We had a wonderful Christmas this year! We missed the Butlers visiting so it was a quiet Christmas but still a lot of fun. Christmas Eve, we went over to the Olk's to enjoy a delicious lasagna dinner and our annual White Elephant gift exchange. The kids had fun helping the adults pick out and open their gifts.
The little elves.
One of the gifts we walked away with! I also got a Newks gift card - woo hoo!
Showing off Uncle Jordan's cowbell - poor Aunt Katie. I have a feeling this will be put to use.
Justin and I came up with the idea to wrap up an autographed picture of Justin. It was hilarious when Nanny opened his gift. We joked away that next year's would be poster sized.
A close up of the picture...
Camden kept saying "I'm so excited" while gifts were being opened. It was so cute!
Love this family picture.
I had bought matching Christmas pajamas for all the kids several months ago on Zulily and Birdie monogrammed them for us. We couldn't leave without taking a couple pictures of the kids together.
And once we got home, we took another picture in front of our Christmas tree and put the cookies and milk for Santa.
Excited about Santa coming!
One year I'm going to get a plate that says "Cookies for Santa".
The next morning...Santa came! and dropped off a bunch of presents! It was a big, big Christmas for Kate and Mason.
Zoomer kitty was the big gift Kate asked for this year.
Mason was also amazed at his train table (he loves it)!
Mason's presents:
Kate's presents:
Kate was once again able to go Christmas shopping at the Faith Lane store at church. She was so excited to buy gifts for us. She picked out a Santa puppet for me, a teddy bear for Mason and a screwdriver for Daddy.
She also made these two Christmas crafts and wrapped them up - the reindeer for daddy and the Santa picture frame for me. So precious. I didn't realize these were in a pile of papers so I accidentally threw them out the day before. Thankfully I was able to dig them out - crisis avoided.
After we opened Santa presents, we went over to Gigi and Granddaddy's for our annual Christmas breakfast. It was a delicious feast and afterwards, we all opened gifts.
Kate loved her dress and matching doll dress for her American Girl doll, Madison, that Gigi gave her for earlier this year for her birthday. Aunt Katie always comes up with the perfect gifts - thank you!
My mom framed pictures of all the grandkids on their first Christmas. Such a special gift! Uncle Jordan's and Aunt Katie's still has a blank frame to be filled next Christmas!
This was one of the special gifts my mom put together for Nanny:
A picture of all of the great-grandkids.
Kate also made a special request for this turtle toy:
Thank you to Aunt Katie for tracking it down!
Kate has gotten into performing puppet shows at my parent's house lately so they bought a puppet show "stage". Kate was so excited to put it to use and I have a feeling the Santa puppet she bought me will be the perfect addition to her show.
Uncle Justin rockin it out on Camden's guitar. I was surprised to learn he could actually play a tune. And we've been together over ten years!
And we couldn't leave without a few family pictures...
After celebrating at my parent's, we went back home to our house so the kids could play with their new toys. Kate didn't ask for a new bike but she had outgrown the one Nanny bought for her a couple years ago. Mason has been dying to ride that little princess bike so we knew Santa needed to bring him one. I was so excited to see both kids loving their new bikes (especially Kate). Kate hasn't shown much interest in riding bikes but she tried hard this time and has finally gotten the hang of pedaling. Hallelujah!
Go girl!
Mason took off immediately and hasn't looked back. He's a great bike rider.
We had plans to host Christmas dinner with both of our families Christmas night. We also invited Mike, Leslie and Caleb Reithmiller over to join us. Little Caleb had heart surgery earlier in the month so they weren't traveling for the holidays. Thankfully he got an early Christmas present - a successful surgery and a healthy report! I wish I had gotten a picture of them but I didn't.
Before my family and the Reithmiller's arrived, Mimi and Papa came over a couple hours early so we could celebrate Christmas together. There were two special gifts that I was very excited about this year. Since we had the big Veteran Day celebration this year in honor of Justin's Uncle, I was so excited when I found this ornament in Lifeway:
Justin helped me for a couple hours one night to get the picture shrunk down and fitted in the frame opening. We gave one to Gaga, Aunt Linda and Mimi for Christmas. The other gift was a Veteran's Day picture Kate wrote and colored at school. I ordered an 8 1/2 x 11 frame (very hard to find) online and we wrapped it up for Papa. He got a little emotional when he saw it - the best reaction!
A close up of her picture:
Character Traits of a Veteran: helpful, fighter, strong, brave, safe and hero.
Family picture with Mimi and Papa!
We had a wonderful Christmas and hope our family and friends did too!
Merry Christmas!
