Christmas from the Tesons

Merry Christmas!

We had such a wonderful few days, spending time together with our friends and family.

We spent almost all of Christmas Eve over at Brian's parents house.  It was, as usual, lots of fun, filled with Scattegories, good humor, good food, and awesome people!

I forgot my camera at home, but Katie promised me some of her pictures later.

We all got some great presents, especially our family,  because we got an IPAD!  Can't wait to use it.

The kids got some really cool games, baby dolls, pajamas, books, balloons and more.

We went off to 7 pm mass, and I was very anxious to see how Maggie was going to behave, especially since 7 pm is when she is normally asleep.  She ended up doing pretty well, and it wasn't very crowded in our pew.  Phew, feel like I dodged a bullet with that one!

We came home and set our camera to self-timer mode, because I was just determined to get a good picture of our family all dressed up for Christmas Mass.

The Teson Family - 2012

We quickly changed into some pajamas and got the milk, cookies, and carrots ready for Santa and his reindeer.  We even wrote Santa a note to tell him how much we love him and thanked him for coming to our house.  

 Colin and Mags, patiently waiting for Santa

Colin woke up at 6:40 am and hurried into our room, telling us about how he heard Santa's boots and him eating cookies last night.  

We grabbed Maggie (who didn't sleep at all that night because she was up coughing and crying, probably on her way to getting really sick) and headed downstairs to check out the tree.

Santa had filled our stockings and brought Colin a lego table and Maggie a play kitchen.

What great presents!

The kids played with their toys while I made cinnamon rolls and some egg/bacon muffins, then we tackled the rest of the gifts.

 Maggie got a Curious George movie

 Colin got a few new movies, too!

 Daddy got some tshirts and a personalized coffee mug and a new tie

 Colin's big gift from Mom and Dad was a Leappad game system.  

He got a Toy Story game, a Cars game (from Olivia) and a writing game

Colin and Daddy trying out his video game while Maggie took a morning nap.  She was exhausted.

We might just lounge around in our pajamas all morning.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Christmas Happenings...

Phew, we have been busy at the Teson household.

We went and visited Santa last week, went to Maggie's 18 month check up, made some Christmas cookies,  had our first snow-fall for Kansas City, Meemaw came into town to celebrate the Dudley side Christmas, and we are just beginning to rev-up with Christmas fun at our house.

Maggie's check-up went well, but she's just a tiny little peanut.

She's about 75% for her height, but only 3-10% for her weight (21 pounds).  I guess I am thankful she doesn't weigh too much since I pretty much am carrying her around everywhere still.

Colin and Daddy made some cookies last week, just for fun.

It went really well and I'm very glad Brian spearheaded that whole project.

Cutting out the cookie dough

 Taste-testing the frosting, of course.

 Showing off the decorated cookies 

(he only frosted a few because he needed to get to bed)

We got about 3 inches of snow up by our house on Thursday morning.
Colin was really looking forward to playing in it and building a snowman.

The drive to work that normally takes about 40 minutes (dropping the kids off at daycare and getting to work) took me over 2 hours that morning.  The wind was blowing about 50 miles an hour and made it almost impossible to see the roads.  Fun times!

 Brian and Colin hard at work shoveling our driveway

 Mags and I stayed inside making dinner and wearing Colin's slippers ;)

 The boys, all bundled up, ready to tackle the snow

 Maggie decided later on that she wanted to join in on the fun,

but only for about 2 minutes (literally!)

Took us longer to get all her snow-gear on that she ended up playing outside, oh well!

 Colin with his little brother snowman that he built

 Meemaw and Mag hanging out with CJ

 Tiff, Chad and Colin frosting some cookies

 Licking the extra sprinkles

(and Tiff and Chad laughing about Colin's finger choice!)

 The finished products

They were sooo yummy!

  Brian and Chad were playing outside in the snow (I swear they are just grown-up little kids!)

and they were throwing snowballs at our kitchen windows.

 Once again, Mags hung out inside, reading some cool books that Aunt Tiffey brought

 The much bigger snowman that the boys built in our backyard.

It's probably going to be there for months!

 It's pretty dang tall, probably 6'3" or so...

Later, we can inside and opened some gifts...

Some of the highlights were...

   Kansas City Royals BlueCrew package from Tiff and Chad

 Lots of fun new books!

 A set of Magna Tiles from Meemaw!

 Some cute PJ's and clothes, too!

We had some AWESOME prime rib roast that Meemaw made, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and dinner rolls.

And, once again, Maggie sat on the counter eating the cookies

(hey, if I can get some dishes done, it's worth it!)

We had a wonderful Dudley family Christmas!

Even Tiff and Chad's doggy Scooter came to visit.

Visiting Santa

 This afternoon was our big day for visiting Santa.

We go to Crown Center and see him in Crayola-land.

We've been talking about seeing him for a few days now, and Colin was ready to talk to him about what he wanted for Christmas.

We were just hoping Maggie wouldn't throw too big of a fit sitting on his lap.

She's been attached to me for a while now, we weren't sure how it was going to go.

(but first, a couple of pictures from a few nights ago.  I know, the suspense is killing you!)

We busted out the Guitar Hero after dinner one night.  Colin thought Brian and I were awesome rock stars (we are, right?!)

Maggie wanted a turn, too.  She got boo-ed off stage fairly quickly, but had fun trying!

 We woke up the next morning and found Buzz the elf riding our train that goes under the Christmas tree.  Silly elf!

Okay, back to the Santa visit...

We decided we should probably just play for a few minutes to get the kids used to the idea of sitting in Santa's lap.  You could see Santa from the play area and Colin was watching all the other kids.  So far, so good.

 Maggie thought the trick mirrors were awesome.

 Giving Daddy a high-five.

About this time, Colin really wanted to go see Santa, so we headed over to wait in line (which there wasn't one, so I barely had a chance to wipe Maggie's nose before it was our turn).

Well, this is what we got...

 Colin did awesome, Maggie, not so much.

Colin talked to Santa about being a good boy this year and asked him for "Toy Story 3".
As it turns out, Santa really likes Toy Story, too, and asked who his favorite character was.

Buzz and Woody, of course! :)

We headed off to play a little bit more.

 2 seconds later, Maggie was happy as a clam and was loving life!

 What a cheeseball!

 So we played a little bit more and tried again...

 Colin did awesome (again), Maggie, not so much (again)

Oh well, maybe next year...

 We stopped at the Candy Store (mainly to get our parking ticket validated) and the kids got to pick out a treat.  We had so much fun!

Stopped by and grabbed some Subway for dinner.

Maggie's got her 18 month check-up tomorrow, with some more shots.  

She'll be really mad at me then.

Only one more week til Christmas! :)

Decorating the Gingerbread houses

We decorated the Gingerbread Houses ate a lot of candy that was supposed to go on the Gingerbread Houses a couple of nights ago.

The kids had SO much fun!  They definitely didn't turn out like the pictures on the box, but Colin got to be creative and so did Brian and I.

Maggie just sat on the counter eating the icing.  Good parenting, I know :)

Lots of snacking on candy that night...

Hard at work...

Proudly displaying their houses.

This is going to be something we do every year.

It was a good idea to split it up into 2 nights, would've been a lot to do in one setting.

My favorite house

Later that night, Colin decided to color a picture for Santa Claus.

He thought it would be nice for Buzz the elf to take this to the North Pole for Santa.

Random side note, Colin has been rockin' his potty chart lately and we owe him another trip to Chuck E Cheese tomorrow night.  I am so glad I am done with classes for the semester and we can do trips like this during the week.  Yeah for Christmas Break!