Christmas 2015

As Travis’s “Christmas break” draws to a close, I keep thinking about how great the past couple of weeks have been. We’ve spent some time with our families, gotten stuff done around the house (which rarely happens these days), and just enjoyed our time as a family of four. It’s been chaotic, loud, and tiring at times, but wonderful overall.

This year, we switched things up for Christmas a little bit. Normally we spend Christmas Eve in Trussville and Christmas Day here in town. But, this year I was technically scheduled to work on Christmas Eve, so we wanted to be here that day just in case I had to go in. And I almost did! But, thankfully my name wasn’t drawn out of the “hat”…whew!

So, we spent Christmas Eve at Cici’s house with her, Tyler, Alisha, Carter, Emily, and Melissa. We had a great day! Brooklyn was a lot more interested in opening her gifts this year than last year, so that was fun. She seemed to enjoy being a “big helper” and passing out the gifts at the beginning. She got a little impatient at times when other people were opening their gifts, but I thought she did pretty good for the most part. Savannah was mostly oblivious to the whole extravaganza other than chewing on a few bows ;) Maybe she will be more into it next year. We had corned beef for lunch and seafood gumbo for supper, along with a snack of different flavors popcorn from What’s Poppin’. We ate like kings, for sure! Brooklyn managed to take a decent nap that afternoon in Emily’s bed, which helped the rest of her day be a lot less whiny and difficult than it probably would have been :) And Savannah took several naps while being held, including during part of the gift opening! I can’t say that I blame her…it took quite a while to open all of those presents! Next year we are planning to do “Secret Santa” and let each person draw one name. That will cut down on the number of gifts and allow us to spend more on that one person. The kids will still get the same amount of gifts, so no worries for Brooklyn…haha ;)

They were obviously dying to get their picture taken before we headed to Cici’s ;)

This is why I had a “gate” around the Christmas tree all of December; it only took a few minutes for Savannah to start stealing bows off the packages!

Totally necessary! ;)

We love Aunt Alisha!

Savannah took a nap in my arms not too long after we got to Cici’s house…

Ready for gift opening :)

They both took a turn wearing the Santa hat…

Brooklyn helped hand out the gifts…

There were plenty to go around!

The first gift Brooklyn opened was a pink fleece jacket from Cici. Of course, she wanted to put it on immediately. All. By. Herself.

Eventually she let us help her ;)

Carter got lots of books for Christmas this year! He did a good job of helping tear the wrapping paper :)

Brooklyn got money for college (yay!), a puzzle, several books, Toy Story on Blu-Ray, a big bucket of sidewalk chalk, and tickets to see Winnie the Pooh in February at the VBC with Mommy, Cici, and Aunt Alisha!

This was when Savannah was actually awake during the gift opening ;) She liked the wrapping paper, at least!

Savannah got several books and money for college too :) Hey, it’s never too early to start saving!

Carter was so cute showing us how he can clap!

After Carter and Brooklyn took naps, we ate supper, read books, and played. Not going to lie though…it was nice to have a little peace and quiet for a couple of hours while they were asleep! :)

Aunt Emily had just gotten home from Costa Rica the night before. We were so glad to see her!

We went back to our house that night, got into bed, and woke up to see what Santa brought on Christmas morning! To our delight, the girls “slept in” that morning…until about 7:45 AM! Both of them! That pretty much never happens :) I’m not sure Brooklyn remembered that there were gifts waiting for her that morning, so she didn’t act too excited when she woke up until we explained it again to her. Then, she couldn’t wait to go look!

Santa left Brooklyn a set of Daniel Tiger “friends” in front of the fireplace. Daniel Tiger’s Neighborhood is her favorite TV show :)

“Smile for the camera!”

“Hold him up so Daddy can see!” Haha :)

Savannah was feeling good after a good night’s sleep!

Brooklyn got some candy, stickers, and a coloring book in her stocking :)

And Savannah got some new pacifiers…nom nom nom :)

After we opened gifts from Santa, we hurried to get our stuff packed up and hit the road for Trussville. The weather had been crazy all week, and Christmas Day was no exception. We got so much rain in just a few days, and by Christmas the roads were starting to flood. We actually had to turn around and go a different way when we were leaving town because of the flooding. It was also unseasonably warm outside. Just a weird weather day, for sure! But, we finally made it to Trussville at about 1 PM…just in time for a late lunch with Mom’s side of the family.

It was great to see Gran for the first time in several months!

We opened a few gifts after lunch…

Brooklyn got a washable lion pillow that you can color on with markers and a sticker book, and Savannah got a new set of bath toys.

