Scenes from Christmas

We visited Santa this year, with no tears from anyone. Although Will had terror in his eyes, he held it together.

Last day of school for 2011. They both had their Christmas parties at school.

We have had one significant snowfall this year, but within a few days it had melted away. It has been abnormally warm this year (knock on wood) and we didn't have a white Christmas. :(

We went downtown to visit Macy's store windows and the walnut room. On our way, we passed this iconic building in Chicago.

Everytime I see this building it scares me. My stomach just drops at the thought of backing up to park in those parking spaces. Yikes!!

In one of Macy's windows, we got a sneak peak at Santa's nice list and Will's name was on it. It made the other two a little concerned.

This store is so beautiful and impressive inside. FYI: It's the same one Chevy Chase (Clark Griswold) visits in Christmas Vacation.

We went to the viewing area in the walnut room, overlooking that gorgeous tree.

Look at the coffered ceiling oh and the tree. :o

Outside Macy's on State street.

We had more outdoor plans for the day but the weather made it impossible. It was sleeting and cold but we did make time to stop at the very famous Garrett's popcorn and got a jumbo size bag for a snack. Delicious!!

Ben was very excited (or trying to stay warm or both). The picture caught him in mid-jump!

We had to wait in line for about 30 minutes to get the popcorn. It's that good.

Buddy returned to our house after Thanksgiving and has kept us busy with finding him each morning. The kids love him!! Even Will knew what to do this year. He was the first to find him a few times. He would run to where Buddy was hiding, point and yell until someone saw what he had found.

We made gingerbread houses and sugar cookies.

Olivia and I in our cute matching aprons! She actually helped me make the dough and icing this year too.

Although, it is way more fun to decorate and eat them.

On Christmas Eve morning, we were able to go help our friend Jimmy open his presents. I'm so glad we got him, two years in a row. He is always so sweet!!

We spent Christmas Eve with our friends the Browns. We had such a fun night and we love them so much! I don't know what we will do next year without them. We ate dinner, talked and the kids sang Chistmas songs and dressed up as the Nativity. For the record, Olivia has eaten all of her gummy bears and the whoppie cushion and swords have all been in use, since we left. :)

This year we tried doing something a little different. We bought all the kids presents with the following guidline. "Something you want, something you need, something to wear and something to read". It made buying presents easier for us and they still had plenty to open. Of course, in addition they still received gifts from Santa, grandparents, nana, aunts and uncles too.

This year Ben asked Santa for a Skylander Wii game, Olivia wanted a Doodle bear, and Will got a Little Tykes basketball goal that he hasn't stopped playing with since Christmas morning. Something sweet that Olivia asked for this year, as her 'something she wants', gift was a locket that had her Mommy and Daddy's pictures in it so that we could (and I quote)"always be close to her heart." So sweet and so funny!

Buddy left us this note, that we found on Christmas morning. There were tears from Olivia the night before, knowing that we wouldn't see him for a whole year!!

On Christmas morning we opened presents, had homemade cinnamon rolls and went to church. We took a picture outside but everyone was lauging so hard because it was freezing!!

Merry Christmas!!

Some things that happened in December...

Ben ended his basketball season with the game winning shot. A great way to end the season. This is him with his trophy.

This year instead of cookies, I decided to make homemade fudge for the neighbors. I gave them with a pint of vanilla ice cream. I wanted to find peppermint ice cream in pint size but never found it. Hot fudge is good on anything right?

Rick gave me any early Christmas present this year...recessed lighting!! Since it gets dark around 4, it gets very very dark in the kitchen. We only have the pendants and under cabinet lighting which didn't give off very much light. Thankfully our friend (who has the same floor plan of house and had put in recessed lighting at his house) came and helped Rick install it. Thanks Jeff!! As you can see he still has some holes to patch but I'm a happy camper. Will figured out that he can roll underneath the Christmas tree and grab presents and ornaments. How does a child just instinctively know that a Christmas tree and presents are awesome? Tis the season for bundling up the kids for school, unfortunately. I took this picture one day before school while Ben was waiting for the school bus. He decided to play his DS all bundled up in his snow clothes. This picture just cracks me up!

