Micah is 4 y/o Now!!!

Technically Micah turned 4 y/o on January 14, 2013... but due to our traveling back overseas, we decided to celebrate Micah's 4th Birthday in the States on January 5 with both sides of our family. As many of you know, the kids have had a lot of "firsts" over the past few months and Bowling was another one to add to the list. 

As you can see below, Micah wasn't quite strong enough to grip a bowling ball by himself; So Granny Style it was, with Daddy's help!

I think Micah had just gotten a spear and was so excited!!! 

Stopping to take a pic with G.Pa and Grammy!

Most of you who know me (Liz), I love to bake and create things, esp children's cakes... but this year, it was so hectic with packing, preparing to travel overseas, running last minute errands, etc. I decided to trust the Bakers at Tom Thumb Grocery Store... 

Micah's favorite color is Green and he loves chocolate chip cookies... so I ordered him a cookie cake and this is how it turned out... It was tasty but I sure missed creating my little boy's birthday cake myself (Next Year...)

And even though Micah started out Loving bowling... I think he was more interested in playing with his balloons!!! 

And here's Aunt Natalie helping Morgan with her bowling...They brought out this cool ramp that kids place their bowling ball on and then push it down the ramp and onto the bowling lane... Very Cool!!! But it only worked well with bumpers... we know, we tried without bumpers!!! :)

And Micah sure loves his Uncle Brandon!!!

My only picture with the Birthday Boy!!!

Here's the Sweet Big Sister! She turned out to be an Awesome Bowler!!!

And the moment every kid looks forward to: Presents!!! Pa Pa enjoyed helping the Birthday Boy!

And the adults favorite part: After bowling party Dinner!!! Micah was surprised with a Birthday brownie and ice cream from our waiter.

Micah bonded well with Uncle Chris!! Where Uncle Chris went... Micah went!

And of course Morgan loved spending time with her Aunt Meghan!!!

It was so wonderful spending time with my family and enjoying some good ole Texas BBQ one last time before traveling back. 

Micah is One Blessed Little Guy as he got to celebrate his 4th Birthday with both sides of the family for the 1st time ever! We love our families and miss them already!! 

Happy Birthday Big Boy! We Love You!

Stay tuned for more pics of our traveling days and what we have been up to since arriving to our new country!!!

Beyond Blessed...

We have been so blessed to have spent Christmas with both sides of our families this year. We started out celebrating with Randall's family down in San Antonio. It was fun being a part of the Big Christmas Tradition with Randall's family. Below is a family picture of the gang...4 Generations...

 And Morgan Loved spending time with her Aunt Natalie!!! Such Sweet Memories!

 Here is the 4th Generation of Great-Grandchildren... 

And on the actual day of Christmas Eve, we took the kids to play putt-putt for the 1st time (before the evening service). The kids pretty much made up their "own rules" as the game played out. They had a Lot of Fun!

After Christmas Eve Service, we had to "rush" home to write Santa a letter...

And of course... Cute P.J.'s for Christmas Eve!!!

Christmas Morning: Micah loved playing swords with his Uncle Brandon!

And the girls played Princess Candy Land... A morning full of memories!

We then drove up to my (Liz's) parent's later that day and arrived to a yard of snow! We had a White Christmas!!! (the kids' first)... having fun with MiMi!

And here we are getting ready for opening the presents!

And then what we waited for all morning... playing in the snow!!! 1st time ever to play in snow....

Morgan had fun chasing Aunt Meghan with snowballs!

And then the Snow Angels started... The kids had a blast making these, soaked their clothes and then went straight into a warm bath!

And to top it off, my Mom, sister and I made a snow-girl... So much fun... So many memories...

So very Blessed. 

More pics to post... coming soon...

Morgan's Christmas Concert

Dear Faithful Blog Readers,

This post is special for several reasons...

1.  This is the 1st Christmas both kids remember spending in America with Family

2.  Morgan has almost completed her 1st semester of Kindergarten

3.  The video posted below is such a sweet memory for Morgan as she sang with her class "Santa Clause is Coming to Town"

We hope you enjoy watching our sweet 5 year old sing in her first Christmas Concert ever!!!

Please leave Morgan a comment letting her know how Proud you are of her! :)

And of course a few Christmas Pics...

Just to catch some of you up... G.Pa and Grammy's (R's parents) dog had 9 puppies (Golden Doodles) 6 weeks ago... Which the kids love and play with daily :)

(Couldn't resist the cute pics with the sweet puppies)

Merry Christmas and a Blessed-Joyful New Year to You! 

Love, The McQueen's

(Stay tuned for MORE Christmas pics)

More Family Time...

We traveled to Dallas to visit Liz's family and Randall's Sister and her Husband during Thanksgiving Week. Thought we'd share pics from some of our time together...

Morgan and her MiMi (Liz's Mom)

Micah loves Uncle Chris!!! (Liz's Brother)

We then went to ICE, held at The Texan Gaylord and this year's theme is Merry Madagascar, taken from Madagascar, the Movie. ICE is a spin off of a place in China, where the temperature gets below 30 degrees in the Winter and they have buildings, villages and other ice sculptures there for tourist attractions. This was brought to Texas about 4 years ago.

Some Real Info about ICE:

Over 2 Million pounds of ice were brought in for the sculptures

Over 12 million Ornaments were used
The temperature was 9 degrees (explains the Perkas!)

                                      

All of the figurines are made of ice!!!!

                                                 

Our Group Picture!

The kids had a blast going down the ice slides!!!

The Madagascar Group was Amazing!!!

Alex the Lion

Melman the Giraffe & Gloria the Hippo

and Marty the Zebra

And afterwards, we had to take advantage of all the Great Christmas decorations and take pics! 

Siblings... together again... Yes, I (Liz) am the oldest :)

My (Liz) Dad and us!!

It was literally impossible getting this family pic because directly behind us was a train (Micah's 1st love). So pulling him away from the trains was difficult. But we got one :)

Will be posting more Christmas pics soon!!!