The Holidays Part 2

I'll apologize ahead of time for all of the pictures...but this is my online scrapbook....so what do you do?

The first weekend in December we traveled to Bridgeport for an early Christmas with my parents, brother and sister-in-law. I wasn't sure if it was going to be the same celebrating 3 weeks early...but we had fun and the kids were of course spoiled. I really feel old when I say "the kids." Saturday night we had a yummy dinner and followed that with opening gifts. This year we drew names and it was a lot of fun especially having Jenny there with us. Chris had drawn my name so I picked out of my own gift(s)...just lots of things I needed photo albums, shelves and a cute, little clutch.

In their sweet pajamas that Sharalyn gave them

A couple of weeks ago Olivia and I were watching Private Sessions on A&E and Cyndi Lauper was on there singing "Girls Just Want To Have Fun," Liv looked at me very seriously and said, "Mommy, I need a microphone. A pink one." She had me convinced a microphone was going to change her life. If anyone of you have been around her you know she is quite the performer. Well, my mom had found her a High School Musical microphone that was pink. Between the pink mic and the new Cinderella dress she was in Christmas Heaven! She has already memorized the 2 songs that the mic plays....we have to keep it hidden if we want any sleep.

Jenny gave me an early birthday present... 2 framed pics from their wedding....one of her&Thad and one of her&Liv.....I love them....perfect gifts!

Sunday morning after spending 3 hours getting everyone reading and loading the car we're ready to hit the road. We stop by Jenny's old house to help Thad load some furniture. Chris, Liv and I get out of the car (Jonah was peacefully sleeping) and we start walking up to the house as we hear our car honk. Chris and I look at each other, then at the car. "Did you lock it?" "No, did you lock it?" "No." Yes, it's true, we locked our baby in the car. Thank goodness for OnStar.

Parents of the Year

Poor Baby Jonah locked in the car

And now...the week of Christmas... I always have some type of family drama especially around important holidays. Oh well, things always work out. I freak out, stress, scream and then move on.

Olivia is a little older this year so it came naturally to start some of our own family Christmas traditions. During the week before Christmas we read a different Christmas book before bed each night. Some from our collection this year were - "12 Days of Christmas," "How the Grinch Stole Christmas," "God Gave Us Christmas" and "Twas the Night Before Christmas."

Another tradition just for myself was watching "The Nativity Story." If you haven't seen it I highly recommend it. Last year at the church they showed it the week before Christmas and I loved it!

Christmas Eve was spent at my aunt and uncle's just having a nice dinner...not the traditional meal..but chicken enchiladas. I must say they were hands down the best enchiladas I've ever had. My Mimi rocks! I have to get that recipe and I will definitely share....

We went home and Olivia and I made cookies for Santa. She's two this year and was really excited about everything so I enjoyed starting these traditions. Making cookies together for Santa is another one. She was so cute and just wanted to make Santa happy. We made the cookies, poured Santa some milk, wrote him a letter and set them out where he would be able to find them easily.

Making Santa's cookies

Letter to Santa...I must've taken this after Santa came :)

Then she was off to bed...while Mr. and Mrs. Claus played guitar hero filled the stockings with goodies and put pretty presents under the Christmas tree.


We awoke Christmas morning at a decent hour...not too early. Olivia was happy with her presents from Santa, was amazed that Santa ate her cookies and drank ALL of the milk.

Our last tradition that we started was Santa brought each of the kids a new ornament and left it wrapped on their beds for them to find first thing in the morning.

Jonah's ornament


Olivia's ornament

Santa only made one mistake this year....

After we did our own Christmas and Santa's gifts...we had Christmas (again) with my mom and dad and my Mimi and Fred came over to watch Olivia open presents. She had fun not only opening her's but her brother's as well. I told her to enjoy it because this would be the only year that would happen.

Liv with her giraffe from Daddy Keys

Jonah Bear

Liv's favorite gift

For lunch we went to the Reeds enjoyed a nice lunch and opened more presents with Chris' grandmother.

Banana pudding before lunch? Only with Grandpa...

Every year Grandma and Grandpa get Olivia a Disney porcelain doll...yes, the ones she only gets to look at. This year she got Tinkerbelle and I let them convince me to take her out of the box unlike these so it probably won't be long before she gets broken.

and Christmas couldn't be complete without a Dora sleeping bag...

me with my sweet children

I know this is blurry, but I thought it was cute

I hope each of you had a blessed Christmas!

Enjoy 2009!!