Wednesday, January 15, 2014

Holiday, Celebrate!

I love Christmas for many reasons, but one of my favorites is being able to use the jeweled Christmas tree my Gram left for me.


My Grandaddy made the wooden cut out and Gram used her costume jewelry to make the tree.





She made 3 trees. My brother and cousin Joe have the others. I hope it's something we can continue passing on!

What's Christmas without a little Pinterest inspiration?

My dear friend, Amanda, asked if she could use Travis' man cave for some Christmas projects. I jumped at the chance to have some good one-on-one time with this sweet girl.


She and I successfully used Travis' tools without breaking them or losing any appendages!



Giant Jenga! Can you believe we measured and cut all of these ourselves? That's 48 pieces of evenly cut wood. I'm impressed.





Later that evening the boys were able to join us and we took Jenga for a test drive.





So fun!!!

We made our own set the next day. If you're interested you'll need 48 10.5 inch pieces of 2x4s. I do recommend giving them a good sanding before playing. Nobody wants a splinter playing Giant Jenga.

It's that simple.

It's also not Christmas without our Sunday School cookie exchange.


We celebrated CoonDogs 8th birthday on 12/19!!


I took on the challenge of making the Southern Living cover dessert for their December issue: red velvet white chocolate cheesecake.

It was heavenly.


What's a post without our precious nephew and niece?!?!


T and I have an annual 'yearly re-cap' around Christmas where we have a bottle of wine, no TV, and we sit and truly enjoy each other's company. We talk about the year, the highs and lows, and what we want out of next year. It's one of our favorite things we do!



And finally, our Christmas card picture. They went out after Christmas, but at least they were still sent, right?!?!



We hope everybody had a joyous Christmas season!



--And that's Life With the Riley's--

Friday, January 10, 2014

Baby, It's Cold Outside

12.07.13

The day Baylor Football won their first Big 12 Championship. Beat Texas. Again. AND played the final game at Floyd Casey Stadium.

Let me also mention it was one of the coldest weekends. Ever.

During the game the wind chill was 10 degrees, there was ice fog (what is that anyways???), and thick slabs of ice under the metal bleachers.

Kourtny took one for the team and stayed nice and warm at the house with Jackson and Kinley while the rest of us put on over 20 layers of clothes between us.

It looks like the stadium is empty, but if you've ever been to a football game with JimJim then you know you arrive with plenty of time before kickoff. The game was sold out!


Matching ear warmers.


Love that bearded man!


Post game cuddles with Kinley Rose.


Uncle TRye and Jackson are always up to something. These two are quite the pair.


We celebrated the big victory with Poppa Rollo's pizza and cookie cake!

It was a quick trip as we headed back to Boerne Saturday night, but it was worth the frigid temps to see Baylor close out the case with a historical season, and spend it with the ones I love most!


--And that's Life With the Riley's--