Christmas 2015

Santa came after we all went to bed on Christmas Eve!  Our silly elf always leaves streamers on the bedroom doors so they can't sneak out.  Of course, this was the only night of the year that someone NEEDED to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night!

Now that I'm looking at all of these photos, my house is feeling very empty! I love how twinkly and "comfy" my house feels during the holiday season.

Especially when all the lights are dimmed and everything is sparkly!  Even though I love white lights, I think that having one tree with twinkly colorful lights is the best.  Good thing that we have three large trees that I can decorate.

It was quite an adventure getting four kids to look at the camera on Christmas morning when they'd rather be looking anywhere else!

These four.  I think that their favorite part of Christmas morning is their present exchange.  Brian usually does a great job taking them shopping and letting them choose presents for each other...and they know each other well! Wyatt especially is a very thoughtful gift giver. They were all very pleased with the things that their siblings chose for them.

I am basically terrified that this was the last year that I'm going to get the boys in matching pajamas!  I loved these Christmas themed Star Wars pajamas from Hanna Andersson, though!

Hudson would scream "THANK YOU!" and then run a lap around the house every time that he opened a gift.  Best reaction ever!  My favorite was when he opened his first set of "big boy" Lego, and he ran fulls speed shouting, "I just got my own Little Legos! I just got my own Little Legos!"

And Finley loved all of her stuff!  Sometimes it's nice to get a few new things of your own when you're the youngest of four kids!

Both sets of grandparents came over that morning to watch the kids open presents, and we took a break for breakfast.  The kids love having everyone over on Christmas morning.  Reese wrote about it in her journal at school and said that it's one of her favorite traditions!

Brian and I opened our gifts to each other while the kids checked out the gifts that they had gotten "so far."  Finley couldn't stay away from any of the present opening, and that got her some extra kisses from Mommy and Daddy!  And yes, my pajamas totally matched theirs.  I picked them all out while FQB and I were shopping and everyone else was riding Test Track!

The big kids both got Kindle Fires for Christmas.  They were soooooo excited.  Reese has been begging for an iPad, but we didn't think that they were a good fit for our Talls.  Once we discovered the Fires and the FreeTime, we were sold.  I think that they're working out well, although Wyatt and Reese would probably say that they aren't big fans of the limits that we set up!

Obviously they spent Finley's nap time figuring out how their new "toys" worked!

After Finley napped, we got everyone ready to go to Mimi and Baba's house for dinner and more cousin time! 

And a few selfies, too!  She's quite proud of that new "FitBit." Merry Christmas 2015!  And Black Friday is nine months from today!

Christmas Eve 2015

We spent the morning and early afternoon on Christmas Eve hanging out at home.  First, I need to document Parker's sweet hiding spot that night!

Reese and Brian went to WalMart to pick up some baking items for me and water for Brian.  He is officially obsessed with the WalMart flavored waters.  We try to buy a ton at a time to limit my trips to WalMart to every two weeks (honestly, we have a great store, I just can't stand WalMart).

I prepped stuffed shells for dinner and made pans of the Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls to take to friends!

And the kids decorated cookies.  This is Hudson's cookie that he dubbed "Mistletoe Mountain."  I don't think he actually ate that thing, but this happened under Daddy's supervision!

After we dropped off the cinnamon rolls at our friends' homes, we headed to the fire station to see Pop Pop, Didi, Katie, and Bella.  My dad's newest fire station is right at the beach, and it was in the seventies on Christmas Eve...so it was perfect!

The kids had lots of fun on all the equipment made for the beach.

A little girl + a fire truck = pure happiness.  I think she may have locked herself in!

And they were trying to solve a few mysteries of "how things work" at the station.  The bay doors were the biggest mystery!

And we were able to get one picture of the four of them all kind of looking at the camera before we left.

We came back home for dinner, cookies, Santa's final report on their behavior for the year (makes mental note to "check in" with Santa in June, too), and some of our traditional stories before bed.  Then we waited for Santa to come!

Christmas Program 2015

After Thanksgiving comes Christmas! I was a substitute at the preschool 4 days the week before break, and she had to go to the MWF class and the T/Th class.  Since those two classes had two different programs, she had a "dress rehearsal" before her actual program!

On Monday, she sang at the same time as Hudson's class.

Hudson has such a great class (I know because I've been in there as a sub, too).

They both got very animated during their performance of "Feliz Navidad".

I had to go back to class during Hudson's party, but Brian was able to squeeze in a selfie!

And it was like, 85 degrees that day, so Hudson had to pack some "comfy" clothes so he could be more weather appropriate!  We had CRAZY weather the week of Christmas.

 Brian came back the next day for Finley's second performance and for her "actual" class party.

And I was able to sneak over for a second before I had to head back to class!  She is 100% my mini-me!

Christmas Eve!

After we got home from Mimi and Baba's, we prepped for Santa's arrival.

But first I'll hit the rewind button to Sunday night.  Brian was starting to feel crummy, so I let him nap for a bit before we went to the Holiday Lights at the Beach.  I thought it would be fun to make Reindeer Food with the kids.

Yeah. Hudson kept "missing" the baggie as he tried to dump oatmeal in,  Finley didn't bother aiming for her baggie.  Instead she dumped her oatmeal in Reese's hair.  Since there was already oatmeal in her hair, Reese decided to throw some sugar in for good measure (so the reindeer could find her obviously).  It was chaos.  But still so fun!

On Christmas Eve, we dumped the reindeer food out for them to find.  Hudson missed out on the fun because he was sleeping.

We set out the cookies and milk for Santa and the carrots for the reindeer, but Finley took off with the carrots!  She can't be trusted!

Once the kids were asleep, Brian got to work getting the presents from us out for the kids.  How adorable are their matching Duffy's?  They really got hooked on Duffy while we were at Disney World.  Wyatt, who is especially into Hidden Mickeys, loves that Duffy's face is one!

While Brian worked on the present mission, I got to work frantically cleaning (because a house should be clean if it's going to be trashed the next day right?), and then got the streamers up on their doors!

While it doesn't keep them in their rooms until we get them, it does at least make it a little harder for them to escape in the middle of the night!

My 12 foot tree.  It is a beast to get up (and I told Brian I wasn't going to do it this year since we would be in Disney World for so long), but goodness gracious it makes me happy!  Brian already had my presents under the tree.  The bottle of wine shows how well he knows me.  Ha!

Santa came!

I love the way my house looks and feels all lit up by twinkle lights!  It always makes me sad to take it down mid January. Ha!

Christmas Eve at Mimi and Baba's

We spent Christmas Eve at Brian's parents house this year.  The cousins were ready to have their gift exchange before Santa came to town!

Piper and Colin both helped their little cousins open their presents.  Finley is obsessed with that baby doll and Hudson hasn't stopped playing cars all weekend!

 Piper and Reese exchanged art supplies (for Piper) and Lego Friends (for Reese).  And I just made weird faces in the background.

 Wyatt got his first set of Star Wars Command and has amassed a small army of them.  There are a lot of different sets!

 After everything was open, they quickly got to playing!

 And sharing some ice cream together on the porch!

We all had to leave early though - it was time to get home and prepare for Santa's arrival.  Or in Hudson's case, fall asleep at 5:30 and not wake up until the next morning :)!