Thursday, December 26, 2013

Christmas Morning

This was the first year Trey understood that when he woke up on Christmas morning there would be new toys downstairs from Santa and lots of presents to open.  When he woke up at 5:30 am there was no going back to sleep!  We let him wake up Charlotte at 6:30 to head downstairs.

On Christmas Eve the kids opened up some new Christmas pajamas.  This year's theme was Santa pjs!  After they went to bed Santa came to visit. 




Christmas morning the kids dove into their stockings. 



 Charlotte was so excited about her new baby stroller.  As soon as she realized it had two seats she went to her cradle to get two babies to put in the stroller.  She strapped them in, found bottles and toys to give them in her stocking and then she was off. 





Trey said at the beginning of the December he wanted a race car track and he never requested anything else or said anything different when he was asked what he wanted for Christmas.  He quickly lined up his new cars and started to race the cars.







 Charlotte found some play jewelry in her stocking and didn't take the bracelets or necklaces off all morning.


They both got new ornaments in their stockings.  Trey found his Thomas ornament and went right over to the tree to put the ornament on a branch. 


After looking at stockings and Santa toys we started to open presents from under the tree.  We hope your family had just as much fun on Christmas morning!


Sunday, December 8, 2013

Fantasyland and a Christmas Parade

We had a busy Christmas-filled day yesterday.  In the morning we took the kids downtown to Fantasyland.  The kids go to a museum where Santa's room is set up with a fireplace, Christmas tree and cozy chair.  The kids sit around Santa and sing Christmas songs and listen to Santa tell stories.  Then they get to go into another room with Santa to take a picture. 

Trey and Charlotte have not been very interested in Santa until this year, so we never pursued going to sit on Santa's lap. Plus the mall at Christmastime is not my favorite place so waiting in line to see Santa, who will probably make my kids cry, was not my idea of "Christmas fun." Trey and Charlotte loved seeing Santa last weekend from a distance, so we thought this would be a good first time seeing Santa up close.

Santa taught the kids some new Christmas carols.

Charlotte liked the lady sitting next to us and made friends with her and she kept scooting closer to the lady!

Trey and Daddy singing Frosty.

Charlotte was very into what Santa was saying.

The museum was decorated so the kids could walk around while waiting for their turn to take a picture with Santa. 

Trey walked right up to Santa and sat down.  Charlotte was a little more hesitant and she chose to sit beside Trey instead of on the other side of Santa.

By the end of the time, they were both chatting away with Santa.
 After Fantasyland we went to our local Christmas parade.  They loved the parade!! We got a great spot on the sidewalk and the weather was cool, but not too windy or yucky.  It definitely felt like Christmas weather!
Charlotte waved to all the floats.  She would yell out, "Hello Mr. Snowman!" or whoever else was riding on the floats.

Trey started out sitting in his chair watching the parade, but then he realized that each float was throwing out candy. 

By the end he was jumping along the sidewalk waving and yelling "Merry Christmas!" to the passing floats.  It was so cute!

We saw friends from church and school that were in the parade and enjoyed listening to the high school marching bands.  This will definitely be an annual tradition!

Friday, December 6, 2013

Making Memories

 We have a had a fun week of making Christmas memories for 2013.  The kids are at such a great age to enjoy the holiday season.  They are old enough to enjoy some of the festivities in the area and "help" with the decorating. 

We put up our tree last Saturday, after stopping at a local store to pick out the perfect tree.  Ever since we have been married Jay and I go back and forth about colored or white lights.  Even though we both grew up with colored lights, I think white lights look much nicer.  About 5 years ago we switched to LED lights and we bought colored and white, but the store didn't have many colored left, so we had more boxes of white lights.  Since then we have pretty much only used white lights on the tree, and I always use the excuse that we only have two boxes of colored lights, which is not enough for the tree.  On Sunday afternoon Jay and I started stringing the first strand of lights.  When we plugged them in, Trey asked where the rainbow lights were.  Apparently the Christmas trees on tv and in stores have colored lights and that is what he was expecting.  I asked him if he wanted Daddy to go buy colored lights for the tree.  Trey said yes and Jay silently cheered that finally someone else wanted colored lights and was in his "Christmas light camp."  That evening Trey was so excited about the "rainbow" lights and putting them up on the tree.  I am thinking I am going to be outnumbered in the white light category for a long time.

Charlotte was a pro at hanging the ornaments.  We did have to go behind her and move some off the very edge of the branches. 

Trey loved finding ornaments that he had made in past years.  He even remembered some he made last year!

We pulled out all the non-breakable ones for them to put on the tree.  They had them up in under 10 minutes. 

As you can see, their ornaments heavily covered the bottom 1/4 of the tree.  After they went to bed we put the rest of the ornaments on.  The lights are colored LED lights, but for some reason they look very blue in the photos. 

This is the first year I have learned about some of the fun Christmas activities for kids in our area.  Last Saturday evening we went to a museum downtown to make crafts and watch Santa arrive on a train.  The kids have never been interested in seeing Santa before so we had never taken them to sit on Santa's lap or go see him, but they were so excited to go see Santa last weekend.

The place was extremely crowded so we skipped the craft tables where the pandemonium was happening and found a quiet corner for the kids to decorate their cookies. 

Charlotte chose to decorate with green icing, which ended up everywhere but her coat!
 We went outside with another family we saw from church to watch for Santa to arrive.  After 10 minutes Trey said he was too cold and wanted to come back inside.  Since everyone else had made their way outside to wait for Santa, he had his pick of craft tables that were open and empty!

He made a Santa face.

Here he was making a tree with popsicle sticks.  The sweet volunteer helping him was quite concerned about the amount of glitter glue he used, but I didn't have a problem with it so he went to town with every color of glitter glue they had.

Charlotte waited outside with Jay for almost 45 minutes for Santa to arrive.  She didn't mind at all!  When she came back inside we got her to make one wreath craft. 

CBS had a Christmas movie special on t.v. tonight so the kids and I watched Frosty the Snowman together.  Trey checked out the Frosty the Snowman book from the school library yesterday, so it was perfect to watch the movie tonight.  Both kids were mesmerized by the show and Trey was extremely excited about eating one of his new favorite foods, popcorn.
 


We have some more Christmas fun in the plans for this weekend!

Monday, December 2, 2013

Rocket Launch

My nephew Jacob received a rocket for his birthday last summer.  His parents told him our house would be a good place to launch the rocket.  Luckily, Jay made model airplanes and rockets as a kid so he was right in his element with this gadget.  Jay and Jacob put the rocket together on Wednesday and Thursday and after our meal on Thursday it was time for the long awaited rocket launch.

Everyone wanted to watch the assembly of the rocket.

The spectators braving the cold and ready for the launch.

Getting set up

The countdown 3...2...1

Blast off! This is actually the second launch.  The first time the rocket went so much faster than I was prepared for that I didn't get any shots of it in the air!

The kids are taking off chasing after the rocket.
Unfortunately the parachute got stuck on the top of a tree after the 2nd launch and no amount of shaking could get it loose. 

Four days later the rocket is still at the top of the tree. 

 Now both kids want their own rocket.  I have told them they can get one when they are their cousin's age, eight. 


So Thankful

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend with family.  I love when our home is full of people and this past holiday weekend was no exception.  The kids had so much fun with both sets of grandparents and cousins all around. 

Chandler and Trey playing cars together. 

Early morning Wii games, notice the sun has not completely come up yet!


The kid's table for Thanksgiving.  The only "Thanksgiving" food on Trey's plate was the deli meat turkey because he won't eat the real turkey!
I forgot to take pictures of the food spread, but I am pretty sure we could have fed many more people!