2016 Books Read--July to December

In June I posted my listing of books read for the first half of the year. After a few years of hit or miss reading with young kids, I finally got back into the swing of reading this year! January to June I finished 11 books. Here are the books I completed July to December:

• The Book Thief by Markus Zuzak
• The Kitchen House by Kathleen Grissom
• Divine Secrets of the Ya Ya Sisterhood by Rebecca Wells
• The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery
• The Bean Trees by Barbara Kingsolver

Only 5 completed books the second half of the year, but I had a baby! Also, these books are all in progress:

• The Happiest Toddler on the Block by Harvey Karp
• Catching Fire, Becoming Flame by Albert Hass
• The Whole Brain Child by Daniel J Segel and Tina Pain Bryson
• The Swans of Fifth Avenue by Melanie Benjamin
• The Five Love Languages of Children by Gary D Chapman

Dallas Christmas

We celebrated Christmas with my family the weekend before Christmas. We left Friday afternoon after Big Bro got out of school. It was a 6 hour trip, but the boys were so well behaved! When we finally arrived we had our annual Sibling Gift Exchange with my siblings. 

Saturday morning we celebrated Christmas at my parents house. 

Big Bro was super excited about his Lego set.

We had lunch and played with toys. Nicholas went to a Bachelor party. I watched White Christmas with my mom. Then we headed back to Logan' s house where the kids had some cousin bonding time and we watched The Santa Claus Trilogy. It got super cold Saturday night, so we just stayed in.

Sunday morning, Logan's power went out around 8:15am. We waited a bit to see if it would come back on. When it didn't, we packed the kids up and headed to breakfast at Panera. We came back and packed our stuff up. Nicholas ran around outside with the boys while we said our goodbyes. Then we headed back to Austin. Thankfully it took less than 6 hours!

Second Week of Advent

The Second Week of Advent  started with the Christmas pageant at church. Big Bro was the star, Lil' Bro was a dove and Baby Bro was Baby Jesus.

We helped Nicholas' parents get their Christmas tree, and the boys cut the bottom off the tree.

Friday night we visited the Buda Trail of Lights. It was cold and a fabulous evening of Christmas fun!

Saturday we went to a little reunion party for Big Bro's preschool class. They had a snowball fight, decorated cookies, played games, watched a Christmas movie, and ate pizza. It was a blast!

Baby Bro's Baptism

We were blessed to celebrate Baby Bro's baptism the weekend after Thanksgiving, the first Sunday of Advent. He was baptized by Pastor Felix. His sponsors are Kathryn Turman and Laura Bohl.

Lil' Bro loves Baby Bro! Really, we all do!