Our 2012 Family Christmas

Our week of Christmas fun began with, what else, attending a Houston Texans game as a family. Unfortunately the game stunk but we still had a great time.

Family at the Texans game. 

Right after the game, we loaded up and drove to White Oak for our Morgan family Christmas. We celebrate at my parents' home every year, and the kids LOVE seeing all their cousins. This year, Renee and Ryah weren't able to join us, but we had lots of fun with Makenna, Madison, and Marissa.

Morgan cousins at Grand Daddy and MeMe's house

Santa visited the kids in White Oak to fill their stockings on Christmas Eve.

One of Kaitlynn's stocking gifts - Cinderella!

Now this is what I call a classic Christmas face. Pure joy!

One of the highlights of our Morgan Christmas this year was meeting a very special gal in my brother Ben's life. Her name is Charlotte and they've been dating for a few months now. They couldn't be any cuter together!! LOVED meeting this sweet girl and seeing them together!

My brother Ben and his girlfriend Charlotte.

After we all opened stockings, we had our family gift exchange. Presents, presents, everywhere!

One of Connor's fave gifts: Houton Texans dominos (with a classic photo bomb by Jeff). 

Kaitlynn loved her Sleeping Beauty costume and movie.

Connor was SO happy to have another guy to play with this year. Caleb is the son of Michelle's boyfriend Chris.

One of Jeff's stocking stuffers. Big laughs on this one!

We were planning to stay in White Oak for several days after Christmas, and we would've LOVED to enjoy the white Christmas there. Unfortunately, MeMe and Grand Daddy came down with a stomach bug on Christmas Day so we decided to leave early and let them recover in peace. And wouldn't you know, we didn't weren't able to escape the bug entirely.

Kaitlynn was another victim of the Christmas stomach bug.

Thankfully, Kaitlynn was the only one who caught the bug at our house, and she recovered fairly quickly. We ended up having a lazy week at home gearing up for our Courtright Christmas at home.

Connor and Kaitlynn in some Christmas outfits.

At the end of the week, Collin and Kevin came over to celebrate our immediate family Christmas at our house. We explained to the little ones that Santa was going to make a special late delivery just for our family.

When it was time to set out the snack for Santa, we included the usual: cookies, carrots for the reindeer, and milk. Just like last year, Connor wanted to write a note to Santa. It said (spelling errors included), "Dear Santa, thank you for making a specil trip to our family. Who is your favirte NFL team? The Texans, Falcons, Packers, Cowboy, Redskins, Broncos, or Patriots? circle your favrite. The Courtrights :-)"

Of course, Santa felt the need to be fair and circle every team. And Santa's response was, "Courtrights, Thank you for the snack! Everyone at the North Pole knows the Courtrights LOVE the Texans!"

Note to Santa

On the morning of our Christmas, Kaitlynn was the first one up. I was impressed she slept until almost 7 am. She was so excited and went to wake up the rest of the family. Everyone was excited to see what Santa brought. For Kaitlynn: a new play kitchen, a dollhouse, and a pink big wheel. For Connor: the new Nintendo Wii U. For Kevin, Beats headphones. And for Collin, money!

Jeff and I laugh because you just never know what gift will be the HIT each year. Santa spent so much time and money tracking down the Wii U (sold out everywhere) for Connor, but it turned out that we all had the most fun with this Texans mask that Kevin got for him.

And we thought for sure that Kaitlynn would be ALL about her new dollhouse with all of the furniture and accessories. But she took one ride on her new big wheel and she was in heaven!!

After a fun morning of hanging out and playing with our Christmas gifts, we enjoyed a nice family lunch out together and returned home to hang out some more. We couldn't have asked for a better way to wrap up our year -- by being all together again.