Christmas 2013

The weekend before Christmas we spent celebrating with Matt's extended family.  We always have a lot of fun with them...they are a crazy bunch!

We started with Christmas breakfast at the Farmer's Market Restaurant with Oma, Opa, Aunt Lynn and the cousins and then came back to our house to hang out.

Then Papa and Grandma Nita came for a late lunch.   The weather was beautiful...70s in the middle of December, so we spent a lot of time outside.  The boys played football and ran around.  It was so nice!!

Christmas Eve, we went to the Children's Service at our church.  Brayden VERY reluctantly went on stage during the children's singing (don't worry...he didn't sing at all).

Very fuzzy but he was willingly up on stage

Afterwards, our friends came over for dinner.  Then we sprinkled reindeer food, put out our milk and cookies and the kids went to bed.

Putting out reindeer food

and milk and cookies!

Christmas morning, the kids got up and found that Santa had come!

Santa Came!!!

Lilly got a kitchen with all the food, dishes, etc and Brayden got a sleeping bag and new legos!

Inspecting her new kitchen

We had a quick breakfast and then the kids jumped into unwrapping gifts!

After everything was straightened up, we got dressed and headed to Grammy and Paw's house for a few days.

Santa's helpers at Grammy and Paw's house

Family photo

My wonderful parents

Kids anxiously awaiting present time!

Silly Lilly!

The Saturday after Christmas we spent at Nana and BB's house.   Brayden and BB played a lot of foose ball (sp?)

Lilly got a new princess castle!

Christmas 2013 Festivities

Yeah...I am WAY behind with the blog.  This post has been written for several months now but I was looking for a particular photo and have given up.  I must be dreaming that it ever existed...

As always, we had a very busy Christmas season this year.

We started by letting the kids help with the decorating the tree which is always fun for everyone!  Brayden understands how to put the ornaments on the tree (i.e. not all in one spot), but of course, Lilly has no idea.  Brayden was really good about helping Lilly get her ornaments on the tree without making her mad.

The following weekend was Matt's office party.  We always go to his office party because we don't ever have a chance otherwise to dress up and go out.  In the past, the parties have been at fancy places in downtown or fancy country clubs but this year it was at the office.  I have to say, the ladies who did the decorating did an AMAZING job!  We had a great time and look forward to next year's party!

One of Brayden's friends, Zach, his little sister Meredith, and mom came over and decorated gingerbread houses with us.  Meredith is a few months younger than Lilly so I made small gingerbread houses out of graham crackers for the girls.  The boys made full size houses out of the kids.  Everyone had a great time and ate way too much candy!!  Unfortunately, I was too busy helping the kids to take many pictures during the decorating, but the finished products turned out quite good!

Brayden was very detail oriented

Lilly was very focus on the task at hand.  She did eat about as much candy as she put on the gingerbread house!

Lilly's Gingerbread house

Another view of Lilly's

Then we had our traditional small group cookie decorating party for the kids on the 15th and then that night we all go sitters for the kids and the adults got together for a fun night. 

The weekend before Christmas, one of the other moms from daycare and I threw a party for 8 or 9 of the boys in their class.  This group of boys has been together for 4 years now and have gotten to be pretty good friends.  The theme of the party was "The Polar Express".  We planned on letting the boys watch the Polar Express movie, do a craft, have hot chocolate, do a "Who am I?" game, and do a gift exchange.  Of course, it was 70+ degrees on December 22, so all the boys wanted to do was play outside!!   We were able to get them inside long enough for an ornament craft, hot chocolate, and the gift exchange.  For the gift exchange, we did a Frosty the Snowman Pass the Gift Left/Right story.  Amazingly, our 5ish year old boys, get very confused with this and we ended up cutting the story very short!  Otherwise, the boys were running around outside having a blast!

 The same friend that took our family photos back in September came over one night and took pictures of the kids in the Christmas PJs in front of the tree.  Despite very uncooperative kids, I think the pictures came out really well!

When they were still cooperating :)

Note sure what Lilly was doing, but it looks like she is trying to dance!

I love this one of Brayden :)

Christmas Day (part 2)

After a quick lunch of soup and sandwiches, we packed up and headed to my parents house.   We ate dinner and let the kids play for a little while before getting them to bed. 

Brayden was allowed to open 2 gifts Christmas night.  (It was late when we got to my parents so we were going to do gifts the next day)

A new NCSU shirt from Paw!

And a remote controlled bulldozer!

 The next day we opened gifts and had our Christmas lunch together with my grandmother, Buh.   Once again, we all got way too many gifts.

A new little table & chairs just for the kids!  The bought it unfinished and my dad finished it (perfectly as always). They LOVE this & both kids enjoy sitting at the table & drawing.

4 generations

Lilly found another rocking chair that is just her size.  She LOVES these little chairs!

My grandmother (Buh)

Cali...the new kitten playing under the tree.  The kids love Cali and she tolerates them very well.

Lilly was getting tired

New hat!

Another favorite...Baby doll and stroller.  She pushes this stroller all over the house and picks up stuff in it.  You never know what you might find in the stroller!

Being silly!

Cali found a box to sleep in

The kids wearing the silly hats

Finally she passed out on the couch.  Poor baby couldn't take it any longer!

Playing Lincoln Logs and/or trains with Grammy.  The train was mine when I was little and the Lincoln Logs were my moms.

Brayden got a new floor rug with roads on it for his room. 

After a wonderful Christmas dinner, we hung out and let the kids play for a while.  Then I went with my mom to take Buh home and after another quick dinner, we packed up and drove back to Raleigh.  The kids went to daycare the rest of the week while Matt and I got the house straightened up and did some projects around the house. 

We had a wonderful, blessed Christmas this year and enjoyed spending time with all of our family and friends!  We are building some wonderful traditions and love teaching our kids about Christs' birth.