Welcome 2012

From our family to yours we wish you health and happiness this new year!  We are looking forward to many adventures, not yet knowing what may be in store for us but excited for what is to come.

Sea World Christmas

We've been super busy the past few weeks, parties, outings, baking, Christmas, you know the normal holiday craziness.  Not to mention I used up our computers hardrive with all my photos and we had to have a new one put in so I'm pretty far behind with the blog.  Here we go, I'll start with our trip to Sea World to see all the beautiful Christmas decorations and seasonal shows.  We had a great time and it was seasonably cold so it really made it feel Christmas-y.

waiting to pat the sting ray

entrance to the candy cane village

they had themed snowmen throughout the park

see O in there?

totally texas!

waiting to feed the ducks, Norah's favorite place in the whole park

watching a sesame street show to which the girls exclaimed "barney" who was actually elmo, they even made it snow at the end.  Norah was a bit too loud so her and I had to go back to the duck pond.

candy cane village all lit up at night, how festive is that?

the girls had to get a photo with the angel on top of the tree, even her dress lit up

O and Fin in front of all the lights

We got to go see all this totally free thanks to here's to the hereos program, if you are military and live near one of those theme parks you should totally take advantage of it.  We used it at Busch Garden in virginia every year and again here in texas, we appreciate it every time!

Doughnuts

Sunday at the Welch house is generally doughnut day.  Kev takes the three big kids to our local independent doughnut store (our old favorite closed down, bummer), it's their favorite morning of the week I swear.  Finley eats at least a dozen of the holes herself, she can't get enough.

Even Norah gets in on it

Can you tell Daddy lets them pick their own??

Our Santa flies a jet

Here are a few photos from our squadron kids Christmas party, I'm a bit behind with my blogging as Kev was gone for a week and I was out numbered 1:4 with little people.  Santa came in a jet to meet the kids, they were super impressed but more excited about getting a gift from him.  Even Norah was interested in him his beard.

we see him!

notice the girls right up front

telling Santa she wants pretty dancing shoes for Christmas

Doing their crafts and loading up on sugar

Too many kids in my tub

I don't think we could possible fit anymore in..

One of many

We had 3 different Christmas parties last weekend, the kids have seen Santa 5-6 times already and we're barely into the first week of december.  This one was at the amenity center in our neighborhood, we live in the best neighborhood ever.  They had the most amazing face painters and balloon makers, free food and all kinds of Christmas festivities, all free (did I mention I want to live here forever).

O got an angry bird

The girls were in heaven, all the makeup and glitter, they didn't move the entire time they were getting done up.

after seeing the girls glitter O requested some holly with glitter, we're an equal opportunity family here.

The also each got a balloon animal, O got a penguin, Keira got a butterfly and Finley got a bracelet and purple sword.

I should have gotten them all dressed up nice and gotten their pictures taken before the whole face-painting session but I wasn't thinking.  How awesome is this Santa??  They absolutely love Santa this year, especially Finley.  If we're still here next year I will be much better prepared...

He's back

Elfie has been with us since Thanksgiving night, now that the kids are older we've decided to step it up a notch.  He flew in on Owen's Hess jet and left a trail of marshmallows all over the house, the kids couldn't believe the mess he'd made (I didn't get a photo cause the snatched up the marshmallows too quick).  Here are a few other things he's been up to:

 notice the book off to the right of this picture, he brings in back and forth to Santa and leaves messages for the kids in it.

We watched the Elf on the shelf movie the night before he came and it was hysterical, it was about an older brother and twin sisters.  The older brother did not believe and Santa anymore and was not the nicest - he wanted to name their elf stinky pants.  I swear it was a perfect reflection of my three monsters and they really got into the movie.  The little boy ended up touching their elf and he lost his magic, he had to write a letter to Santa asking to please send their elf back and that he was sorry.  The kids are now very serious about not touching Elfie, good thing they didn't see Norah crawling around with him in her mouth the other day!