Christmas Morning

Jason's family came over, Kate and Maddie were there and I loved it! The Holidays can be busy and a little stressful but it is all worth it when you get to spend so much time with family. Tyler woke up at his usual time (7:30ish) and came up to the stairs over the family room and just got a big smile on his face when he saw everything!

We went and got Colby out of bed and he didn't know what to think. He wanted to play and get into everything (Oh, is he two?!). The kiddos had a great morning and it is such a joy to watch them look/open everything.

Christmas Eve

Since my sister had to work on Christmas Eve, Maddie got to hang out with us all day. I tried to think of something entertaining for us to do and came up with the idea of making cookies - who doesn't love to do that?!! Colby could not participate much and really didn't want too, so worked out pretty good. Maddie loves art and loves to color things so she thought this was a great idea and Tyler really like to bake. Check out some of our cookies...

Kate got off a little early and came over Christmas Eve and we had some good food, wine and munchies to eat. Growing up, we always got to open up one present on Christmas Eve so of course, that is the way we do it, too. Tyler, Colby and Maddie opened up a little rinky dink toy then after that we had to go and put reindeer food out on the lawn. The rest of the night we let the kids play, eat too much sugar, set cookies out for Santa then off to bed!

Christmas in OK

We went up the Sunday before Christmas to have Christmas with my parents, sister and brother. I have not seen my brother in a while so it was good to see him, his wife and his little girl, Alyssa. We had a great time talking and hanging out. We just stayed up there for the day but had fun getting to see everyone. My parents got Tyler something he wanted really bad... the Planet Heroes Turbo Shuttle!

Ski Trip - Part 1

We decided to take our first family ski trip this year and it turned out pretty good! Tyler had a great time playing in the snow and he also really enjoyed skiing. Colby was a little unsure of all the 'cold white stuff' but he seemed to have a good time. Tyler really enjoyed going on the 'Big Jet' and luckily, somehow, Colby fell asleep during take off and stayed asleep for the majority of the flight.


We stayed in a 2 bedroom 3 bath condo. The condo was really nice - it had granite countertops, cool stone fireplace, a heated garage (great feature), really nice decor and furnishings throughout. We were only 1/2 mile away from the slopes (if that) so it made it really easy getting to and from. We decided to rent a car so that we could put the boys in the car seats and have the freedom to go when we wanted. Of course, Daddy Duda had to have the biggest car available so we wound up with a 4x4 Expedition - it was brand new, too, with only 160 miles on it.

Allen Community Outreach

THis year we wanted to give back in ways other than just donating money so I decided to sign up to sponsor a child for Christmas. Allen has a program through the ACO and you get to choose if you would like to sponser a child, teen, or senior adult... you also get to choose the sex so of course I chose a little boy!! We ended up getting an 18 month old so it was that much sweeter since Colby was his same age! He asked for some V-tech baby games and some socks. I may have gone a little overboard but since they asked for so little I felt that they were not trying to take advantage of anyone and it made me want to buy more. We got him several different little outfits, like 10 pairs of socks, an aquadoodle, some baby v-tech games and a couple other little cars, small toys. Colby went with me to drop off the bag of goodies and you should have seen the gymnasium floor. It was covered with the same black trash bags full of goodies and tons and tons of bikes. It was nice to see all the items people donated!