Christmas Morning

This year we stayed home for Christmas.  It was sweet time for the kids to open the gifts and try them out at their own paces.  

Can you tell they are excited to open presents?

Lily Kate going through her stocking.  In the background is the Barbie house that Santa brought her and Charlotte.  It's taller than LK!

Hadley cuddling the teddy that Santa brought her.  She has cuddled this thing so many times at TJ Maxx, it was time to bring it home!

Parks and LK trying out the new karaoke machine from Nona & Pop Pop. 

Hadley was really into unwrapping, as are most 2yr olds.  It was hard to get her to only unwrap her gifts.  

Here she is with her new minion - that she calls Funny Guy.  It was priceless to see her look in the bag and yell "FUUUUNNEEEEY GUUUUUY!!!" before she even pulled it out.  

Charlotte in her new wedding dress with some new Barbies.  She's all set.

It was a sweet morning to linger in jammies with warm drinks and savor the kids' excitement.  

Enchanted Airlie

We went to Enchanted Airlie on the very last night, a few nights before Christmas on an unusually warm night. It was so pleasant (last year was freezing).  

Lily Kate, June, Charlotte, & Caroline

 Kristen and Walker

 Here are the big girls with Santa (doesn't he look good?!).  Hadley wasn't going near him.  They told him what they wanted for Christmas and I was glad I didn't hear any surprises come out of their mouths because all of their presents were already wrapped! 

 Banner and Santa, her look is priceless

 Family shot in the sleigh.  Four out of five looking at the camera is a success to me.

 One last pic of the girls dancing among the lights.  It was beautiful there.   I love this annual evening with friends.  

The Minivan Express

One of my favorite things we did this holiday season may need to become an annual tradition.  The girls were on their way to their beds one evening and they found tickets on their pillows for the Minivan Express. 

 The girls were very excited and immediately had 250 questions (because they are girls).  They had just seen the Polar Express for the first time so they were a bit concerned about us not getting to come home if we lost our tickets.  Charlotte was adamant that we keep our windows up so that no one's ticket blew out.  

 We went straight to the garage and Daddy punched our tickets. 

 There was popcorn and hot chocolate in the car for everyone (wonder how that got there). We went on a Wilmington Christmas light tour.  There were a few houses that we knew about that have their lights synched to a a radio station that plays Christmas music.  There was even a house with a live Santa (never mind that he looked younger than me).  It was such a simple outing (I wore slippers) and yet such a fun surprise for the kids.  

Plays and Presentations

Our church does a Christmas play and this year it was about the "friendly beasts" version of he birth of Christ.  LK was a sheep.  She has a solo verse in one of the songs and a line and she rocked it!  Charlotte was a townsperson and she was happy as a clam not to have to sing alone :) They had a great time being a part of the play.  These pics were taken after the play.  

 Charlotte's Preschool does a music performance every year.  Can you spot her in the middle in stripes?

 Here she is again with her little girl friends from her class.  

 Lily Kate also had a low key "winter party" in her class.  `At the end the teacher let them show us some of the songs they have been learning in music. LK loves music class (and she had been performing the same songs to us at home all month), so she was thrilled!

Cold Nights

We put our tree up at the beginning of December.  I really wish a Christmas tree could live in our living room all year long.  I love sitting by the fire, watching it twinkle.  

 The last minute family outings are sometime my favorite.  

A quick run to Krispy Kreme as a reward for a successful spelling test

Poor Kate starting feeling sick one evening while we were out to dinner and ended up falling asleep on my lap in the booth at the restaurant.  I felt bad for her, can't you tell how sympathetic these two are?

Advent Ornaments

We started the month with lofty goals that we didn't finish, but we did make Advent ornaments every day for about half of December.  We used a great program called The Truth in the Tinsel.  We read Scripture every night and made an ornament that corresponded with the Scripture.  It turned out to be a special part of the month even if we could only do about half - you do what you can, right?

Favorite Moments

With life as busy as it is, we all find ourselves lugging our cameras around in the diaper bag less often and just snapping pictures on our phones of favorite moments. Here are just three of mine from October.

Lily Kate went to her good friend, Elly's, karaoke birthday party. The girls were adorable belting our Taylor Swift.  I was thinking a karaoke machine could be a good investment to motivate the girls to become better readers.  She was way more excited about this than about our book time in the evenings!

 One weekday morning Charlotte and LK woke up early and made breakfast in bed for Parks and me - completely unprompted and on their own.  We had cereal and juice, but it was such a kind gesture.  It was worth running late that morning.

 And my Hadley.  Monday - Thursday mornings Hadley and I are on our own while Charlotte is at preschool.  We spend most of our time at fabric stores, Home Goods, and Harris Teeter.  Life is SO much slower, but SO much more fun with this little helper. 

Farewell to Soccer Season

Our first soccer season has come to a close.  Charlotte was hot and cold about playing, sometimes thrilled to kick the ball and other times she would rather pick weeds and roll in the grass with her friends.  She had a good last game and actually played soccer the whole time.  

 Jacob & Lily Kate

 Charlotte & Ford

 These two are the best of friends.  I love how they run at each other, calling our their names when they see each other.  Hadley and Chloe may miss soccer season more than anyone else because of their regular toddler playdate on the sidelines. 

We have spent many evenings on our new patio making s'mores and just talking by the fire.  We had a chilly night last week and we carved the pumpkins and made orange s'mores with the giant pumpkin marshmallows Nona sent the girls.

Charlotte all ready for the Fall Festival at church, her Cinderella costume was Parks' sisters' dress up dress when they were little.  It still looked great! I added the ribbons for some Cinderella touches.

 Here's our Titans cheerleader, Hadley

 and our black cat, Lily Kate

I love this candid shot of Charlotte just relaxing on the sidewalk

Holly Tree Ho Down

Sack races at the ho down

 We had a great time at the ho down.  Tons of candy was consumed, faces were tatooed, and bouncy castled were jumped in!

 One of the booths was a game where you guess the amount of different candies in containers and - what do you know - Charlotte won the mini marshmallows!