Have a Holly Jolly Christmas

Andy and I absolutely love Christmas!  We get two weeks off from school, we spend a lot of time with our families, we eat really good food, we get to give and receive presents, everyone is happy, and it's our Savior's birth.  What's not to like about Christmas!?!

Christmas really snuck up on us this year.  Our last day of work was Friday, and we left to visit my family in Shiner on Sunday.  Thankfully we had already been done with all of our shopping for about a week.  We celebrated Christmas with FIVE families this year.... So bear with me, this could take a while.

Christmas #1.  Andy's grandmother on his dad's side.  Weekend before Christmas. 
We always "exchange" stocking gifts at Mimi's house.  You saw the stocking stuffers I made in a previous post.  We met at Kellan's (Andy's aunt) house for snacks and stockings on Saturday afternoon.  We really enjoyed catching up with Andy's family!

Christmas #2.  My mom's house. Sunday before Christmas. 
We ate snack food during the afternoon and had burgers for dinner.  We exchanged gifts with my mom, my step-dad, Kevin (my brother), Blair (Kevin's girlfriend, and Jaimee (the foreign exchange student living with my parents).  We had a great time and really enjoyed everyone's company.

Blair and Kevin

Andy and I

My brother and I

Andy, me, Jaimee, Blair, Kevin

My mom and her two children!

My mom and step-dad

Christmas #3.  My Granny and Popo's house.  Christmas Eve. 

This has always been a BIG celebration because there are just so many people.  My grandparents have 6 children of their own, and they are all married with children.  We have only one great-grandchild but lots of grandchildren.  We always fry fish and fries for our meal with lots of desserts.  We sing Christmas songs and say prayers.  It's such a good time of loudness, drinking, fun and fellowship.  I couldn't imagine my family being any other way.

Jillian (my cousin) and I
We could be sisters!

Me, Blair, Jillian

Me and Blair
Love her!

The whole family!

My mom and I

Christmas #4.  Our house.  Christmas morning. 

We drive home late Christmas Eve night and get up early Christmas morning for Andy and I to celebrate Christmas together.  One day it will be us and our kids, but until then it's just us and our furry kids.  This is probably our favorite celebration.  Just Andy and I.  Andy opens his presents first, one at a time, and then it's my turn.  Then we do our stockings, and then our pets' stocking.  Yes, Maddie Mae and Lonestar have stockings too.  They used to get lots of presents, but now they pretty much have everything they need so it's a few treats and toys.

 

Christmas #5.  Andy's parents house.  Christmas morning. 

As soon as we've opened our presents and the pets have eaten at least one of their treats, we head over to Andy's parents house for Christmas there.  It's crazy!!  We have us, Andy's parents, Maddie, Lonestar, and Sawdust.  There's tissue and wrapping paper all over the floor.  Seriously, it's a madhouse!  But we love it.  After opening presents and stockings, we head back home and go through all of our presents and then head back to Andy's parents for a mid-afternoon lunch.

Andy and I
Maddie wouldn't cooperate for the picture.

Andy's parents and Sawdust

The Rice Family

Seriously, we love Christmas.  Thank you God for the birth of your Son, our Savior.  We would be nothing without You.  Thank you for your many blessings that you give us every year.  Thank you for a healthy family to celebrate with.  Ultimately, thank you for sending Your Son to die for our sins so that we can live with You eternally.  Jesus is the real reason for the season.

 

New Gun

Last spring Andy bought me a Smith & Wesson .38 Special.  I absolutely LOVE it!  I have taken it to the range, and I must admit, I'm not too bad of a shot.  After the recent gun control push, I told Andy that if he really wanted a 9mm that he needed to buy it soon.  Little did I know that soon was going to be this past weekend.  He found the perfect gun at Academy.  It's a Sig Sauer 9mm P250. 