Olivia had her annual Christmas P.J. breakfast. We had a great time (how could you not, when you can legitimately go out in public in your jammies) and she had even made Rick and I a present, this cute Christmas tree.

I was in charge of Ben's holiday party at school which thankfully went great. The kids had fun and I think the parents and teacher did too. I made these little cuties for the party. Although delicious and cute, they were super time consuming, and I will only be making them by specific request from my kids. The things we do for our little ones.

Christmas Decorations

I don't know about you, but if there was a fire in my house, and of course after family, the plastic tub where I keep the Christmas ornaments might be what I grab first. Over the last 12 years, Rick and I have collected ornaments from vacations we have been on, places we have lived and things we have done or accomplished during that year. Every Christmas I love opening the ornament box and reliving those memories from the previous years. We always talk about it as we decorate the tree. I love this tradition. All of the ornaments are irreplaceable and priceless!

Olivia's 1st Christmas

Gulf Shores, Beach trip

Italy trip Ben's 1st Christmas
Rick getting his MBA (Go Dawgs!)
England trip We have a hand carved Santa collection that we have been adding to each year since we have been married too. Rick's sweet Grandpa would send us a Santa or two a year that he would have carved for us. They all look completely different and they are all so cute. Grandpa passed away about a week before Will was born this year, so this year we won't be receiving any beautifully carved Santa's. I know Rick and I always think of sweet Grandpa every time we look at them.
A tradition that has continued now without really meaning to is the wreath on our front door. The first year Rick and I were married we bought a fresh green wreath from Costco. It smelled good, was pretty and cheap! It was perfect. So every year since then we have had a Costco wreath hanging on our front door. Now each year I see all of these cute Christmas wreaths and think maybe I should change it up a bit, but I can't. I just can't break the tradition now. Heavens knows what will happen if for some reason Costco decides to not carry them anymore. On a side note, I love Costco, like really really love Costco. It's a little unhealthy.

Our stockings are the same stockings I had growing up as a kid. My mom made them and somehow I ended up with mine and a few others. I think my mom had asked if my brothers wanted theirs and being boys they all said no, so I got them all. Lucky me.! One of the only benefits to being the only girl.
holly-me, stocking-Will, present-Olivia, stars-Rick & tree-Ben

Snow & Santa

Last Friday night we went to see Santa and Olivia sat on his lap for the first time without crying. It was a momentous event in our family. Ben & Olivia both told Santa what they wanted from him and Will promptly took Olivia's place as the crier. You can see in the following picture that he is terrified. Right after I took the picture he completely broke down.

Olivia with Santa. She is so proud of herself.
That night we got a ton of snow so the next morning we went sledding for the first time this season.

My little snow bunny

Daddy & Will

Ben & the hill

This was the first time Will had seen snow. He was so bundled up he couldn't bend to sit (Christmas Story style). Rick had to hold him up, he didn't seem to mind though.

White Christmas

This year, we had a really wonderful Christmas. It was different in a lot of ways. First, there was snow, lots and lots of snow. It was gorgeous. Rick in the kids played out in it for a long time. The kids ate a lot of snow too.

One of the kids favorite things to do is slide down the slide and knock all the snow off.

On Christmas Eve, we had dinner with friends and came back to our house for hot chocolate, talked about the Nativity story and then had a surprise Rudolph sighting out our back window that sent children wide-eyed running up to their rooms. Olivia said "Whew that was a close one!"
Christmas morning is just so fun with little kids. Ben and Olivia were so sweet about getting and giving their gifts. Lots of 'thank you's', hugs and "you are going to love what I got you's".

Another thing that was different was that we didn't have any family around. This was the first Christmas in our married life that we had spent with just us. Although I missed everyone in Georgia and Washington it was kind of nice to just be the four of us. We did get to talk/skype to almost all of our family that day.

Since we had always had family around, I had never cooked an entire Christmas dinner (shameful, I know). So I went overboard and cooked a huge Christmas dinner that could have fed at least 20 people. After dinner we went and saw "Princess and the Frog".

As a side note, Buddy our elf, went back to live with Santa until next year. I miss him already. It really helped the behavior level when he was watching all the time.