Today I am 97-months old

Happy 2014!

It's been a terrific month - my favorite of the whole year. There are so many fun things our family does to celebrate and get ready for Christmas and this year was no exception. I hope you and your family had a great holiday season full of fun memories.

After my birthday, we got into the full swing of Christmas. First up was buying our annual Christmas tree. We went together as a family and decorated it together. Dad says me and Cara are a big help. We also decorate Christmas cookies with mom. Cara sure does like her sprinkles!

Daddy took Cara to her first ever Daddy-Daughter dance. They had a great time. Cara is still wearing her beloved red, sparkle boots that were first seen with her Wonder Woman costume. Who knew that there were so many uses for them (oh, she wore them on Christmas too!). Don't they look great! 

Another fun family event is the annual cookie decorating contest at Grandma's house. For those not familiar with this tradition, each year we all gather at Grandma's to decorate lots of cookies. There are 2 divisions - kids and adult. Grandpap is the judge and after meticulous consideration and review, the pool of cookies is narrowed to one winner in each division. The cookies are then proudly displayed in the china cabinet at Grandma's house. There is a lot of fun rivalry between everyone. All and all, it's a good time. 

We also met up with our long-time friends for our annual gingerbread house decorating. It was a lot of fun to get together with the Hodges and the Karlinski's. This year, our city's football team played in the state championship game. We went to the game and had a great time - mostly because the Allen Eagles WON! (Please note, Cara's red boots!)

Cara also sang in our Church's annual Christmas pageant. This is the same pageant where she was the baby Jesus five years ago! Last year she was a pig, so an angel is a definite upgrade.

Christmas was wonderful and magical. We loved spending time with family. Christmas Eve was spent at Grandma and Grandpap's house. I introduced what I hope will be a new Christmas tradition - The Christmas Soccer tournament. This is what Cara and I planned when we were iced in earlier in the month. We told everyone about it on Christmas Eve. We all came up with team names and logos. Everyone was their own team, except for one special team - The Princesses, which was Cara and Aunt Melinda! Aunt Melinda did a great job of making logos for everyone. Everyone played and had a good time. The game came down to Mom v. Uncle Mike. Uncle Mike won, but Mom hung in there! 

Christmas morning was at our house and Santa came! He brought me a Nerf night vision football. Cara got a Rainbow Loom. We got iPad Minis from Mom and Dad, which have been a lot of fun. Cara enjoys making videos and I like playing a variety of games and reading on it. 

The rest of school break was filled with good times. We celebrated Aunt Beth's birthday at Hibachi Rock and an Allen American's hockey game. We went bowling, looked at lights, went to the Chinese Lantern festival and watched a lot of football. I loved watching Johnny Manziel lead the Aggies back to victory! Mom and Dad went away for a couple days, which meant we got to stay at Camp Grandma! Grandma and Aunt Beth took us to see a Disney production at the event center. I went to a basketball camp and Cara went to a dance camp. It was a lot of fun to be out of school for a couple weeks. 

Our basketball season started this month. I received the "Hustle" award at our first game! The award went to the player who had the most hustled and played hard. I was honored to receive it. 

It was a pretty full month, that's for sure. We put together this video of all the fun stuff we did this last month. I hope you enjoy it! 

I hope you have a great 2014!

Love, Sean