Our Christmas Morning

 

Our night before Christmas, the kids stayed up pretty late, which kept us up even later. With the fear of missing out on their sweet reactions that morning, the grown ups were up about 6am. Hanging around, waiting on them, scared to even get a shower because I may miss them! Eventually, Miss Palyn woke up and refused to get started until her Caden could join her. She went in to wake him up!

 

So sweet, those two are!

Caden's Santa

as well as gifts from his parents, Tata and RyRy

 

I usually let the biggest gift and the unwrappable gifts be from Santa...this year that was his Kindle Fire and his spy goggles.

Palyn got most of her gifts from her mom and Tata before they left home.

This is her Santa, and gifts from them plus us.

 

Lets start by looking at a few of our Princess girl!

Big Sister book from us!

Leap Pad 2 from her mom and Tata

Stocking from us

And we made her wait, blindfolded, on Uncle Shane to bring in her big present from us!

She ran and jumped in his arms!

 

(Palyn is my niece, if anyone is confused!)

 

And here is our big boy..

He got a lot of new Bama clothes this year,

 so I guess I am left to be the only Auburn fan in the house!

Spy Gear walkie talkies and goggles to add to his watch

been asking for this game

new shoes

He has been asking for Gak for so long!

Love that excited face!

Pogo stick!

He loves his Tata!

Stocking time!

 

I love being able to spend our Christmas mornings with both of our babies! and I know my mom is glad to have them both in the same place as well!!!

 

*Please know that this post is not about bragging or showing off, it is mostly for memories sake and for fam that is curious.

 

We hope you all had a wonderful Cmas morning with your babies! Praying for everyone that spent the morning hurting after the loss of a loved one or anything else.

 

 

This is how our Christmas schedule went down (in case anyone was confused!)....

• Sat evening we had Cmas with my Stepmoms fam
• Sun morning we went to church and that afternoon my mom, sis, and Palyn arrived
• We treat Christmas eve eve as Christmas eve, and Cmas eve as Cmas Day. Because of our schedules, this works best for our fams to be able to throughly enjoy our time together, no stressing on time and allowing the kids more play time together.
• Sun evening the kids got to open 1 gift a piece (Cmas Eve tradition)
• After the kids were settled on Sun night, we had adult gift swapping with Shane, my mom, and sis..we did this so the next morning could be centered around the kids!
• Monday morning was our Santa morning, our Cmas Day
• Mon lunch, his mom and sister's fams joined us all for lunch and gift swapping
• Mon evening both of our fams attended our Candlelight service at our church
• Tuesday morning, everyone else's Cmas day, we were able to relax and enjoy new goodies while getting ready to travel down to my Dad's fam Cmas and one of my other aunts house. (See what I mean, thats why we dont have this as our Santa day, kids know no difference in the dates!)
• Wed morning, mom, sis and I took advantage of the sales. After lunch, they headed home and we traveled to Shane's dads for Cmas with them.

This my friends, is why we change up our scheds! Everything else is as traditional as can be, just changing the dates a bit!

2012 Christmas Cards

This year, it was obvious to me that we would use shots from our wedding for our Christmas cards. It was, after all, the highlight of our year! Shane didnt like the idea of it at first. I am not sure why he doesnt just trust me on these things!! I mean, I know what looks good! Ha! So to settle the confusion, a facebook status confirmed my idea was the route to go when I had an overwhelming amount of comments and "likes". (I would never post any serious debates for the public to settle, btw) It was early November when I began playing around with our cards and shopping around for the best price. I made the selection based on 1) price 2) fun design and 3) three spots for pics. I chose this from Shutterfly and was having to much fun to end there! I began one for my sister, too. After placing an order for our cards, we received a confirmation email, then another the following day staing they had shipped out! Seriously! I had them in two days and it wasnt even Thanksgiving yet! It was hard to keep them boxed up waiting until later to send out!

 

 

We also chose Shutterfly to make a large wedding photo book for ourselves and 4 small ones for our parents! They loved them as Christmas gifts! We had a great experience with Shutterfly and plan to use them for many more cards and photobooks! I also made a deal with my sis that I would be in charge of her cards every year as her birthday present from us!



Jingle 2012

I have to admit that our Jingle was a lazy little elf this year! He began the year out a little later than usual. (CODE FOR--- I couldnt remember where I stashed him during the move and had a small freak out when I couldnt put him out at his usual arrival time/ spot) Sometimes, he would go 2, maybe 3 nights in a row without moving. Once, Caden was so aggrivated that he hadnt move that he put a note on Jingle about how he could "travel anywhere in the universe he pleased, and even use this spaceship Caden left out for him, but it would be delightful for him to just move!!! (My kid said delightful, Ha!) Caden was so excited to see that he had for sure landed on the space ship that night and this mama felt a little guity that it had gotten to the point of a desperate letter to have Jingle move. Year 3 of our little friend from the North Pole was just a little less creative and out of ideas. I know he still loved his visit the same, and I am hoping it wont be our last year with a believing little boy. Anyways, here are the few that were picture worthy. (I also had a  warning in early Dec from my childless best friend that she "wasnt looking at those elf pics everyday", and I was limited to one a week!) Due to lack of creativeness I followed through on her request, mostly! Love you, Em!

Arriving on our tree, as he does every year!

 

Sno ball fight with Palyn's Ken doll



 Most days, he could be found hanging out in high places. Some times easier to spot than others. Thank you for another fun year, Jingle. I almost thought we lost ya, literally! See you next year!



