New Year's Eve 2016

Is it really the end of 2016 already??!! I can't believe we have lived in SF so long already. We have had such a great Christmas Break and we ended it with a fantastic New Year's Eve party!!! We had fun food and played games and danced all night along with a little fun photo shoot!
Lyle asked for a new Chess board this year for Christmas. He has been teaching Ella and Luke to play chess for a long time now and his old board was getting pretty warn out so we got him a nice one this year. Much of our New Year's Eve party was spent playing Chess. Ella and Luke love playing with him!

Annabeth on the other hand spent much of the party dressed in her fancy new princess dress! This dress it the most important thing to her right now!

I set up a little photo booth for the party. We had a great time with it! Luke's facial expressions in these kill me!

 Oh how I love sweet Ella!

 Little Annabeth, you are my sunshine!

I really love this man!

Count down time!!!

Let's Celebrate!!!

 Photo BOMB!!

Oh 2016!! You have been interesting! I remember thinking before we moved to SF that we would be here the entire 2016 year. And now you have come and gone! You were a fantastic year. We have made a home here in SF during 2016 and now 2017 will find us leaving this home behind and starting over again. Leaving 2016 is so bittersweet to us. We really love it here but we know our future is not here so here's to 2017 and whatever our future may bring! All I ask, 2017, is that you keep our family as close together as we were in 2016! I love this little Burdine Family of mine! Keep watching over us sweet baby Eve! I feel your presence everyday.

Enjoying the rest of Christmas Break with Mims and Pa

Mims and Pa stayed with us until December 29th which gave us more time to do some fun things around the city. I have always wanted to take the kids to the Monterey Bay Aquarium which is about 2 hours south of SF so since we had the time and I had Mims' help we decided to give it a go! It is a nice drive down to Monterey. The kids were having fun right up until we parked the car to get out...two seconds before I grabbed AB out of the car she threw up everywhere!! Why she couldn't wait 2 more seconds I will never know! So we had to take a few minutes to clean her up and figure out what we were going to do next. I decided to go ahead and take her in...what else was I going to do? We got a plastic cup and kept is which us the whole time we were in the aquarium. Except for a terrible smell, she was actually fine!
The aquarium was amazing! My friend Karissa's mom lives about five minutes from the aquarium and actually has season passes so we got to go in for free....otherwise it would have cost us about $250 to get in! Here are some pics from the trip:

It was a really nice trip and I am so glad I got to mark it off my to do list!
The next night we took Mims and Pa to Chinatown for dinner. I didn't realize out of all their trips here we had never taken them.

We also took advantage of the quiet city and used the movie tickets my parents had gotten the kids for Christmas to watch the new kids movie "Sing". It was cute! They kids had gotten a $25 gift card along with their tickets to buy snacks at the theater. Ella and Luke were so proud of themselves because when they organized what they wanted to get to keep it under $25 the total came out to be $24.85! Ha! Mims got to go with us and AB fell asleep half way thru the movie! It was great!

 I'm also throwing in this picture of my new boots Mims got me just for kicks. I want the kids to look back on these memories and remember how stylish I was! Ha! Really I took this pic to send to my sister Julie because I love these new boots!

Christmas is finally here!

After we picked up Mims and Pa from the airport on the 23rd, we all felt that Christmas had finally gotten here! Mims and Pa were sending Christmas with us and we were so excited to finally get them here. The kids were up early on the 24th! We had a mound of presents under the tree and that was without the Santa presents that were coming later that night so its needless to say that by the 24th they were dying!! AB had know idea that there were actually toys inside all those presents otherwise I seriously doubt we would have made it to the 24th without one of them getting opened!
We played cards, ate lots of food, watched football and just enjoyed a lazy Christmas Eve. Unfortunately, Lyle was at work alllllllll day and didn't make it home until around 11pm! The Children's mass was at 5 and since the kids were in the play again this year we had to get there about an hour early. I was so thankful that Mims and Pa went with us! It helped keep AB calm! Here are some pics of our King and our angel...although you can barely see Ella behind the altar.

After we got home from Church we let the kids each open a gift...the one they had bought for each other. Luke got Ella a pin board she had wanted for her room, Ella got Luke a Duke shirt, and they got AB together a broom and dust pan set that she absolutely adored!! That is when she first realized there were toys in those pretty boxes!
After that excitement, they each got their PJs and quickly headed to bed....that is after they set out treats and wrote letters to Santa:

They went to bed without a peep! So excited for what the morning would bring! I always love this time of Christmas. After the kids go to sleep, I sit by the tree and marvel at the wonderful life we have been given...so many presents...so much love.
The next morning, Lyle had to quickly go into work before the kids got up. I told the kids the night before that they couldn't come out of their rooms until 7am which by then daddy would be home. I slept with AB in her room in the big bed. I could hear Ella and Luke stirring in their rooms around 6am but I knew Lyle wasn't home yet. Around 6:30 he called and said he was wrapping things up and should be home soon. AB had woken up and was playing in bed with me and since we couldn't go out of our rooms either I decided to Facetime Ella and Luke to make the time go faster. They were dying! They couldn't wait to run into the living room! Finally Lyle got home and around 7:05 they burst into the living room!
This is what we saw:

This year the kids got (if I can remember):
Ella: electric blanket, Ella ring, clothes, boots, clay, Monopoly, daily planner from mims, helmet, and some other things.
Luke: huge nerf gun, high tops, spy gear, clothes, watch, NFL sized football and some other stuff.
AB: kitchen with all the accessories, sophia princess dress with wand and shoes, bath tub toys, toy cookies
Family; lazer tag guns, lazer tag cars, hot chocolate maker, drone, air pump, movie tickets with gift card for snacks (from Grandma and Grandpa)
and the big gift.....a trip to Disney Land!!! We didn't give that to end. Lyle acted like he thought we were missing some gifts and then I said "Oh yeah, let me go get them" I brought up three different sized boxes. In Ella's box was a note that said "We are", Luke's note said, "Going to" and AB's note said "DisneyLand" Ella opened hers first and knew immediately what was going on. Then once Luke got his opened they were screaming for AB to get hers open! It was cute! I think they were really surprised! We spent the rest of the morning tearing through toys and eating breakfast...I made a breakfast casserole with cinnamon rolls. We really enjoyed having Mims and Pa there with us to share in the kids' excitement! They loved getting to share it with them!
Here are the very excited kiddos: