Decorating the Tree

As I'm going through our pictures from the past month, I am exhausted just thinking about all the fun we have squeezed in! And so much to share that there will be lots of posts over the next few days as I catch up! 

(If the kids cooperate during naptime that is!)

The weekend after Thanksgiving, we hustled to decorate the house before Ryan had to leave for 3 weeks. Let me just say, Christmas was SO FUN with a 3 1/2-year-old this year. Everything was seriously magical to him! He would say repeatedly, "Christmas is my favorite time of year!" or, "I just love Christmas!"

Helping me set out the nativity. This was my job as a little girl so it's fun to do it with my kids now!

Every time Gavin saw a nativity throughout December, he would yell (and I mean YELL), "It's Baby Jesus!!!"

Cutting the string on our real tree. Ryan's Great Uncle has a Christmas Tree Farm in North Carolina that we get a tree from every year!

We buy the kids an ornament every year as a tradition (like my parents did with me). Gavin loves putting on his ornaments!

This girl wants to do EVERYTHING her brother does:

Putting the finishing touch on--The Abominable Snowman topper from Rudolph!

  

Finished Product: 

The amount of presents under our tree this year was insane!!! So blessed to have so many family members to buy fun gifts for!

Larry the Elf

We have had so much fun with our Elf on the Shelf Larry. We started it last year and knew it would be a hit this year with Gavin's age. Good grief, he loved it, of course!

Larry appeared for the first time at Nani and Pop's house while Ryan was in Boston.

First night, he rolled Nani's Christmas tree:

Gavin is really into bad guys vs. good guys right now. So Pop found these policemen and we decided to arrest Larry for rolling the Christmas tree! Ha! They had him surrounded:

Even Pop's robots got in on the action:

Gavin LOVED it of course.

Pop hit the jackpot at Big Lots with fun little action figures. So we decided to let Larry bring army men the next morning, armed with a grenade! Ha! Hmmm...pretty sure most Elves on the Shelves don't do this :).

Playing Rock 'em Sock 'em:

I decided to set out a toy early when we got home--a Mr. Potato Head Fireman. "Larry" set up all Gavin's firetrucks and is on the ladder:

Gavin was just a bit excited. :)

Larry brought the kiddos some new Christmas coloring books. Goodness, what a generous elf he is!

Gavin had a Christmas parade at preschool and Larry had his shirt on wishing him good luck:

Ryan put him on the ceiling fan, and Gav couldn't find him all day!

Gavin's last day of preschool, I sent Larry in his lunchbox! I wish I could have seen his reaction. We got to join him for a party at the end of the day:

Snow angel in flour:

Eating our gingerbread house:

Watching TV with a midnight snack:

Tearing into presents Christmas morning:

He hitched a ride to Chattanooga to go to Nani and Pop's again:

Uncle Chad put him in a million different places that I did not get pictures of, but here is an example. Loaded in the back of Gavin's new dumptruck filled with "snow."

It really has been so fun figuring out what to do with this little guy! He doesn't "watch" Gavin or report to the North Pole like I think the whole Elf on the Shelf idea is supposed to be. We just do it for fun and these kiddos love it! Gavin one day said, "Mom, I just don't understand how he walks around while I'm asleep!" Oh, how I wish I were 3 again!

Christmas Day

We have so many pictures to share from Christmas Day, but I'll start with these. After we all opened presents in the morning, Ryan's family drove up for more present opening! This is what we started out with. Goodness gracious!

Betty has a tradition of getting the kiddos fun candy and holiday themed marshmallows:

Henley sitting on her new chair/couch from Gram and Papaw. Gavin has one, too, and it's their new favorite!

Gram, Henley, and her new Max & Ruby dolls. These kids LOVE that show!

Gavin with his new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle!

Cole and Aunt Amanda got Gavin and Henley legos, and look who ended up playing with them the most :)

Papaw, Ryan, and Gavin played with Hexbugs for most of the day:

It was such a fun day. This has been a hard Christmas for all of us to get together because Amanda and Ryan have both been traveling opposite schedules all December, so this is our first family picture together since Cole and Amanda's wedding! Ryan's Mom is sending these as Happy New Year cards instead of Christmas cards. I think it's such a great idea!

Basic Frame Christmas Card

Find unique and modern Christmas cards at Shutterfly.

View the entire collection of cards.

More pictures to come when I have a minute to share!

5x7 Folded Card

Basic Frame Christmas Card

Click here to browse Shutterfly Christmas card designs.

View the entire collection of cards.

Christmas at Dollywood: Trip #2

We are one of the crazy busiest families I know. Whew, sometimes I get tired just looking back at all of our fun adventures. I think we just try to cram as many fun things as we can into a small amount of time! :) Particularly when Ryan is gone for 3 weeks at Christmas. So after work one day this week, we hit the road to Dollywood. We got there at 7 pm, people. Was it worth if just for 2 hours? Yes! And since it was a Tuesday night, and so late, there was NOBODY there!

Gavin and Henley scoping out where to start:

As usual, we had to start with the cars. That's Dad and Henley waving to us:

My sad attempt to capture me riding with Gavin--because I never get to ride with him! He is a daredevil for sure. Watch out when he's 16, folks.

We had no gameplan for the evening, so it was all on the fly. We left the cars, walked across the bridge, and the parade was coming right toward us! So we hopped to the side and there was seriously nobody around us:

Somebody in the parade stopped at Gavin and said, "Hey, buddy, Santa has been looking for you! Make sure you wave at him when he comes by!" Oh for Pete's sake. If that wasn't the coolest thing in the world to this boy.

Then another stop at the miniature train exhibit, of course. Papaw, I can't believe we didn't see this sign the first time we went! You need to hang this in your house!! :)

Both kids fought all night over who got to be held by Dad. We did Dollywood without a stroller for the first time ever--and survived!

 

When we left the trains and walked to the County Fair kid area, there was a Nativity show going on. And guess who wanted to watch the show about Jesus instead of go on rides!? This sweet boy! It was SO late (like 8:40 by this point and they close at 9) that we kept asking him, "Bud, do you realize if we stay and watch this we won't be able to ride any rides? Are you sure you want to stay?" and he repeatedly said yes to stay.

It actually was really neat. The set was split into 2 scenes: a house with a father and daughter setting out their Nativity (see on the left on the table) and when the little girl would bring out a figure, the real person would appear on the right side of the stage which was Bethlehem. It was really well done. Gavin loved seeing the Nativity we've been teaching him about actually come to life.

After the play, we hustled over to the rides. It was 8:55 at this point--we thought for sure nobody would let us ride. Well, God sure knows the desires of our heart (even the little insignificant ones!), because the guys running the Ferris Wheel said to hop on!

Somebody was a little excited to sit with Dad:

I have ridden the Ferris Wheel every time this year with this wiggly girl. 

So thankful we got to go as a family--even if just for a little bit!

On the drive home, we could see Shadrack's shining in the distance. Instead of paying to go through (since it was closing time), we drove on a side street behind Cracker Barrell and sat and watched! Ha! It  was such a fun end to the evening!

I will quote Gavin to wrap up how I feel about this season: "I love Christmas day!"