Christmas-Part 2

We spent Christmas morning at our house, just the 4 of us! Josh and I decided before we were even married that we would spend Christmas mornings just us. Every Christmas since we have been married we have done that. Even when it was just the two of us, we still spent that Christmas morning with each other. We love spending time with our families at Christmas, but we want those mornings to ourselves to make memories with just our little family! It's, hands down, our favorite Christmas tradition. I cherish the time we get as a family of 4.

This Christmas morning was even more special for us because it was this sweet girl's first Christmas! She was so excited! Can you tell? Our boy was VERY excited when he woke-up! This was when we went to get him in his room that morning. He was getting so antsy during his diaper change! :) I have loved the past two Christmases with Brody, but this year was the most fun we have had with him! He is at such a wonderful age! When I used to think about Christmas mornings with him, I would always look forward to him being 2 and older because I knew he would really start to enjoy the day. While we always want our children to know, understand, and celebrate the true meaning of Christmas, we also want them to enjoy the magic and wonder that comes with it!

Since Brody and Jillian's birthdays are only 2 weeks apart, they were both 3 months old on their first Christmases. Since that was the case, I was able to put Jillian in the same pajamas Brody wore on Christmas morning his first Christmas! She had several pairs of Christmas pajamas but I thought it would be special for them to wear the same ones.

I added a bow in her hair to make the pajamas a little more girly! :) I hope any future children can wear these pajamas, too, or they may feel left out! Ha!

Brody got lots of fun gifts from Santa! He loved his new monster truck track! Daddy and his girl! Our sweet babies.

We are so thankful for them and the joy they bring to our lives, especially at Christmas time!

Brody was SO excited that Santa brought Jillian a pink teapot. Brody's friend has this same teapot and he loves to play with it at her house! Ha! And here are the attempts at a picture of the two of them... Ok, so maybe we will get a good picture some day! :)

One of our traditions on Christmas morning is to make homemade pancakes for breakfast after we open gifts! Brody LOVES pancakes! Jillian was wondering when she was going to get to enjoy them, too. Next year, sweet girl! :) Hopefully, I can post our last part of Christmas tomorrow! I feel like I need to get all my Christmas posts in before the new year!!

Christmas 2010-Part 1

Our Christmas celebrations began on Wednesday when we packed-up and headed to see Josh's family. Josh's sister and brother-in-law flew into town on Tuesday to spend the week with his parents. We had not seen them in 2 years so we were excited for them to see how much Brody had grown and we were also excited for them to meet Jillian!

We got to Josh's parents' house Wednesday evening. We spent Thursday just hanging out and running some errands. We treated Thursday night like it was Christmas Eve. One of Josh's family traditions is to open presents on Christmas Eve and then do stockings on Christmas morning, so we opened gifts that evening. Brody had a lot of fun and we all enjoyed watching him! He is at such a fun age and enjoyed Christmas so much! It's hard to believe this was his 3rd Christmas! I think he ended up opening his gifts and most of Jillian's gifts, too! This was one of his favorite gifts...a new backpack for him to use at church and MDO. He actually found the backpack in a gift bag under the tree on Wednesday night so Josh's mom moved it before he got up the next morning. When he walked over to the tree the next morning he said, "Where my backpack?" Needless to say, he was really glad they finally let him have it! We loved having Jillian here with us this Christmas! It was such a special Christmas since it was her first. It's still hard for me to believe we have 2 sweet kids now! They are such blessings to our family! Friday morning was "Christmas morning" at their house. Brody got a few more toys and we all got some great gifts in our stockings. Jillian just took it all in that morning!She got a few more pink, girly toys! It's fun to have dolls and lots of pink in our house this year! We got dressed and then had a traditional Christmas lunch. Josh's grandpa was there for lunch, also! We were so glad to get to see him. We had not seen him since July so it was his first time to see Jillian.
Brody helped Pappaw open some of his gifts. The table set with all the pretty Christmas china. I said a prayer over the china. You have to when you have a two year old eating near it! Ha! Our family before lunch! Notice no one is throwing a fit. Huge progress! :)Brody with Josh's parents We left their house as soon as we finished lunch! We had planned to attend the Christmas Eve Service at our church that afternoon so we headed back in enough time to basically drive into the church parking lot. I turned around at one point on the drive back to check on the kids and it looked like Brody had blush on his cheeks. I stuck my hand back to feel of his head and he was burning-up. I told Josh we needed to stop by our house before we went to church so I could take his temperature. It was 101.7 and it was the first time he had ever had fever! Poor guy! Even though Brody would not have been in the nursery that night at church, we still were not going to take him sick to church. We stayed home and laid on the couch. We were so sad to miss, as we have gone every year we have been married, but we knew Brody needed to be at home. I also knew he didn't feel good when he spent an hour sitting still in my lap watching cartoons.

