We had a busy holiday season this year, as always!
Our church put on a holiday party and the kids all got to go on stage and sing several songs. It was for ages 2 and up but, shocker, Tess opted to sit with us rather than participate. Zach was in the bed due to the spinal tap headache but Mrs. Charlotte came with me to see the kids in action AND the Bacon family surprised us and came too. It was SO sweet and thoughtful (hate I didn’t get a picture of them but appreciate Jordan taking all the videos for me so I could take pics!).
It cracked me up how Britt was more reserved and quiet and Kye was stealing the show 😉 I always joke how the Parker family tends to sing “loud and proud” and Kye is DEF a Parker when it comes to his singing 🙂 After the show he said he just loved being up there and having everyone watching him. You could see the energy it gave him and how much he truly enjoyed it. For sure Zach’s child! Whereas Britt mostly just looked at me and smiled and whisper sang a little…much more like her mama would be 😉
Videos of the songs:
Santa also came for a visit! Our youth minister has a VERY obvious voice (he had throat cancer a couple years ago so it’s very distinguishable) and Britt knew right away that it was not Santa. I told the kids that sometimes people like to dress up like Santa kinda like how we like to dress up for Halloween 🙂
Proud G-Mama!
My babies! After a ROUGH weekend (Zach’s spinal tap, my MRSA and our failure of a trip to Savannah…) ending it on such a sweet note was just what I needed!
Our neighborhood is also stepping up the game with events and last year they did an AWESOME Christmas party. Britt and Daddy had to stay home that night because of Britt’s poor attitude so she was REALLY excited to get to attend this year! We met Santa, played on the playground, made s’mores, had popcorn and watched a Christmas movie! Such a fun time!
Closest Tess has ever come to Santa without crying 😉
Tess kept her hand on her popcorn the whole time…typical third child territorial 😉
Every year we celebrate Christmas at Mema’s with Mrs Charlotte’s side of the family! It’s a great chance to catch up with everyone and spend quality time with Mema. She loves having all of her great grand babies together!
(Kye was upset over some issue with his rubber band gun he got)
Last year was our first year doing our OWN little Christmas at our house as a family on Dec 23rd. We LOVED it and this year it was nice to be prepared in advance for it! I always make these special Christmas cookies that my mom made growing up and they are quite a process so I like spread it out. One day I make the dough, then another I cut and bake the cookies, and then day of I make the icing. My biggest memory about the Christmas cookies is my mom talking about how much of a pain they were to make. She had a point…they aren’t quick and easy. BUT it’s such a fun process with my babies so I make sure to keep it fun and never let it be a negative or something I complain about!
Three helpers make complicated tasks easier 😉
This girl was ALL about helping me cut out the cookies!
She requested lots of Mickey ones 🙂
Another tradition we do every year is a night out for shopping. We go to Target and split up. All the kids pick one gift together for Mommy and for Daddy and then the siblings pair up to pick a gift for the third one (meaning at the end of it all we have one gift to open each!). Then we also go to the Dollar Store and split up again and all pick out little stocking stuffer gifts for each other. Zach and I want our children to appreciate the gift of GIVING and this is how we accomplish that at Christmas time! While at the Dollar Store we’ve added a new tradition onto our existing tradition 😉 We get cash out of the bank and put it in envelopes and then let the kids each take a couple and hand them to any random person they want and just simply say “Merry Christmas.” Y’all it’s THE BEST feeling and the reactions from people are truly precious.
Tess haha
After all our shopping we got dinner at Cici’s! Our Cici’s closed down for a couple years and I had a coupon for a free kids meal from literally when Kye was 4 years old. Yup, they honored it 😉 To feed a family of 5 for $15? Pretty awesome!
We also combined that night with going to look at Christmas lights! We have a neighborhood in our town where each home has a BIG Christmas card in their yard so that’s a fun one to drive through and we also have a house that does a light show with music and everything that is really fun too!
This year our local CFA had a breakfast with Santa Cow event so you know we hit that up 🙂 We got their before Carter (and Casey and Jordan) so I hate we didn’t get a pic of all the kids together!
I love CFA b/c they always go ALL OUT. Everyone got Santa Cow hats and coupons and goodies and we got to take home all sorts of stuff to help engage the family in conversation!
We did a little pre-Christmas baking 🙂 Tess wanted to eat more than she wanted to help!
Covered. In. Sugar.
You can tell Britt LOVES to bake! She’s ALWAYS got the biggest smile when baking is involved!
These are Zach’s favs so we made them for him 🙂
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