Christmas 2011

Christmas really is my favorite time of year.  It always has been.  But now that I'm a mom, it's even better.  After Thanksgiving, I sit around and dream about the perfect Christmas.  Creative gifts for everyone.  Good food.  A few days of the boys and me baking Christmas cookies and decorating them with all of the Wilton products.

But then January rolls around and none of those things have happened!

All I did was sit at the computer and look at Pinterest to research all of these fun ideas that never came to fruition.  And as for the gift giving...I seriously mailed a Christmas gift today in the mail.  January 19th.  Way to go, Erin.

Despite all of these failures, Christmas 2011 was simple.  The way it should be.

Jack kicked the season off in true form with his first solo ever.  He sang about the birth of Christ.  Here were the words (in case we lose the DVD or want to test the part of our brain that creepily stores music lyrics in the future...)

"The Bible says there was no room at the inn. Down in the little town of Beth-le-hem.  If they had known that you were the King, would they have found you an opening?  A manger bed, to rest your head...The innkeeper said, "I have no room at the inn."

Look at this kid.  He is so freaking awesome I cannot even stand it.

School let out on Friday the 16th, but we pulled a cool parent move and let our kindergardener skip school.  I know!  Bad to the bone, right?

We surprised the boys with a night at the Great Wolf Lodge.  If you haven't been, you should go.  Unless you hate water parks and cabin themed rooms and indoor fake snow and Dunkin' Donuts and fun.  Because the GWL has all of those things.

The little getaway was the boys' Christmas present from us.  Neither one could tell us what they wanted for Christmas, so one day Jack suggested that we go somewhere.  So we did!  

We pretended to pull over at the GWL as a bathroom break.  Jack was having fun exploring the lobby when he came to the observation windows that looked out over this water wonderland:

Jack was big enough for all of the slides and activities.  Brother Finn?  Not so lucky.  Or tall.  But he made the most of it.  

Since the slides were not exactly nice camera friendly, we got a few shots of the boys on the lily pads.  

They were champion lily padders by their second attempt.

(Hint:  Wearing water shoes helps a ton, but should they ask you about it, tell them I said it was their unbelievable coordination and agility.)

We have a Christmas tradition of receiving new jammies on Christmas Eve.  But since we were so bad to the bone in 2011, we opened the jammies early.  

Charlie was so good while we were there.  It was his first night in a pack n' play, but he kept his normal routine.  Another good sleeper!  Thank you, Lord!

This year's jammies gifts included bathrobes as well.  They were a hit.  

I will forever love Finn's toothpick legs sticking out from this oversized robe.  

But those little legs stood firm as the giant bucket of water dumped on his head!  It's hard to tell here, but Finn is about to get doused with hundreds of gallons of water that dumped every 5 minutes or so.

  

(And don't worry...those stars aren't there to protect anything indecent.  I just felt bad putting the backside or upper thigh of an unknown woman on our blog.  It was like breaking some sort of unspoken girl code.  We (women) should all be respecters of the backsides of other women.  Whether it be out of envy or protection.) 

After the GWL fun had come to an end, we travelled up the road to Greensboro to spend a few days with my family.  We went to Raleigh for our annual Angus Barn dinner.  This photo makes me wonder for the gazillionth time why Christmas lights are only used at Christmastime.  White Christmas lights make everything look good.  They should adorn every dressing room ever made!  Seriously, stores!  Get it together and ditch the overhead fluorescents!  It would greatly diminish the amount of golf ball butt cases that are diagnosed in dressing rooms on a daily basis.  I'm a nurse.  I know these things!

But only because I'm a nurse. 

We went to Four Seasons Mall while in the 'Boro.  Can't remember the last time I was there.  

We got to see Santa and no one cried...

Only one wailed!

My niece, Ava, was not a fan of the jolly old man this year.  

But in true Southern girl fashion, through her tears, mind you, she half cried/half shouted, "Teddy bear!  THANK YOU!"  

Who doesn't love a good Santa freak out picture?  We have our fair share in this house.

Our time in Greensboro was so wonderful.  It was so nice to see those we were able to see.  As always...not enough time!

Once we returned back to SC, we kicked it into major Christmas gear and went to Greg Russell's performance under the oak tree in Harbor Town.  This was our 2nd time going to his Christmas performance, so we knew that we needed to prepare a sign and song should the boys want to sing on the stage for the crowd.  See, Greg will choose a handful of kids at each performance to sing a song of their choice.  Jack had practiced "Away in a Manger" before arriving, so I assumed the whole...if you prepare, they won't call on you" thing.  But, nope.  Jack was chosen!!!

After Jack rocked all of Harbor Town, we let the boys burn off some steam by running around the big Christmas tree.  We happened to get all of the grandkids to pose for a few seconds with Gigi and Poppy Johnny.

What good is a giant Christmas ornament if you can't make goofy faces in it?

No good, at all, really.

(I used to do something similar as a youngster whenever I would come across a Leggs panty hose display with the silver dome tops. Strannnnge.  Probably took my mullet to a whole new level.)

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas!  We were so thankful to spend a quiet and simple season celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ with family and friends. 

Happy 2012!