Christmas Day 2014

Santa came, and he definitely spoiled these 2 sweet kiddos.  It was the best Christmas yet.  They were both so excited, and it made me so happy.  I'm sure you could guess that the "race car" was Brady's favorite gift.  He didn't react quite as excited as I expected, but I think he was just so overwhelmed that he was speechless.  He wanted to sit in his car to open the rest of his presents.

Katelyn adores her playhouse.  She immediately walked in it, and when I asked her if she wanted to open her other presents she said, "No".

They had so much fun.  My dad and step mom came over to have a late breakfast with us, and then we headed to Paul's grandmother's house that afternoon.  It was such a fun day, and my heart was so full.  My sweet husband and my two precious children were the only gifts I needed (although I got a few things myself :).

The race car!

She loves her new house!

Had to take it for a test drive.

Doing a little grilling

Waldo is crazy!

Paul made a delicious breakfast

One more ride before we headed to Manning

Someone had puppies!  He was so excited!

My heart :)

Katelyn and her Great Grandmom

So blessed :)

Christmas Eve

It is amazing how fast Christmas crept up this year.  It was like it was summer and two minutes later, it was Christmas Eve.  We started out the day with baking our traditional Christmas Eve sugar cookies!  This proved to be a little more challenging this year with a 3 year old and a 1.5 year old.  I want them to "help" me as much as possible, but it gets a little frustrating when I am not much of  baker myself.  Thank goodness for my brother who is seriously a Godsend and helped me keep my sanity.  He is SO GOOD with Brady and Katelyn and just so helpful when he is here.  I literally cry every time he leaves.  Brady and Katelyn love him so much.

We got the cookies made and then prepared for everyone to come to our house for Christmas Eve dinner.  This is a tradition that we started when Brady was born, and I just love having everyone come to our house.  Brady and Katelyn stayed up WAY too late, but it was so fun.  We served a beef tenderloin with fingerling potatoes with truffle oil and brussel sprouts au gratin.  It was delicious!  I wish I took a picture, but it was so hectic getting dinner ready and watching the kids that I missed that detail.

Brady was so excited about Santa this year that it made Christmas so much fun!!  We had our elf, Elvin who came back and forth from the North Pole everyday, and I loved seeing Brady's excitement to find him every morning.  Katelyn loved him too and liked to show everyone who came over where he was.  If Katelyn was acting up, Brady would tell her, "Katelyn, Santa is NOT going to come see you!"  He really got the whole concept this year.

My little "helpers"

Cookies!

Thankful for a husband who is such a great cook!

The table setting (although I forgot to put out silverware- whoops!)

The whole crew (minus my father-in-law who is taking the picture).  Please excuse the fact that this is a terrible picture of Paul and me.

She was so excited!  She just kept saying, "OOOOH!!"

He loved his Buzz (or "Pause" as he calls him).

She is obsessed with her baby doll stroller.

Nanna and Brady

Santa came!!

....then he wrapped up the whole room to ensure there was no peeking!

Pre-Christmas Fun

Happy New Year!!  I'm back!  I took a little unplanned hiatus from my blog, but I just needed a break.  We were busy enough between work, the kids being out of school for Christmas break, the holidays, sickness (more on that), and I just needed to take a break from SOMETHING.  So, I have a lot of catching up to do from all of our holiday activities.

I swear that the last week before Christmas break is always cursed for our family.  It never fails a serious sickness hits our house right before the kids are out of school for 2 weeks.  Last year it was RSV and this year it was the flu :(.  Brady's school called Wednesday to tell me that he was running a fever.  I picked him up and took him to the doctor where he tested positive for the flu.  That night was awful, and it took him a good 4 days to get better.  The rest of us got on Tamiflu and thank goodness we were ok.  Paul and Katelyn may have had a more minor case, but no fever etc.

We were sad because we missed out on spending a lot of time with the cousins who were in town for the weekend, but by Sunday everyone was doing well and we finally got to all get together!  Luckily we also managed to go see the lights at Saluda Shoals before Brady got sick.  I don't know if he even noticed the lights, because he was just SO EXCITED that we let him sit in daddy's lap and drive the car :).  It will take me a couple of posts to update everyone on our Christmas this year, because it was a good one!

The flu :(((

Santa delivered my present a little early which I am SO EXCITED about!  I got a new console table for our foyer.  Slowly but surely our house is starting to be complete :).

Love!

Katelyn's first pigtails!!

Ho ho ho!

Finally able to hang with the cousins!

Nanna and Papa with all their grandchildren minus 1.  (With 7 there is always 1 who doesn't want to participate.)

Watching The Grinch with Uncle Dustin!

My sister, Katie came in town for a few days, and I am so glad we got to see her and Scarlett!  Katelyn and Scarlett are just 9 months apart.

Waldo (my dad) with his grand babies!

We had a great Christmas, and it is always so special to get to spend so much time with family.  I have so much more to post over the next couple of days.  Here's to a great 2015!

Picking out the tree and meeting Santa!

We kept the tradition alive by going to get our tree the day after Thanksgiving.  It is hard to believe that this is Brady's 4th Christmas!  Paul got a little too excited at the Christmas Tree place and picked out the biggest one they had.  I was a little weary, but thought, what the heck.  So we came home we a ginormous tree...Paul's dad had to come help carry the tree, in and we soon realized that it was just ridiculously too big.  As in, we were afraid it would fall off the stand and kill someone.  So, they carried the tree back outside and thanks to our friend, Chris, we exchanged it for a smaller one the next day.  Lesson learned- the trees look a lot bigger once you bring them inside.  I think ours ended up being the perfect size, not too big, not too small.

Katelyn's face cracks me up.

This is what happens when you forget to bring their jackets...

All done!

Not much makes me happier than matching Christmas Pjs :)

We finally got to meet Santa this weekend! We were debating where to take the kids, and Paul saw on Facebook that Brady's old school was having cookies with Santa on Saturday.  It sounded perfect to us.  It was a small group which was so nice. We literally walked in and they immediately got to sit on Santa's lap.  I was completely shocked that Katelyn did not cry.  I expected that Brady would not be scared at all, but I assumed Katelyn would want nothing to do with him.  She wouldn't smile for us, but she had no problem sitting on his lap.  

They also got to decorate cookies and draw pictures.  Brady drew a picture for Santa and Mrs. Claus. He also told him he wanted a choochoo and a race car.  He also said that Momma and Papa wanted a BIG race car (thanks buddy :)).  Katelyn was so happy sitting in that chair eating a cookie and coloring.  I have literally never seen her sit still for that long.  People kept commenting on how good she was, and I assured them that this was not normal.  She didn't want to leave!  They both loved it.

Katelyn before we left.

He was so excited!

She did NOT want to leave that chair.