Random Christmas

A few pictures I want to share that don't have a category of their own, so here's a random post...

I don't have pictures of our lights in our new opening other than this, but it was Gavin's FAVORITE thing to do every day. Every morning, he would turn the big bulb lights on. Everytime we walked in the door from an errand, he would turn the lights on. He would sit in the car and say, "Mom, you know what I'm going to do when I get inside!" with a huge smile on his face. It was so fun.

Ryan bought us tickets to go see "Joy: An Irish Christmas" at the Tennessee Theater. I LOVED it. 

It was put on by the Gettys that wrote one of my all-time favorite songs, "In Christ Alone." We got to stand and sing hymns with them all night. And the band was really amazing and did Irish dancing and were just crazy gifted musically. So glad we went!

The week before Christmas, we went caroling with our neighbors, the Eadys. I've never done caroling door to door other than in youth group, so it was so fun to do in our own neighborhood! It was seriously the coldest night of the season so far, but that couldn't stop us! We bundled up and enjoyed hot chocolate and peanut butter cookies afterwards. No pictures of that, but I did snap this picture of Abbey reading to the kiddos while we got dinner ready:

Man, oh man, how we love this family! We grill out on Thursday evenings together when we can and we will miss them so much when they move! Kim wrote a poem to go with this picture, and I have to share. I love it so!

Twas the week before Christmas 
And all through the house
All the Eadys were busy
There were Hughes in the house!

The grill was all fired up
Chef Jamie red faced
With his back to the wind
Flipping burgers fast paced.

The children were running
And occasionally, one cried
While Ally and Kim
Guarded sweet potato fries

Ryan warmed up
On a Christmas carol song
While the peanut butter cookies
Were soon to be gone.

Finally hours later
We all sat to eat
What a great set of neighbors
A great Christmas treat.

Love them!!

Christmas Eve Eve (as my dad likes to call any day before Christmas starting at minimum the week before Christmas), we let Gavin open one of his presents early. The pile of presents under our tree was just crazy, so we wanted to enjoy one early.

Marshmallow guns!

We had so much fun shooting and eating the marshmallows! 

Even Dakota likes marshmallows!

Then we enjoyed watching Rudolph by the fire--in Amazon boxes. :) These crazy kiddos!

I'm pressing on with Christmas posts. I don't want to forget any of these precious memories! I think I can, I think I can...