I love my family! They love me so much! And I love them! My sister, Cara;  brother-n-law, James & brother, Neil all surprised me last week for my birthday! It was such a beautiful surprise! We ate lots of good food, played lots of games, went to a bonfire, talked alot and just enjoyed being together! I love them so much!  Thanks for the surprise…good times!

We started the day with a birthday pancakes for Jesus

Santa Brought Whitaker a Bike!

Santa brought Campbell a Musical Train!

A New Drum Set for our LIttle Drummer Boy!

Christmas PJs

Christmas in Lafayette

Papa with His Grandsons, Benjamin & Tyler

We had an incredible Christmas Day! It was laid back, relaxing and so sweet. We went to Lafayette to Tyler’s Mom’s Side of the Family. Thank you Aunt Dianne & Uncle Blaine for hosting us. Papa read the Christmas story and gave us all great perspective yet again about how life is all about loving and knowing the Lord Jesus Christ.  We are such a blessed family for having such a strong spiritual leader and patriarch! Everyone was in tears as we all prayed together and thanking God for our Papa. We love him!  Each year gets sweeter and sweeter. Thank you Jesus for all you’ve done for us! Your birth changed everything! Christmas will always be about you…no matter how many trimmings, traditions and presents there are!

Meghann & Seth

Whitaker & Stephen Elmo

The Tullos Brothers

Almost Everybody (We missed you Jan Lane, Kyle & Amber, Jackson & Jacqulyn)

Banana Raisin Bread PuddingVanilla Chocolate Filled Cupcakes with Swiss Meringe Buttercream Icing

Christmas Cookies

Ginger Cupcakes with Butter and Chocolate Glazes

Chocolate Cupcake Snowmen

Tripple Chocolate Cheesecake

Warm & Cozy Pear Cran Crisp

 

I’ve been baking for days! I was in charge of all the desserts for the Tullos Christmas Party. They were all so good, and pretty!

Granny Lu and Pack Pack sent the boys Christmas presents early. We got them as we were about to pull out of the house and Whiatker insisted that we open them right then! So we opened them in the car…

Whiatker got a Playskool Nativity Scene and Campbell got the Veggie Tales St. Nicholas Story! They love them both! Thanks Granny Lu and Pack Pack!

Whitaker’s best buddy, Nathaniel, had his 3rd birthday this weekend. It was at City Park…only in LA can you have an outside bday party in December! Whit loves him and they had a blast playing together! I got a bunch of cute pics!

Tyler’s Au Pair, Susie, from when he was 4 got married this past weekend. They have known each other for 22 years, and have remained close family friends with her. She asked Tyler to officiate her wedding! It was so special. He did a great job, and Ty & Susie were beautiful together. We love weddings! He’s my cute preacher man!

Every year our Epic Youth hosts an awesome Christmas party, called Twisted. Instead of an average Christmas party we twist something around and make it fun and crazy…for example this year we had a Willy Wonka theme and we had everyone dress up as either a character in Willy Wonka or to “twist” it and dress all crazy like you would see in the chocolate factory.

So…here are a few pics! We had a blast!

I was a crazy lady, and Tyler was Augutus Gloop...the boys went as little gloopes.

Our Worship Leader dressed as a Oompa Loompa

Since August I have been working on two Christmas quilts and shams for my boys. It was my fall project. I have never quilted before…so there were definitely lots of late nights, lots of calls to my step mom who is a quilting pro, and lots of seem ripping! But I finally finished about a week ago, and I vowed never to do it again…UNTIL…Whitaker said “mommy, can I have some hot chocolate and snuggle under my Christmas quilt?” My heart melted and all the quilting heartache went away! I would do it all over again for my sweet boys!

We made a home-made advent calendar this year, and on Day 15 we were supposed to watch Frosty the Snowman and make a snowman so Daddy and Whitaker made a snowman out of marshmellows. Whitaker loved it and the snowman tasted yummy! We do what we have to do in order to play with “snow” here in Baton Rouge.