Christmas Tour 2012: Santa Claus is coming!!!

Like I mentioned in the last Christmas post, we came home on Christmas Eve so that we could be at our house on Christmas morning. Before I venture through our Christmas Eve fun, let's take a quick look at our visit with Santa. 

There isn't a picture out there that portrays their personalities any better. I could do a whole post on how Connor's reaction broke my heart. It took me a good 2 weeks to get over it! It just made me so sad for him! After I picked him up, in between sobs, he started to tell Santa what he wanted. He was trying so hard to tell him the few things he had been talking about for weeks. Thankfully, he settled down as soon as we walked away and hopefully he will forget about it by Christmas :)

On Christmas Eve, we made a big deal out of leaving cookies and milk for Santa. Connor kept saying, "Santa is going to like his milk!" 

Santa came as soon as the boys went to bed :) He was ready!!! The only thing Connor really asked for was Buddy, which is the little orange dinosaur you see in the picture. I figured this would probably be the last year Santa shopping would be so easy! (Besides the fact that I couldn't find that crazy dinosaur ANYWHERE and finally had to order it from Amazon the week before Christmas.)

The next morning Connor woke up and the first thing he said to me when I walked in his room was, "SANTA'S HERE?!?!" He was so excited, yet still waited so patiently while I fed Cade. 

The one thing I was MOST excited about him opening was his Buzz Lightyear costume. I just knew it would be something he would love!

In the middle picture he is saying, "Look, Cade. I grew up to be Buzz!"

The rest of the morning we just played with their new toys and relaxed. 

We watched the Disney Parade and it fully solidified my complete and utter excitement to go to Disney World! Connor was totally captivated! 

We had a wonderful Christmas morning with our little family. We are so blessed to see Christmas through those 2 set of sweet eyes and look forward to so many more! 

Christmas Tour 2012: Arkansas

The weekend before Christmas Day, we headed to Arkansas to spend time with my side of the family. We started off with my mom and I took the one picture you see below. Needless to say, I was in the moment and didn't even stop to capture anything! We had a good couple of days with her just relaxing and enjoying each other. While we were there, Cade gave me the best Christmas present ever.. he said mama!! He did it a couple of times as I was going in and out taking stuff to the trashcan. Every time I would open the door, he would say it! He doesn't much like for me to be out of his sight and he was letting me know! 

Next up was with my dad and his wife. I did get a couple of pictures with my iPod, but as you can see, the quality is terrible. We mainly hung out at the house, but one night we drove around and looked at Christmas lights. I'd say the majority of the houses in their neighborhood had lights up, so I thought Connor would enjoy it!

1. FOOTBALL OBSESSED! Daddy drawing up plays on Connor's new table top easel.
2. Cade was so funny with the presents. He loved all of the books and was right in there helping Connor look through them.
3. Papaw and his 2 boys :)
4. Connor's could be part Ferguson if he didn't eat fried deer meat! It was his first time to try it and he liked it! He kept saying, "Mommy, Papaw killed this deer?" It was my first time to have it in a couple of years and it hit the spot!
5. MiMi rocking Cade. She got a lot of this in this time! He napped there more than once!

Matt was able to take off work on Thursday and Friday, which gave us a couple of extra days. It was nice to have enough time to see everyone and not feel like we had to turn around as soon as we got there. We woke up early on Christmas Eve to come home, getting home around 3 so that we could have Christmas Day at our house. Growing up that was always our rule.. Christmas Day is at home! So, that is what Matt and I decided on, too!

Up next.. Santa came!!!

Christmas Tour 2012: The Kegleys

Well, hello there! I have procrastinated and procrastinated some more when it comes to recapping Christmas and New Years. If it weren't for the fact that the reason I do this is to look back and remember, then I would just skip over it and start fresh. But, I know I would regret it next year, so here I am. We had 6 celebrations this year, so needless to say this won't be a quick recap! 

We started out what I called the Christmas Tour with the Kegleys the weekend before Christmas. Saturday morning we went to our annual breakfast at Loveless Cafe. It is always so good and I usually leave absolutely miserable. Matt asked me what I was most looking forward to eating on the way there and he was extremely disappointed with my answer. It was the fruit!! I love eating fruit, but it is SO expensive, so I thoroughly enjoy it when it's all you can eat!

We opened Christmas presents with them after church on Sunday. It was a nice, relaxed event. Both boys took naps, which made for happy boys (and parents!) while we opened presents. Cade slept on a pallet on the floor for almost 3 hours and when I went to check on him I noticed that the sound machine seemed louder. I went to open the door and he had crawled over to the sound machine and was messing with it. It just made me laugh! He is into everything! Libby took some pictures for me that day.. thanks, Libby!!!

From L to R, starting at the top:
1. Uncle Josh with Cade. Seriously, makes my heart melt. I can only IMAGINE what it does to his wife ;) HA! Cade loves him and I'm pretty sure the feeling is mutual!
2. Uncle Josh, Aunt April and my baby boy.
3. Cade opening up his first presents.
4. Connor laughing hysterically at his new Hamm.
5. Yes, that was their tree. D-daddy IS a ham! ;)
6. So excited about his new slinky dog... that TALKS!
7. Uncle Kyle gets the big belly laughs and squeals!
8. BeBe and D-daddy containing playing with Cade
9. Uncle Kyle and Cade

It was so much fun to see Connor during all of this. He loved passing out the presents and was so sweet and patient for his turn (we go youngest to oldest). He was excited to see what everyone got and really paid attention to each present that he opened when it was his turn. I guess I am just proud of how he acted overall! Opening presents is a big concept to understand and appreciate for a little kid!