Jill worked all day Friday so we had all planned to all meet at my parents' house later that night to eat after she got off work. I called Jill and asked if they cared if we came over even though Brody had fever and they didn't mind at all, so we headed over around 6. We had a great time eating and letting Brody play! We left there house around 8 so we could get the kids into bed and get ready for Christmas morning!! I will post about Christmas Day tomorrow!

Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas...

from our family to yours!

You will have JOY and GLADNESS and many will REJOICE at His birth.
Luke 1:14

Christmas Card 2010

Over the past 2 years, my idea of a great picture has changed. I used to think the perfect picture of a child was them looking at the camera,sitting still, happily smiling in their perfectly clean clothes...but then I had children of my own! Ha! Now I know that a great picture is one where my children's personalities are showing and where I can look back one day at that particular picture and remember Brody and Jillian exactly as they were at that point in time.

Well, this year, our card shows our children just as they are at this time in our lives. I really wouldn't have it any other way, even if you can't see Brody's eyes! Ha! I know years from now I will look back at our card from this year and laugh. I will think about our precious baby girl and how happy and easy going she was at 3 months old. I will look at our card and remember what a fun 2 year old Brody was and how he constantly kept me on my toes, and never smiled for the camera! I know when I look back at this card my heart will fill will joy and I will remember how truly wonderful this time in our lives was, and that means more to me than any perfectly posed picture!

Merry Christmas from our family!!

Pictures with Santa

We took the kids to see Santa today. We went during Josh's lunch break so that he could meet us at the mall near his work. I thought I could probably use the extra help! I had talked to Brody over the past several days about meeting Santa. He seemed very excited about it. When I would ask him what he was going to say to Santa he said, "I me say Hi!" (When he talks about himself he says, "I me.") Then, I would ask him what he was going to tell Santa he wanted for Christmas and he said, "Toys." Then, when I asked him what he was going to do when he say Santa and he said, "I me cry." Haha!

Here is the big boy all dressed to go see Santa. He put one of Jillian's tutus on before we left. I made him take it off, but not before I got a quick picture! Sorry, Josh and sorry, 18-year old Brody! ;) Hey, at least it matched! When we got to the mall, there was no one in line to see Santa! It was a Christmas miracle! Brody ran right up to Santa and got in his lap! I could see him just talking away as I got Jillian out of her carseat. Who knows what he told Santa but I do love this picture of him talking to Santa!This one is sweet, too! It looks like he is really thinking about what he wants for Christmas! Although he enjoyed talking to Santa, he refused to smile for the camera. This is the picture we bought! I am just thankful they were both looking at the camera and not crying. I would have hated for the entire experience to have been tramatizing for all of us! I still can't believe we have two sweet babies to celebrate Christmas with this year! They are such blessings and make this time of year even more special for us.

After we finished with our pictures, we let Brody play outside in the little play area. He had a lot of fun! Notice he is wearing his crocs. He insisted he wear them today and I didn't really care to argue over something as silly as shoes, and since they were black I just went with it! Here are Brody's pictures with Santa from previous 2 Christmases.

This was in 2008 when he was a little over 2 months old! Jillian really favors him at this age. And here is the picture from last Christmas. Everytime I see this picture I just laugh! He posed like this and would not stop making this face. I love it!

Hope y'all are having a great week!

Christmas Lights at The Square

Sunday night, we met my family at our town square to look at the Christmas lights! It's one of my favorite things to do this time of year. It was really cold, so we had to bundle-up before we left the house. Here are the kids before we left. Jillian was bundled in her little bear suit. The square looked beautiful! I love that there are so many colorful lights to see as we walked around. It is full of activity this time of year and offers lots of fun things to do from camel rides to pony rides.
Our little family of four! Jillian is in the stroller. :)
My sis and Brandon Josh and me I loved the carousel! The 3 girls! Brody and my dad Another view of the square. The green tree was my favorite! Our family
We all had a great time together, but we were all very happy to get back in our warm cars at the end of the night!

Little Ralphie

Last night, we went with my family to look at the Christmas lights at the square in our town. We didn't want Jillian to get cold, so we put her in this cute, pink suit that kept her super warm! When I looked at her all dressed-up, ready to go, I had flashbacks to one of my favorite Christmas movies.Doesn't she look like Ralphie off of A Christmas Story?? Ha!! We all got a good laugh last night thinking about it!!

Merry Christmas from the Terrific Twos!

I thought it would be a great idea to get a family picture this morning at church since the kids were dressed in their cute, red and black outfits. Brody, on the other hand, did not think it was such a great idea. I've decided we will probably not have any good family pictures while Brody is a two years old. :) Jill caught all these funny pictures as I tried to wrangle our boy!

You might be wondering why he was throwing this little fit...it was because he wanted my dad! So the only way to get decent family picture was to let my dad jump in with us. I know we will look back on all these pictures and laugh!

Brody did seem to enjoy having his picture made with one of the reindeer in the church lobby. This is the best picture we got of him this morning.

At least this sweet girl smiled for the camera this morning! I thought she looked so cute in her little red dress. She is growing so fast!

Hope you all have had a great weekend!