Christmas Morning

Christmas Eve at bedtime, Ryan read Luke 2 to the kiddos before they fell asleep. Every night when I put Gavin to bed and prayed for him, we prayed for us to remember that presents are fun, but not the reason for Christmas--Jesus being born to die for us is the reason for Christmas! The first couple of weeks of December, Gavin did not quite grasp this concept. But I think he finally got it!

Ryan and I both woke up before the kiddos on Christmas morning and were practically pacing! So we finally woke them up at 7:30. Why did they pick Christmas morning to sleep in!? :)

Look at Gavin's precious reaction when we woke him up. He thinks Christmas=snow. Sweet boy:

Ryan and I have struggled with what to do with Santa for our kiddos. I know everyone does it differently, and I respect each family's convictions. We read this article by Mark Driscoll last year, loved it, and came up with a compromise for our family. So Gavin knows that Santa's real name is St. Nicholas, he knows that he was a real and generous man that gave gifts to those in need, and stockings are the extent of what "Santa" brings to them on Christmas morning. That's at least what we did this year. Next year may be different--who knows!

So this is where we started on Christmas morning for a little bit. The kids loved the candy they got in their stockings (World Market has the BEST candy, by the way!)...

...but Gavin's favorite by far was the army men and firemen set up:

(p.s. Henley didn't get her finished stocking until after Christmas, hence the sock!)

This video CRACKS ME UP! Because Larry the Elf set out toys at Nani and Pop's, he was a little confused who brought the stocking goodies:

Then to the tree with lots of presents!

Henley's big present was the Little People Princess Castle. Ryan got this for her back in October after seeing it in a magazine. Sweet Daddy!

 

Henley "approves" of things by rubbing Ellie's ribbon on them like she rubs Ellie's ribbon between her fingers. So apparently she LOVED the little princesses that came with the castle because she shared Ellie's ribbon with Snow White! So cute.

She also got a pop-up School Bus tent that she "drives" all over the house like this. It's hilarious:

Gavin got a huge construction site that Ryan didn't want to put together without him. They love building things together, so this was a fun project Christmas morning: 

Here's a video to see how neat this thing is. Henley has been playing with it just as much as Gavin, actually!

But his favorite present from Christmas morning (according to him) was the Hexbugs!

These things are really gross and really awesome at the same time. I love all bugs except for roaches and house centipedes (I call them Satan Bugs!), and these things look like both!! They really do move like bugs! And you can rebuild the track however you want. Henley loves them, too! We are shocked at how much she loves his toys.

I already posted about the rest of Christmas Day with Ryan's family, so we are finally caught up! Woohoo! Next and last Christmas post: Christmas @ Nani & Pop's. 

Aunt Joanna, I'm pushing through just for you. I'm sure you're the only one reading these by now! :)

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...

Christmas at the Cove

My friend Liz did a blog post on going to the Cove to see Christmas lights, and I'm so thankful she did, because it convinced us to go!

It's a local park with lights all along the walking path. So fun!

We even brought Dakota--and dressed in our Christmas pajamas!

Of course Henley's favorite: Frosty!

 Gavin loved all the vehicles they had. Train:

 He is yelling behind the wheel here. Hilarious boy:

Firetruck (his favorite by far)

The kids loved getting up close with the lights and walking through them:

Then time for warming up by the fire pits:

Then we finished with some hot chocolate we brought in a thermos. And continued Christmas light looking through neighborhoods in the car!

I agree with Liz--we're doing this every year! It was so fun!

Christmas at the Zoo

Some friends of ours joined us at the Zoo the week before Christmas to get our pictures made with Santa. Well I am so thankful my mom bought the mall pictures because this dressed up precious little girl did no cooperate for a single picture at the Zoo!

The best 2 pictures we got:

So I tried my own without Santa. Henley watched that apparently scary man the whole time and still didn't smile!

 Sweet Gavin cheesing away.

If Henley could say it, I could hear her saying, "Mom! He's touching me!" here. The diva.

So I gave them a break from pictures and let them run around. Henley wanted to read:

 Gavin went in the maze:

Henley did not enjoy the maze!

 Gavin loves to scoop "manure" in the barn!

 Then I tried for more pictures--to no avail! Sheesh!

 If we pretend Henley is smiling (she definitely is not), this is the best picture I got all day from my phone to send to the grandparents:

Change of clothes and time to play!

The kids played in the kitchen section of the Wee Play while we were eating. It was so cute!

 They love pretend play!

During Christmas, they have a little craft table where kids can decorate their own ornament.

 They both seriously concentrated on it!

Then we walked around the zoo for a bit. Henley's favorite: the elephants!

 Henley's buddy Rev. He looks so serious about the elephants, Kim! :)

 Then to my favorite: the Gibbons! I actually made him talk to me this time! I make a fool out of myself most zoo trips talking like a monkey, but it was worth it this time!

So thankful to my grandmother Buddie for giving us Zoo passes for Christmas each year! Thank you, Buddie!

KMA Family Day & Gingerbread House

The weekend Ryan returned from Boston, we took the kiddos to the Knoxville Museum of Art for their Family Christmas Craft Day.

 Henley Jane is such a little artist! She would color and paint all day if I let her.

They had different tables set up with various Christmas crafts. I couldn't believe the amount of goodies we carried home that the kids created!

The shocker of the day was Henley allowing her face to be painted.

She closed her eyes like this immediately without us telling her to. She watched a girl in front of us get hers done so I think she was seriously prepared! 

 She started reaching for Ryan so he sat with her, and that's the extent of her fussiness!

The finished product. Frosty the Snowman for Henley's Frosty obsession this Christmas!

website

. She did not ask me to do this, I just really liked her!>

We were leaving for the day when one of the volunteers asked us if we had gotten our caricature done. We thought for sure it cost money, but it was free! So we waited in line for both kids to get it done.

 This gal was amazing! She did it in seriously 5 minutes! Totally worth the 20 minute wait!

 Henley was a wiggle worm the entire time.

 Ryan had to hold her to keep her contained! That's what a sugary drink will do to these kiddos!

 Oh I can't handle the cuteness!

 These are hanging up outside their rooms! I love them!

Then we came home for naps and woke up to make our Gingerbread House! Gavin made one last year and has remembered this all season, asking to make one every day. So on a whim at Earthfare with the kiddos one day, I picked up a "healthy" Gingerbread House. It was a small fortune, but I didn't cringe every time my kids took a bite of it!

Ryan the professional icing maker:

 The icing and gingerbread went directly on the box everything came in.

What is hilarious is that I didn't realize that a "natural" Gingerbread House would have no colored candy with it! Haha. So we improvised with nuts, cereal, and sprinkles we had in the cupboard.

Henley loved sampling:

Ryan put a Santa gingerbread man on the chimney. Gavin was ecstatic!

The finished product:

Gavin just realized yesterday that we finally threw this away. And he said, "That's ok! There's always next Christmas!" Love that boy.