Connect Group Cmas Party

Our church has connect groups that meet throughout the week. You pick the group that seems the best fit for your family's season of life and schedule, then attend weekely to discuss the message from the previous Sunday. You develop relationships, as it is sometimes harder to do in larger churches. I am a member of two connect groups, one is a "stay/work at home mom/wife" group on Friday mornings when I am not subbing, and the other is the "couples with young children" group that Shane and I attend together on Wed evenings while Caden attends Awana. Both of these groups have been such a  blessing to us this first semester and I look forward to growing closer to the Lord and the other members of each group.

 

The Ladies Party was fun, we just all hung out and ate yummy food that we brought. We brought gifts and swapped around a few times. I brought "The Resolution for Women" book because I loved it so much this summer, and I took home Bath and Body Works hand soap.

 

 

Maria, Myself, and Talonna

Myself and Cara

Emily, Amber, Cara, and Rebecca

Amber and Myself

Erica and her sweet girl, Elise!

 

We missed our other group members that were unable to attend!

 

Our other party was later that weekend, but I didnt take any pics. Our kids were there, so that kept us too busy for pics! For both parties, I made a bean dip from Pinterest.

 

 For many months before I moved to our new town, I prayed for God to place godly, encouraging friends in our lives, and there is no doubt that He showered us with many more than I could have imagined! We have already been blessed with many friendships in this short 6 months!!

 



2012 Class C-mas Party

First of all, I just have to say WOW at the blogging break I have had! I am so behind, but luckily I dont blog for reader count, I blog for memeories. Therefore, the post all will make it up, just not as soon as I wish they had! I wish I would have posted my decor and Christmas card in time for fun link-ups but, maybe next year!

 

Caden had his class Christmas party the Thursday before Cmas. He loves his new school so much that he never wants to take the breaks for holidays! His class had boys and girls bring a $5 unisex gift and played the left/ right story game. We brought UNO cards and took home Crazy 8 cards. There were a lot of games because anythign else is hard to make unisex. They also made the waffle cone tree craft, which was cute..but those babies were sugared up like crazy!!!



 

Goody bags from Caden

 

They ended the party with another game of musical chairs. His friend was the winner but he was second! We have thoroughly enjoyed our first semester at his new school!! Excited that he has a couple of more years there!



Lately

I just need to go ahead and warn you now that this post is filled with the most randomness ever! Maybe even out of order! Just bits and pieces from our fall that are worth documenting!

A few weeks ago, Crystal won tickets to see Chris Young at the fair. I had so much fun with the girls, but felt so bad for Chris Young because the crowd was DEAD!! Only people on the floor were standing and I felt like we were the only ones dancing or putting our hands in the air. I was for sure that they pulled these people off of the streets and told them they were going to see Chris Young, to which I could hear them reply, "who's that?".  Oh well..good friends, free music, and being close to a country star made it a good night!

Caden was invited to a neighborhood friend's bday party, which included a bouncy house and pony rides. Fun right?!

This was on a Saturday, we went looking at new cars and these guys sported their Bama wear.

Dont get excited, Caden wore Auburn to school the day before! ;)

We walked in on Caden sleeping like this one night last week!

What is the weirdest way youve found your child sleeping?

this Mama got a new Sonata! I have been doing such a good job keeping her clean too! My other car had been through a lot during its life! I basically lived out of it while I was a single mama. Not really, but going from here to there and always being in such a rush! I will put a lot more effort into keeping this car clean. Also, dont judge how I look in this pic! Shane called me to bring the other car from home to trade it in and I wasnt looking too hot! ha!

This was at a fall festival at a local church.... It was also a game day, as you can tell!

This pic of Caden sliding down is so funny to me!

I was cleaning out a lot of stuff from my childhood days and came across this New Kids on the Block pillow! I remember them being my first concert! I screamed as loud as I could, "I love you Jordan!!"

What do you do with all of your childhood keepsakes? My mom has given them all to me, and I seriously have no idea what to do with all of it!

I voted!

I voted at a church and they had different praying stations and I went around to each of them, I didnt care if I was the only one or if anyone else was watching, our nation needs prayer.

Caden and I both had dentist appts. When he was finished with his cleaning, he grabbed his floss and gloves and began his pretending on me. This was my view from my chair! I would love for you to be a dentist someday, Caden!

I was very excited to see new cake pops at Starbucks a few weeks ago, but the excitement didnt last too long when I tasted the salted caramel flavor. I wanted to spit it out!! I didnt, but they were nasty!!!

On Veterans Day, Shane came home from work and began baking! He wouldnt even tell me what it was! Finally, when I saw the red food coloring I knew that it was going to be red velvet cake, with no nuts! And anytime he gets in the kitchen, I know he is usually going to be whipping up one of his granny's recipes. That should excite anyone!

He didnt think it looked good, but I did, and I couldnt wait to eat it!!

I had my Mary Kay Open House this past weekend! We had a great turnout and I had so much fun! We were split up into partners and given a table to decorate. My frind Tabitha and I had the Fragrance table...

Didn't it turn out so cute?

Well everyone loved it, because we won the prize for the best table!

Sweet Tabitha and myself!

We prepared our shoe box for Operation Christmas Child this week!

Caden bought most of this with his own money!

I love this ministry and get so excited thinking about them delivering the 100 millionth shoe box this year!!

Caden heard the doorbell ring the other night, and answered it like this. He told his friends that he would be out later to play, that he was busy shaving!!! ha!

 Caden and I were able to go and spend some time with my friends while Shane worked last weekend. We missed him there, but I enjoyed catching up on my girl time!!

Caden was handcuffed a couple of times!

My sweet, but WILD boy!!

Well this post was very random, but sometimes that is the only way I will stay up to date! I cant do a post for every little thing we do, but like looking back on our ordinary best days.