Christmas Fun

well, i blinked and Christmas came and went!  

we headed north again to see our family and had a wonderful time with everyone.  

we love going to poppop steve, kelli, and aunt alex's house.  and this year was so fun for gianna because they have a new doggie for her to smother love on.  no pics with ollie though, because he was hiding from her.  😄

wow...what is in this long box?  (it was a bat)

who's excited that santa visited mimi's house?

all the "kids" are ready to rip into these presents. 

santa brought gianna these fun pink glasses.

and roman got a bat that tommy joseph actually used in a real game!

look who else got a bat...

mimi and popo got some bluffton decor

well, hello gorgeous!

hard to see, but rylee got a clemson elf. i like to think it was good luck, since they just won the national championship.  

whoa, wait a minute...a hatchimal?

a personalized glove

it hatched!

down to nana's house we go...ady loves her baby dolls!

lilah got a camera!

cousins!

this is what gianna thought about the white elephant gift she chose.  😂

ady loved this moose in nana's bathroom.

now on to mommom's house!

we told cj this gift was from all of us.  he opened this PS4 box.  i think he was pretty stoked.

and then he realized we had just put the candle he left at nana's house in it.  not sure he liked it so much then.  we are so mean. 

these girls are so cute!

uncle josh made this for roman

these faces...

that's much better!

decked out in all his catcher's gear

pretty cowgirl

at the mall, going to the movies to see SING

we got to see uncle josh and aunt colleen's new house.  our kids were so impressed that they had a basement filled with kid stuff.  it's a whooooollllleeeee new woooooorrrrrlllllldddd!

who got the money out?  i did!

the girls always play so nicely together.  even if they make ady sit in the shopping cart. 

lilah makes a great cowgirl, and her puppy looks miserable...but she was having so much fun.  i promise. 

we had a great time...it's always so fun to see our family!

'Tis the Season

as you can see, our elf on the shelf has arrived.  haha...well, maybe not on a shelf, more like top bunk.  

the arrival of our elf each year on Thanksgiving night starts our season of holiday cheer.  we get out the decorations, we bake the cookies, we take the Christmas card photos...so much fun packed into one month! 

the kids really have the hang of this picture thing now.  we can knock out our pictures in about 15 minutes since they know the drill!  here's my favorites...but if you got our card, you already know that!

the kids love helping in the kitchen and were so excited to make the peanut butter kiss cookies this year!

our elf, shoshee, had some fun new hiding places this year. 

as usual, toby outdid himself on the outside.  our house is quite the attraction in our neighborhood and whenever the inflatables go up, we always see the neighbors walking down with their kids and taking pictures with the inflatables.  so fun. 

see, that shoshee, had a nice view from the card holder on this day.  

our tree went up later than usual this year, but boy, was it fun.  after we decorated it, we had hot cocoa and watched a Christmas movie. 

both kids helped put our angel on the top of the tree. 

gianna got a little boost from poppa...😆

ain't she purty?

our new kitchen color scheme made me want a few new items for the countertops this year. 

this was my favorite though...our little hot cocoa station.  ignore those cute kids with santa, we hadn't gone to see the big man yet, so we kept those cuties in there until we could fill it with our own pic.

the kids did a great job on the gingerbread house this year...as usual. 

fun with snapchat filters...

finally!  we got to visit santa and the kids were able to ask him for what was on the top of their wish list...

roman's class had a Christmas party and we got to supply the snack.  so, rice Christmas trees it is!  (when ro was little, he used to call rice krispie treats  rice Christmas trees, so this came full circle for me)

the kids did wonderful in their Christmas program at school, but it is always hard to get a good picture. 

gianna's class sang twinkle, twinkle, Christmas star.

our shepherd arrives!

and raises his arms to praise Jesus!

toby and i went to palmetto bluff to celebrate our friends' birthdays and i just thought this tree was so cool looking at night...

and we posed in front of their very fancy tree. 

i love this time of year and was so grateful that we got to do all the fun things that make it so special!