Coming up next... Arkansas trip!

Merry Christmas 2012

Catch up!

Last night was an interesting one. As I stated yesterday, Connor had a fever all day. He was so puny and pitiful, I just knew he would sleep so well last night. Boy, was I wrong. He woke up around 3 and somehow thought it was morning time. He had to go to the bathroom, which I think woke him up even more. He kept saying, "I took a good nap, Mommy. The sun is up." I wasn't sure how to explain to a 2 year old that it was the middle of the night and I wasn't awake enough to try. He might have slept for 30 minutes before Matt's alarm went off at 5:45 and he woke up again. This time, Matt just brought him into bed with me. He fell asleep pretty instantly, only waking up to go to the bathroom when Matt came in to finish getting ready for work. He even slept while I got up to feed Cade. Thankfully, his fever has dropped dramatically (at it's highest yesterday, it was 103.9 and wouldn't drop below 102, even with ibuprofen). I honestly think he was too hot in his room. He is still in a crib and he refuses to let any of the animals lay on the floor instead of his bed with him. One more reason I am so ready to get him a full sized bed!

Anyway, while Connor slept some more, Cade and I had some breakfast together. Seriously, this sweet boy slays me. He just smiles all.the.time! 

I am so behind on so many things due to me being sick last week. It was one of those sinus funks that leaves your head feeling like it has been under attack and leaves you with no energy whatsoever. Which, is not good when you have a crazy busy 2 1/2 year old and 7 1/2 month old! Which means I have a myriad of topics today, in no particular order. 

my little elf:

Someone in our family is determined to unwrap the presents. It is not Connor, although he asks to daily. It is my littlest elf :)

If you even goes as far to get out of his sight, he is headed towards the tree. He has almost unwrapped one completely (which was, coincidentally, his!) and has eaten, yes EATEN, the tag off of one. After which he threw up the tape. Awesome mom right here!!! I try the whole, "No, No Cade" in a stern voice. He just ducks his head, lifts those beautiful eyes up at me and smiles. This boy is going to be trouble. 

cooking fun with Gammie:

Last Friday we spent the night with Gammie so that Matt and I could go on a date. First off, let me say how awesome it was to have my husband all to myself. Goodness, I love that man. During the day, Connor and Gammie made some snowmen rice crispy treats. Of course, we could not get him to eat even one bite. He is not my child in that aspect! 

I cannot even begin to describe how lucky our boys are to have such a tremendous amount of love from their grandparents. 

Christmas bucket list fun:

I have been wracking my brain to come up with a list of fun things for us to do for the holiday. I know I have a limited amount of time to do things like this, so I want to soak it up while I can. One of the things I wanted to do was make a gingerbread house. Although, we used graham crackers. I didn't go out and buy a kit, which is probably why ours kept falling apart. He still had fun and that was all that mattered! 

Sigh. He has gotten SO big recently. He is losing his baby chub in his face and it is killing me! With that, he has also started loving on me even more recently, which makes it a little easier to take. 

We start our Christmas tour this weekend and Connor is beyond pumped. I told him Sunday night that he had to take a bunch of naps before it was time to get the party started. He woke up Monday morning and told me that he had, in fact, taken a bunch of naps last night. Oops. Time to figure out another way of explaining the wait! 

Christmas has landed!!!

It is officially Christmas time here at our house! I have so many things that I want to do this year now that Connor is a little older and understanding so much more. I love all of those printables that you put in a frame to list things to do for the season, but I don't have any spare frames and I'm afraid by the time I get one put together, it'll be 3 days before Christmas. Maybe next year, huh?

I know a lot of people don't decorate until December 1st. We knocked it out on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. It took everything in me to wait that long! Yeah, I am one of those! Which means I will also be so ready to take it down afterwards :) We got Connor involved in the decorating and it quickly became one of the top 5 experiences I have had since becoming a mommy. He was running around yelling, "I'm so essited!", while jumping and clapping all at the same time. We let him help us put the ornaments on and he did a great job. If it were up to him, they would have all been in the same spot, but he was easily persuaded to spread them out :)

We also went ahead and introduced the Elf on the Shelf. I don't really use it as a "he is watching you, so you better behave" type of thing, but just for fun. He, of course, named him Buzz. Such is the theme of our life right now!!

He was a little concerned about the "snow" mess he made. He is so my child!



Another thing I want to participate in is as many Christmas activities that our little town has to offer. The first one was last Saturday night. There was a horse/carriage rides, you could write letters to Santa, a live nativity scene, live band, Santa and some military vehicles. I didn't dress the boys up to see Santa because I just knew it would be packed. It actually wasn't, although he was sitting in a huge pink chair. That doesn't necessarily scream Christmas to me, so we have yet to do that! 

One of my favorite things about having boys so close together is matching! I don't do it very often since Cade has all of Connor's hand me downs, but I broke down and bought some matching Christmas jamas a few weeks ago. I am a sucker for some cute Christmas jamas!!

We also broke out the smocked Christmas outfits! I did wait until December for this one, but only because we were at home with a sick baby on the last Sunday in November. Hey, I've never claimed I'm normal when it comes to the Holidays!  

This is our 3rd Christmas with Connor. And this is the 3rd year we have danced to Christmas music in this spot in our kitchen. He wasn't digging the slow dances, though, and kept asking for the fast ones. Oh me.

There are still a few things we need to do...pictures with Santa, make a gingerbread house, go see some Christmas lights, go to Opryland Hotel,  make some ornaments and please, oh please, let it snow so we can play in it!!!

Do y'all have a fun Christmas tradition that you look forward to every year? Do share!!!