Christmas with Grammy & Pa

 

We had Christmas at Grammy & Pa's on the day after Christmas.  Since more than half of us were recovering from a bout with the flu, it was a pretty laid back day.  The first thing we tried to do was get a cute picture with all the grandkids.  Turns out Carli still doesn't like for people to watch her take pictures, even if it is family.  Logan and Ava cheesed it up for the camera.  Carli, not so much...

 

 

 

 



 

My handsome nephew, Logan.

 

Carli & Ava

The picture says it all!

Now, when you tell Carli she can't open presents until she smiles for the camera...you get results!

And finally, they got to open presents!  The kids were taught a lesson in patience this year.  They had a hard time waiting their turn to open their gifts!  Some of Ava's favorite gifts included some new Calliou books, a baby doll stroller, a jewelry box and a lot of homemade busy bags from Grammy!

Carli got a lot of neat things.  She really likes her new jewelry box, a real big girl necklace (camo) from Pa, her busy bags from Grammy and some sparkly new pants.

We had a lot of fun getting gifts for our family this year.  The girls picked out a couple of gifts, including a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle shirt for Uncle Tone...

We got and made Aunt Chelle a "Child Training Bible."  I really liked this project and hope to finish up one for us to use really soon too!

Grammy was surprised that Pa got her a new Nikon Camera like I have!  We are going to get to take a class together soon so we can learn how to use it!

Pa with his Angry Bird Pajama's from Carli and Ava.  This was one of those gifts that we walked by in the store and Carli about had a coronary trying to get me to buy it for Pa...because he really, really, really needed it.  Pa loves Angry Birds, it's the only game on his iPhone!  So obviously, her powers of persuasion won.

And after all the gifts were unwrapped, Pa had one more present for the grandkids...it was upstairs waiting on them...

And they had a blast playing with it!  I'm sure there are many memories to be made with this new toy!

We finished up our day eating some pizza at Pizza Hut...and it was good!  :)  We were all worn out by the time 5:30 rolled around.  Ava fell asleep in the car about 6 and she slept until 8:30 the next morning!  We had a great day and felt very blessed to have spent it with such an awesome family!

King Family Christmas

We had our King family Christmas in Fairfield this year.  God bless our family for putting up with the half of us that were recovering from being sick!  I was suppose to have brought rolls and dessert.  Keith went to Sam's one day while I was sick and bought some Sister Schubert rolls and I had a cheesecake in the freezer that we brought.  I held up my end of the bargain, though I would have preferred to have brought some homemade goodies the energy just wasn't there.  :)  Thankfully the family didn't seem to mind at all! 

After a yummy lunch, we let the kids open all their gifts before doing our white elephant exchange.  Carli and Ava had a lot of fun playing with Logan, Jake, Allison and Weston.  I think that was the highlight of their day. 

Logan and Carli watching Jake play on the Nook.

 



 

Getting some lovin' from Pa.

 

 

Carli and Allison opening presents together.

 

 

Ava checkin' out her new stuffed bear from Aunt Carolyn & Uncle Johnny.

 

 

There were a lot of awesome gifts this year at the white elephant exchange.  We had a lot of gifts get frozen really quickly!  Some of my favorites were a blue jean quilt from Grandma, a sign with Pawpaw's prayer on it, and the every infamous Duck Dynasty video.

 

Here is a picture of my beautiful Grandma on Christmas day.

 

One pretty cool thing is that about 4 pm we noticed that people started posting that it was snowing in DFW and then eventually in Tyler!  Who would have thought we would have gotten a white Christmas?!  We decided to head home before it got too late and the roads got bad.  We got home in time for the girls to see the snow before begging to go to bed!  Exhaustion brought on by a blessed day full of family!

Christmas Morning

Carli asked for two things for Christmas:  a bike and a pogo stick.  We are pretty sure that she got up in the middle of the night and took a peak at the Christmas tree because the first thing she said Christmas morning from the hall was, "Where is my pogo stick?!"  Yeah, Santa fail on that one!  We told her he must have left it at Grammy & Pa's house because Grammy told us she found one there...saved by the grandparents!  Ha!

