The holiday season always starts off with Elfie making a grand return at Thanksgiving. This little guy and I have a love/hate relationship. All year, I pin ideas and get so excited for his return. Then the time comes for him to be here and he usually ends up in a non exciting location...like hanging from the lock. I believe he was hanging from the clock three times this year. "He must really like telling time?"
Christmas morning traditions include: eating monkey bread, opening presents, and watching the Disney World parade. Oh and playing with our toys!!
Grandma got Parker a new winter coat. Of course, she had to show it off to everyone at church.
This years Holiday PJ choice was reindeer, which is fitting considering last year we were Santa's. We all put our reindeer jammies on and went to look at Christmas lights. When we drove through at Andy's Ice Cream the lady in the drive thru probably thought Drew and I were crazy.
One of my favorite things we did this Christmas was go see Porter's play at Ms. Jane's. Since Porter is in pre-school now, this year he had a holiday show. I video taped the entire show, so I currently do not have any pictures, but here he is on Polar Express day. I think it is safe to say...Porter loves Ms. Jane's!!
Christmas Eve with the Gumm's and the Rapp's continued this year at Lake Weatherby. We all (or most) families wear matching PJ's. Here is Parker and I in front of the lake.
Christmas Eve Service
Before Porter went to sleep he was stalling, so he had to put up the nativity scene for Santa. This kid had some pretty good questions about Santa like: "How is Santa going to get through the glass on our fire place?" or "Are you going to put the dogs outside so they don't bark when Santa comes?" It is only a matter of time before the magic of Santa is over for this little one.
Santa's hard work is done.
Later in the day we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house to celebrate.
So my mom takes literally tons of photos. It has been her good habit since her first grandchild. We love it because we get great photos and she loves it because well she loves spending time with her grandkids and just because she AMAZiNG! So long story short she sometimes forgets when she takes photos, like these Christmas photos of Parker. I just found them on her computer and she said, "Oh ya I took those that day she had an ear infection." What!? Based off these pictures she did not look sick at all.
After a week vacation in Disney World it was really hard to be excited about Christmas. So much time and effort was put into planning our trip that Christmas was overlooked this year. Luckily Drew had vacation time around Christmas and we were able to spend some family time together.
We took advantage of the holiday treats and roasted s'mores.
Christmas Eve was spent at Grandma and Grandpas house, enjoying Auntie Whitney and Unvle TJ while they were in town.
Porter enjoyed multiple Star Wars toys and many items that were the color orange. Parker received a Little People Princess Palace and next week we plan on getting her ears pierced.
On Christmas Eve Eve we drove to Branson to enjoy our Silver Dollar City passes one more time. (If you know us, then you know this is a big deal for us to do something spontaneous like this! But we enjoyed it and may make it a tradition.)
The weather was perfect! We did not need our jackets until it got dark out.
Christmas morning we did our presents and monkey bread for breakfast while watching the Disney Parade.
We enjoyed brunch at my moms house where we all received Season Tickets to Worlds of Fun!
Finally, we had dinner and presents at Grandma and Grandpas house.
Here is Drew and Parker in their matching Christmas pajamas.
To start the holidays my mother in law, sister in law, and I went to a byob painting class. We made door ornaments to hang on our door. I think they all turned out great!!
We took our annual family photos with both the Schieber's and the Bilton's
At Thanksgiving we made gingerbread houses and wore turkey's on our heads.
Got to see Uncle TJ.
Here was my chalkboard art for Christmas.
My mom took a few Christmas photos and these were the Jammie's everyone wore to the Polar Express PJ party.
My mom became a member at Union Station downtown KC which means free choo choo rides for this little guy.
This train ride was at the mall. Boys will be Boys.
Of course we had to ride the gator on Christmas morning and every other day even when it is below zero here. The cousins rode together during our sleepover.
We went to hang out with family for the New Year We were home before 11 and I do not think we were awake at 12. Really wouldn't have it any other way.
So many things to be thankful for this past year. Looking forward to what God has in store for us in 2015.
