Christmas 2013

Christmas was wonderful this year! As usual, it feels like I blinked and it was over. Especially with only three weeks between Thanksgiving and New Year, the season flew by. We enjoyed every minute of it though, especially Andrew! I can tell that three is just the beginning of the Christmas magic, and now we get to experience it with both boys. This post is basically going to be a huge picture dump, but I want to be able to look back and remember the joy of this year!

Gabby and Pawpaw came over on Christmas Eve to help us get ready and go to church with us. They had fun decorating cookies with Andrew. Andrew was very particular about the decorating, as well as the cookies that were his and the ones for Santa. (Santa was not allowed any candy cane or gingerbread man cookies!) We went to the Christmas Eve service at the church we recently joined. I was happy to participate at our church, but they didn't have a children's service. I'd love to say that it was a lovely service and that we came home excited about the birth of Christ. That would be a lie (well, except the excited about the birth of Christ part)... the service was long... and although I'm sure it was beautiful, I was too busy trying to shoot fire out of my eyes at Andrew, who was acting less-than-angelic. Some gems include him picking his nose and eating it (eww...). When I asked him to stop, he whined, "But I'm soooo hungry!!" Lovely. He also was trying to "sing" with the hymns, but he didn't know the words, so he just loudly sang gibberish. When he started spitting, I picked him up and hauled him out of there. As we are having a come-to-Jesus meeting in the hallway, I told him how upset I was. He looks at me and says, "it's ok if you're upset, just don't be mad." Oh, Andrew! Needless to say, we were all ready for our Christmas Eve tradition of steaks and wine after the kids are in bed.

The cookies all ready for Mommy Santa to eat!

As I'm sure is the case with most parents, we stayed up way too late setting up the room to be ready when the boys woke up in the morning. This is the first year that Andrew was really excited for Santa to come, and we wanted everything to be perfect. Here is a shot from that morning before Andrew came out:

It was a wonderful day! Andrew was so excited, about the bike that Santa brought him, but especially about the (multiple) fire trucks he received. Benny was just excited about all the people and attention, and did seem to enjoy his toys. Andrew was also excited about Ben's toys, especially because he got to help open double the gifts!

Grandparents hanging out around the tree

Trying out Santa's gift!

Benny finally woke up - still wrapped in his sleepsack.

Eating the special Christmas breakfast of... no, wait, he ate Cheerios, just like every morning! Love my little creature of habit!

Benny loves his standing gifts! Andrew loves them, too.

Andrew and Grandpa

I love my happy, sweet boys so much! 

Tucker's gift - cuddles!

One of the (many) firetrucks!

Later in the afternoon Nick, Jessy, Bronc, and Teague, and Shawn and Kacie came over. The boys had a wonderful (loud) time, and everyone was blessed with even more gifts. We are so blessed to have a wonderful family, and I'm so happy that our boys will get to enjoy spending these times with their cousins. Although I'm also wondering how much louder it will be with four boys running around rather than just two or three! 

Shawn and Kacie brought Tucker's doppelganger, Roxy.