As you can tell, Christmas is QUITE the event for us. I’m kinda worn out already and I’m just now getting to blog about the festivities surrounding the holiday!!! I tried to organize all the things we did this year the best I could and tried to combine it all to get the blog posts done 😉
Something I think is very important to teach our children is the value of GIVING. It is such a wonderful feeling to take the time to pick out presents for those we love and to get to see the joy on their faces as they open them. Each year we take Kye shopping to pick out a present for Daddy and Mommy. Usually we take him separately. This year we decided to just go together as a family. We went to Target (as really it has the best options for gift giving!) and divided up. I took both kids to get a gift for Zach, he took both kids to get a gift for me, then he took Kye to get a gift for Britt and I took Britt to get a gift for Kye 🙂
We decided to make it a family night out and went the day before Zach and I left for NC. I thought we’d have time to do both the Target stop and a run to the dollar store to buy our stocking gifts for each other, but the Target shopping took a good bit longer than I anticipated 🙂
I cannot believe this happened but for the FIRST time probably in my LIFE I forgot my camera!!! We had to use our cell phones to take pictures of this outing which annoys me to death. I can’t stand taking pics with my phone…
I did NOT look at these pics prior to Christmas…which is obvious because if I had then I would have told Zach to return the dress he and Kye bought for me. HELLO…I’m not anything close to a size EXTRA SMALL haha. I ended up taking it back after Christmas and they were sold out of them so I ended up getting a pair of pants and a top off the clearance rack instead 🙂 Kye had been saying all month that he really wanted to buy me a princess dress for Christmas and it’s so sweet that he picked this out for me!
Kye, Britt, and I decided it would be fun to get Daddy a game of some kind since the three of us play games every night. We found this air hockey set (only $10…score!) and it really was such a perfect gift! We have already gotten more than $10 worth of use out of it!!!
Britt and Kye LOVE to play with his Shake and Go cars so I knew she’d want to give him one for Christmas…how PERFECT that they had a firetruck Mater one!!!
While we were there Britt tossed her cup out of the buggy and that junk BUSTED all over the floor. Like huge puddle mess. I wasn’t even sure what to do?!?! I offered to clean it up and some guy handed me a couple paper towels. He was kinda rude about it but thankfully a lady who also worked there happened to walk by and said they would handle the clean up. Mildly embarrassing for sure 😉
After our shopping trip we decided to go to Steak and Shake for dinner. Kids eat free on the weekends…well that does NOT include Friday!!! Just Sat and Sun. Oops. Oh well, we were already there so we rolled with it! Mrs. Charlotte also happened to be at Hobby Lobby next door so we told her to come eat with us. It was nice to treat HER to dinner for a change since she does so, so much for us 🙂
Britt’s first time at Steak and Shake
She LOVED the hat!
She put the shake in Steak and Shake for sure 😉
Since time was too cramped for us to do the dollar store trip the same day as Target we ended up leaving early for the Parker family dinner on Friday the 21st and went to the dollar store then. We spend Christmas morning at Mrs. Charlotte’s and don’t actually exchange any gifts at our own home so stockings have become a little tradition of ours. We spent $8 per person. I took Kye to pick out 4 things for Britt and 4 things for Daddy while he took Britt to pick out 4 things for Kye and 4 things for me. Then we switched and I took Britt to pick out things for Daddy and he took Kye to pick out things for me 🙂 We each ended up with 8 stocking stuffer presents to open on Christmas afternoon at our house!
I don’t take Brittlynn out often enough…she LOVES to go and do and I love all the CONSTANT people who stop to go on and on about how adorable she is 😉
Following our shopping trip we headed over to our church where they host the annual Parker Family Supper each year. ALL the Parker’s get together for a potluck style dinner. We can never stay too long due to bedtimes. I don’t even think we went at all last year since Britt was so little. I kinda wish the event wasn’t so close to Christmas…I mean I would totally stay longer and push the kids bedtimes back a little for it but I don’t want to risk them being overly tired with ALL the Christmas stuff we have going on during such a busy time!
This year we went SUPER early. That way we could visit with people as they arrived and wouldn’t feel as guilty when we had to head home. Kye enjoyed playing with ALL of his little cousins (there are so many of them around his age!) and everyone enjoyed getting to see Britt 🙂
Kye and Colt – Best Buds!
On Saturday Dec 22nd we had Mema’s Christmas. Everyone met up at her house that afternoon to eat an early dinner and exchange gifts. I love, love, LOVE this picture of me and the kids!!! Too bad someone couldn’t have taken the picture for us and had Zach jump in it!!!
Isn’t this SO precious?!?!
Tried to get one of all the cousins 🙂
Brittlynn was in quite the little mood that day. She was PRECIOUS the night prior for the Parker event and I guess if I had to pick one for her to be fussy at it would be Mema’s because it was all close family who knew better than to think she’s always that fussy 🙂 She would NOT go away from me for a second…except when Austin asked to hold her. She was SO sweet with him!!! I think she has good taste already 😉
She was the happiest when she was in my arms eating Aunt Courtney’s chicken salad…
She would eat it all day long if I let her!
Every year we have a little Christmas countdown calendar. It is a little snow village with velcro snowmen and town to put on for each day that passes by. I figured Britt wouldn’t be very interested in taking part in it but I wanted to get Kye used to having to take turns with things so each kid got to put up the “guy” (as we called it) every other day. It worked out GREAT and Brittlynn, surprisingly, took it VERY seriously. She was all about her turn and got so excited each day!!! Her last day to put one up was on Dec 23rd so I had Zach take a couple pictures of us 🙂
I’m proud of Kye for cheering Britt on and encouraging her on her days. He was so patient about it all and also took it seriously. As you can tell from the layout of most of the snowmen…Kye likes things in a straight line haha. Type-A like his mama (actually…Zach is quite Type-A as well!). His last day was on Christmas Eve so we put it up before heading over to G-Mama’s!
He wanted to save the North Pole sign for the last day for Santa 😉
Christmas anticipation is almost better than Christmas itself 😉 This year was the most fun year YET because Kye is old enough to “get it” and to be super crunk about everything. We talked Christmas to DEATH but never got sick of it! I love that we’re entering into our best years as a family. Having children is such a true blessing and really does make everything so much more special, meaningful, and FUN 🙂
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