While we were in Shiner for Christmas, Andy had a chance to try out his new gun.  My parents live outside of the Shiner city limits, so he was able to shoot on their property which was nice since the the local gun range was closed.  Andy was extremely pleased with the gun's accuracy and performance.  He wasn't too bad of a shot either!!

First shots... Not bad!

 

 

He's not a bad shot!

 

Holiday Crafting

I have done some "holiday crafting" over the last couple of weeks, so I wanted to share.... :)

Christmas cards.  I already mentioned these in a previous post, but here is the finished product.  I was very excited about them!  

Front of card

Inside of card

At Andy's grandmother's house, we buy stocking stuffers for everyone.  This year Andy came up with the idea of making the "recipe in a jar" mixes for everyone.  I found the recipes and did the crafting.  It was Andy's idea to use the Shiner Bock beer labels for the guys' gifts.  The girls got a cookie recipe and the guys got a beer bread recipe.  They were a huge hit!

 

Andy's mom decided to do something similar for her gifts for the neighbors.  I made the tags for her jars.  I thought they turned out quite nicely as well.  

No Dent!

We finally got the dent in my car fixed!  Yippee!!  No, the kid who hit it with the golf ball did not pay for it.  We filed a claim on our own insurance since our deductible was ridiculously low.  The crazy thing though is that it cost $1300 (including the car rental) to fix that little dent.  That's a lot of money for something so small.  But, I am just excited to have the dent gone and my car back!!

The dent is gone! :)

Exhausted, Tired, Worn out

Exhausted, tired, and worn out is the story of our life right now.  Our lives usually get this way around winter time every year, especially since it's basketball season.  We just seem extra tired this year.

Andy hasn't probably been in bed before midnight for the past two weeks.  On work days, he is at school by 6:30 am because the head of our maintenance department at school is too lazy too take 5 minutes to make a gym key for the freshman basketball coach.  Andy put in a request for the key about two weeks ago.  On top of early mornings, he doesn't get home until about 6:30 or 6:45 at night because of basketball practice.  Thankfully, I have gotten more sleep than Andy, not much more but still it's more.  I have been at school around 7:10 every morning because my afternoons are cut short by Andy's basketball games.  Yes, I am an extremely supportive wife, and I go to ALL of Andy's basketball games that are outside of my workday.  A lot of people think I'm crazy that I follow him everywhere, but I couldn't imagine not supporting him.  He doesn't receive a lot of support (actually hardly any) from the school we work at so I need to be there for him.

We are both very tired of our jobs.  Teaching is just not enjoyable anymore.  Andy's priority is coaching not teaching, but our education system and probably our school district puts more and more restrictions on extracurricular activities every year that it no longer seems worth it to be a coach.  Now, football coaches are definitely an exception to that rule since we do still live in Texas.  I, on the other hand, am tired of teaching kids who really don't care.  It's really tough to motivate those kids that look at you and tell you they never need what you're teaching them.  And it's true.  So, why am I teaching them to begin with?  I have seriously been considering getting my masters degree in math education so that I can teach at the collegiate level.  But we all know, Andy and I can't afford me pursuing higher education on our salaries.  We have some job options in our future, so we just keep praying asking God what His plan is.

Because we've been running around all over the place and because of Andy's coaching schedule, we have not been running/training for the half marathon we wanted to do at the end of February.  Running really is theraputic for Andy and I.  Plus, it's some quality time that we have together to just talk about anything.  Hopefully, his schedule will get better, and we'll be able to start running again.

Bottom line, it's been a tough last couple of weeks for us.  Actually, it's been a tough last few months for us.  I know I have no need to complain because someone else's problems are probably worse than mine.  We are healthy, have jobs, love each other, own our home (not renting), have two vehicles to drive, have good insurance that we can afford, have two pets that drive us crazy and then are cute and cuddly, have great parents who support and love us, have money to buy groceries, and last but not least we have a God who loves us unconditionally no matter how many times we disobey and fall short.  With all there is to be thankful for... it's still been tough.