Christmas

We had a wonderful Christmas celebration a couple of weeks ago. Carly also turned nine months old over the break, so I will have to do a write up on her next week. We spread Christmas out over the course of the first week. Our first stop was Shreveport, LA where Zack's sister lives. Lauren had worked so hard to make it a special Christmas at her house. However, on our way there Lauren called and told us that all three of her kids had the flu! They woke up with a fever and after taking them to the doctor discovered that they had the flu. After discussing it together and with our doctors we felt it was best that we did not come. We felt horrible about it, but it was just too risky even with us all having the flu shot. We were only 40 miles away at that point. We were in the car for 6 hours that day. Carly and Kate actually did quite well. Then, two days later we decided to just drive up for the day and surprise everybody but Lauren. We told her so that she could be expecting us. It was a great surprise and totally worth it. The kids no longer had a fever so it seemed safe to come. We got there about 10:30 am and left around 8:00 pm that night. It was great to have even a day as a family and to open up our gifts and celebrate. Lauren had a delicious arrangement of food and their house was so beautiful and festive with all the decorations. Thank you Lauren for all that you did.

Debbie and Lauren

We love how Carly likes to lay her head on our shoulders. She has such a sweet and shyness about her!

Mom Mom and Kate playing together.

What a table!

Yummy!

Our attempt at taking a picture with all the grandkids and grandparents.

We got back into town on December 22 and then woke up on Christmas Eve to find out that Santa decided to leave some toys for Kate and Carly at Nana and Papa's house. So we drove to Grapevine for the day to see what Santa brought. I guess they had been extra good this year! We stayed the whole day to also open up presents with the rest of the Tate family. Here Kate is sharing with Papa some of her treasures!

The three little girls

Our family

I love this picture of Kate and Aubrey!

Zack and me

Me and Kamara

Kate loves this rocking horse! Laci always does such a good job playing with Kate!

That night we came back home so we could wake up and see what Santa brought us at our house, too! Zack reading The Night Before Christmas with the girls.

Santa came to our house, too!

Kate enjoyed playing with Carly's toys,too.

I don't have all my pictures because I got a new camera and the pictures were not uploading. I will have to post some more pictures later. Zack has been saving his money for a smoker to smoke meat and over the break he purchased one! We had some of our college friends over on December 30 and Zack smoked some pulled pork and ribs. They were incredible! He had to get up in the middle of the night to start it. It definitely paid off! We had such a blast. After the kids went to bed at our house we talked and played a game. I laugh more with these people than anybody else! I love these guys!

Here are the guys: Brent, Rod, Chris and Zack

The girls:Merry, Kamara, me and Erika

Merry and Chris

Overall, we had a great Christmas break! We spent the first week traveling and the second week at home. It was so nice to have Zack off work for both weeks. He would take Kate out and I would stay home and get things done with Carly. It was awesome! I look back at 2010 and feel blessed to have our new addition Carly to our family. We also saw God work in so many ways from Ryleigh's survival to Jason's recovery. We are definitely blessed. We look forward to seeing how God continues to bless our life in 2011. Thank you all for you love and support for our family.