 

Carli got a new Tutu.

 

 

We would have never thought that the new hats would have been such a hit!

 

Ava got really good at opening presents and was not very patient about waiting her turn!

 

The girls in front of the tree and Ava with her new Tutu.

 

Carli ever so carefully opening her present.

 

 

Sporting their new bathrobes

 

 

Helping Daddy open his presents. 

 

We tried to keep with the four present rule:  Something they want, need, wear and read.  We had the read and wear down.  The problem is that they didn't really need anything and they wanted everything!  ha!  So their "need" were new beds that we ordered a week before Christmas and probably won't get here until the end of January.  Their "want" were new bathrobes with slippers.  They did end up opening four presents each and that was nice.  They also had some full stockings to explore.  I like the four present rule.  It helped a lot in figuring out what to get Keith!  Plus it helped keep the budget in check and not go overboard with too many gifts.  I think it is something we will stick to in the years to come.

Our Christmas morning was awesome.  The girls had a blast and Keith and I did as well.  After we got things cleaned up, it was off to celebrate Christmas with some extended family in Fairfield.

Christmas Eve PJ's

In an attempt to start a little tradition with our little family, we decided to let the girls open one gift on Christmas Eve.  The girls were very excited to get to open a gift early!

It is so fun to watch the different personalities come out between the girls.  Ava was quite the present unwrapper, and Carli slowly took her time....

They got new PJ's!  They weren't Christmas PJ's but were princess PJ's that they both LOVED!  We figured it would be best to get them some pajama's that they would enjoy wearing all year long instead of Christmas pajamas to wear one night.  Granted, I would have put Christmas pajama's on them in July but they are getting a wee bit opinionated about what they wear so it was a fight we chose to avoid in the future!  :)

 

Shauntea's Final Acts

Being our first year with an elf, I thought we did a pretty decent job keeping up with Shauntea every night.  Then the flu hit our house, more specifically, it hit Momma and Daddy was surviving as best he could!  So Shauntea, bless her little elf heart, behaved for a night or two while everyone was preoccupied.  Carli even noted that Shauntea sure was being sweet not getting into trouble while Momma was sick!  :)

Here are the last few pictures of Shauntea's activities at our house before Santa picked her up on Christmas Eve night to take her back to the North Pole.

Trying to stuff Santa in a box.

 



 

Coloring with some of the girls new coloring books and crayons.

Eating some Christmas Candy the girls brought home from school.

Sitting in a birthday hat hanging from a balloon on the fan. 

Had she been super inventive, she could have turned the fan on and taken a ride, but Shauntea knew her limitations!

 

 

Keith did an awesome job bailing me out more than once during the whole Shauntea experience.  He got up one morning and noticed I hadn't done anything with Shauntea and quickly put her in the time out chair surrounded by the girls Christmas Chain links they had put together with Naggy.  Carli was quick to point out that Shauntea must have fallen while trying to use the links as monkey bars and put herself in time out!  

Keith even wrote a farewell letter from Shauntea to the girls to find on Christmas morning.  Ava was a little upset that Shauntea left but opening presents helped her a lot!

Santa Land 2012

Because Keith and I are so good at keeping traditions, we went to Santa Land again this year.  :)  Carli has associated Santa Land with my birthday ever since we went last year on my actual birthday.  She didn't seem to mind that we ate sandwiches in the car instead of stopping at Cracker Barrel.  :)

 

I took a lot of pictures because I have this really awesome new camera - and I still haven't figured it out!  But I got some decent ones of the girls.

Ava really enjoyed the lights this year.  When we would drive through neighborhoods we could hear her from the back seat exclaim, "Oh!  That's just so beautiful!"

 

 

Carli was all smiles through the whole thing.

Despite Carli and Ava's excitement about Santa Claus being at Santa Land, they were not interested in going to visit him.  According to Carli Santa is all knowing and he does not need her to get on his lap to tell him what she wants for Christmas.  He should already know.  :)  So, no Santa picture this year at Santa Land.  But one tradition kept - two years strong!