a texas christmas

this past weekend we drove down to fort worth for christmas with mymichael's family.  his sister had twins in april and we hadn't seen them since may, so we were excited to spend some time with the family.  saturday evening we had christmas at his uncle mitch and aunt maggie's beautiful house.  the picture above are sandi's {mymichael's sister} two oldest...katelyn & brent.  here are some pics from the night....

i also learned how to make his mother's chicken and dumplings.  apparently those are the only chicken and dumplings in his world {although he did say that cracker barrell is a decent substitute when hers aren't available}.  i'll have to post the recipe at some point...they were pretty yummy. 

i also got to spend some time with my best friend anna!  i made the drive from fort worth to dallas early friday morning.  we grabbed starbuck's and then headed up to ikea where i got a lot of christmas shopping done.  on our way back to the galleria we drove through our old apartments...austin ranch.  oh how we loved living there...we were across the pond from each other.  on the weekends in the summer we would claim our lounge chairs at the pool closest to us and relax all day saturday and many sundays as well.  it was glorious!  we headed back to the galleria mall where we met up with tiffany and had lunch at mi cocino and stared at the huge christmas tree on the ice skating rink. 

when i lived in dallas i worked at am design associates and our offices were in one of the galleria towers....so during lunch...or breaks...we would get to eat and shop around {yea...mymichael just loved that!}.  after lunch tiff had to go back to work but anna and i hit up the new 2-story forever 21.  great store but there is just so much stuff!  to finish off the afternoon we had a fat straw smoothie w/ bubbles and then i had to head back to fort worth before traffic got bad.  ha!  it still took me over an hour....there is always traffic...one of the things i don't miss about DFW! 

and finally to wrap up...here are some cute pics of the twins....meet brooklyn...

and sadie...

i think they look like little elfs in this one.  sadie always has her toes in her mouth and brooklyn always has her fingers in her mouth...but yet they will not take a pacifier!  i guess who needs one when you have toes and fingers...right?

the crew...brent, sadie, brooklyn & katelyn

yay for early christmas's!