Yes, the crazy weather followed us! This time, it was tornado warnings!! Poor James Spann had to work on Christmas :(

We had to clear out the closet under the stairs “just in case”, but thankfully we never had to hide in there…

Snuggle bunny :)

That night in the middle of the weather craziness, Rae Rae wanted to get a picture of the girls in front of the Christmas tree. I think she quickly realized how difficult of a task it would be!

“Look this way, Savannah!”

No more pictures, please!

Jenn and Chandler celebrated with his family on Christmas Day, so we actually opened gifts with them on the 26th. They came over around lunchtime, and we opened gifts and then ate together. It was a fun couple of hours. We ate “sammies” for lunch, which are always a hit with our family :) 

We all opened our stockings first. Mom did something new this year and wrapped her gifts for each person in a different type of wrapping paper. Inside our stockings was a piece of “our” wrapping paper so we’d know which pile was ours. I thought it was a cute idea! Brooklyn didn’t care too much about the wrapping paper, but she did love the candy she found ;)

Not too thrilled about posing for pictures ;) Brooklyn’s wrapping paper was “Frozen” themed!

Savannah sat with Paw for part of the time…gnawing on a teething ring. Little did we know she was really close to getting her first two teeth!

Another puzzle! Brooklyn is really into puzzles right now, so we were glad to add some new ones to our collection :)

Helping Paw open one of his gifts :)

Mom got the girls some really cute crocheted hats and mittens! This was the best pose we could get for a picture ;)

Poor Jenn and Chandler…when Brooklyn opened their gift, she was only interested in popping the bubble wrap that came inside the box! It just goes to show you…expensive presents for toddlers are totally unnecessary. All you have to do is wrap some bubble wrap up in a box! But, since that day, we have played the game that they got her, and she really likes it! She even sleeps with the cube in her bed at night…haha

She really liked her new step stool…

…especially jumping off of it once or twice!

Savannah slept through some of the gift opening madness, but woke up at the end in time to help open one more gift—new clothes from Uncle Chandler and Aunt Jenn!

One of Brooklyn’s favorite presents was a big “doodle” with magnetic stamps and a writing pen…

…but this ball popper was probably the best gift of all! Rae Rae technically got it for Savannah, but I think Brooklyn has played with it most out of the two of them.

We stayed in Trussville until the 29th, so we had a couple more days to spend after Christmas was over. On Sunday the 27th after church, we had a cross country reunion with a lot of my friends from high school. It was great to see everyone after several years! Most of us are married now, and some of the others have kids too. Will and Tina have two girls like us, and their oldest (Maddie) is just a few months older than Brooklyn. They had fun bossing each other around, watching Toy Story, and playing together. We had a great afternoon!

Hopefully we can get together again soon!

The rest of our time in Trussville was spent lounging around, playing, eating yummy leftovers, watching Toy Story, and shopping for some new jeans for Travis. Thankfully, we had some luck at Gap…finally! He was long overdue for some new pairs ;) I was glad we could stick around for a few days and not have to rush home. We had a great visit!

Savannah spent a lot of time being held by Mommy…

…and playing with Paw in the floor!

It wouldn’t be a visit to Rae Rae’s house without watching a “bideo” or two on Rae Rae’s phone.

Hugs for Savannah!

The night of the 26th, I got a glimpse of her two bottom teeth coming in. Maybe that explains some of her fussiness lately? :) Anyway, we were eating frozen cranberry salad one night, and I gave Savannah a little taste. She made a face at first, but seemed to like it after that. Maybe it felt good on those sore gums?

When we got home Tuesday afternoon, we had several more Christmas cards waiting to hang on our door frame. I think we set a new record this year! I love it!

This year, Baugay gave Brooklyn a Christmas tree and a set of stickers (1-25) to put on the tree for each day leading up to Christmas. We forgot to do the last one before we left town, so Brooklyn put it on there when we got home. I’m sure she’ll want to do another one like this next year; she got so excited every morning asking to do her sticker for that day.

We’ve spent the remainder of the break just cuddling, reading, playing, and making messes–along with some cleaning and organizing by Mommy and Daddy. I’ve cleaned out our medicine cabinet, vacuumed, cleaned the bathrooms, reorganized my coupon binder, started planning Brooklyn’s birthday party (yay!), and edited a lot of pictures. Travis has knocked some stuff off of his to-do list too. We also enjoyed watching the Bama game on New Year’s Eve—it ended just before 11 PM, so we watched the ball drop in NYC and then went to bed after that ;) When you have two little ones, there’s not much incentive to stay up until midnight!

Anyway, it’s been a great break for all of us! I’m definitely not ready for Travis to go back to work on Monday, but such is life. I’m thankful that he’s able to take so much time off around the holidays. We enjoy having him home with us! I’m hoping for a decently warm January and February where we can get outside and play on the swing set and run around in the backyard. We’ll see if that happens ;) Happy new year, everyone!