Friday, December 30, 2011

Christmas

 I decided that I wanted to be home for Christmas morning this year. The kids are 5 & 2 and it's time that we start making our own Christmas family traditions!  So I discussed it with everyone (well... with both my mom & Nick's mom, because let's face it guys, we all know mom's are the ones in charge, lol) and rearranged things & made it work! We had 4 Christmas celebrations & the best one was just the 4 of us (we missed Maryse though) at our little house on Christmas morning!
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Christmas with MawMaw & Granddaddy

Nick's parents came to our house to celebrate. They got here on Wednesday. The plan was to open presents on Friday night, but really, what was the point in waiting??? So instead, we opened presents on Wednesday night.

"What's this big present? Is it for me? Is it? Is it?" Yes Alex, it's for you!


Alex helping Daddy & Granddaddy put his workshop together.

Addy drawing a cow with her new markers
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Christmas Eve at CiCi & PopPop's

Since we wanted to be home for Christmas morning, we moved our Christmas Eve celebration up to 3:00. That worked out great for us. We were able to celebrate with the family & then make it home by about 8pm to get the kids their baths, in their pjs & off to bed so that Santa could come.

Cici & PopPop

the grandkids (minus Clark, he didn't want to take a picture)

The Gilthorpes-Charlie, Brooke, Jared & Boone

The Heberts-Chloe, Kelci, Jeff & Peyton

The Shivers-Clark, Michael, Molly & Hannah

Sadly, this is the best picture I have of our little family!

That's right, he's got his baba again! That's all he wanted for Christmas, lol!

Since Nick's head was cut off, here's another one of him (little blurry though)

opening presents

Nick & Maryse

High fiving cousins!

I LOVE the faces this boy makes!

PopPop & Boone

Charlie
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Christmas morning at our house

We didn't put any presents out until Christmas morning because I had a feeling between 2 kiddos & 1 dog that the presents wouldn't last! So Santa dropped off all the presents from mom & dad too! Addy's were all wrapped in the red Mickey Mouse paper & Alex's in the blue. Santa & Mrs. Claus (or really, Santa & Mr. Claus because we all know who the real Santa is...) stayed up til 2 A.M. building roads, castles & highchairs. But it was all worth it on Christmas morning!



Santa brought Alex a bike, a castle, a Build a Road, an iPod touch, a soccer ball & a Rock Star Mickey.


Santa brought Addy a whiteboard with markers, a Baby Alive doll with a high chair & car for it, an iPod touch, a fur real kitten, and a art tracing toy.

The kids woke up around 8 oclock & then all the fun began...
They SLOWLY opened their presents & seemed to love them all! Open, play, open, play was the theme of the day. Alex didn't open his last present until after lunch because he wanted to play with each toy that he opened!

This is Addy playing with her new fur real kitten that she named Purrdy. (Not sure if she named it Purrdy as in a cat purrs or as in a country accent pretty, lol) She LOVES Purrdy! Addy feeds Purrdy, makes her pose for pictures & takes her shopping with us! (I was hoping that Purrdy would give Bailey a break, but not so much... Sorry Bay, no fur real kitty could ever replace you!!!)


Her first masterpiece on her new whiteboard from Santa!


Alex & Nick putting together a dump truck with Alex's play tools (that really work!)


Playing with Addy's new doctor kit.

Mickey & Minnie going for a ride in Addy's new car.

Addy got this coffee mug for Nick at the holiday store at her school.

Look at this mess!

Riding on his new "big boy" bike
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Roeder Christmas

Christmas evening we had our last family Christmas celebration! We went to my Aunt & Uncle's house in Crosby. It was definitely a wild time but I think that everyone had a lot of fun catching up! (I know I did!)

PaPa & June (the man who started it all!)

my sweet sweet aunts

cousins

Us (we NEVER NEVER NEVER take a decent picture! Look at the awkward way I'm standing & Nick is looking at another camera, lol.)
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We had a great Christmas, but honestly I'm glad it's over! I'm ready for things to get back to normal & to start the new year! I hope you all had a great Christmas also!

P.S. Thanks to my mom for letting me steal some of her pictures! Love ya mom!

Tuesday, December 27, 2011

Friday...

Friday, the kids decorated Christmas cookies. They started with gingerbread men & then also decorated a few sugar cookies. The plan was to leave the sugar cookies out for Santa on Christmas Eve but when I asked Alex if he wanted to, he said "No thanks!" So Santa didn't get any cookies at our house! (I'm guessing Alex didn't want to have to share his cookies with Santa, lol.)  

They started off all nice & neat....



but once sprinkles got involved...

they ended up with a huge mess!

Yummy!

Alex's (left) & Addy's (right) gingerbread man

Later that night, we got the kids their baths & in their pjs & drove around to look at Christmas lights. Nick & I both love Christmas lights & the kids seem to also! Addy said they were "twinkly lights" & Alex said they were "so beautiful!" Here are some of our favorites...

The Sienna Christmas tree


This snowman was almost as tall as this 2 story house!

Of course the kids loved this one!!!!

and this one



Addy looking at the lights

Poor Alex fell asleep & missed out on some of the lights. But, the next morning he looked at the pictures of them in my phone!