If any of you know me personally, you will know that I am very close to my Memal. She lives in Michigan now, so we are the furthest apart we have ever been. I have to say that was quite hard over the holidays, her being in Michigan, and us here in Kentucky. Mom and I went to pick her up during December though for a weekend, and we got to spend some time with her and celebrate early. Loved that!
Here are a few of our Christmas decorations:
The kiddos tree :)
These were mostly from Justin's co-workers!
This is our Christmas countdown calendar.
The kiddos also had chocolate advent calendars this year! :)
Some of you who know me personally, know that my parent's are now divorced. My mom gave me this little ornament she had made of our family years ago.. I still remember her having it made.. so that was a cute little special addition to my tree this year :)
I had my first annual Cookie and Ornament Exchange party this year! :) I was so so very excited to start this new tradition. Each year all of us girls on my Mom's side of the family get together and exchange ornaments and have dinner and a girls night! It's so much fun! So this year, I wanted to have a cookie exchange party. I saw it online years and years ago, when Aiden was just about a year old, and have always wanted to have one, but never got around to it until this year. Each person was to bring 24 cookies, and we would all go home with a different cookie. It was a little family/girly gathering mostly, but we had such a good time! I made some Vegetable soup as well. :)
Here are the yummy cookies that I made:
Peanut Butter Cookies
Piper enjoyed her first cookie. :)) <3
Kaylen and I decided that we would start a tradition of having a Christmas Movie Night as well. I always love watching Christmas movies, and always wanted to do it, but none of my family will actually watch a movie together, and I believe Kaylen is the same way, so we decided we would just do it for our family. :) We had lots of yummy food.. she made some peanut butter fudge, pulled pork, and some yummy cheese dip. I made some sliders, parmesean roasted potatoes, and pumpkin crunch cake. I did not like the pumpkin crunch cake I made, it was more pumpkin pie tasting than pumpkin cake tasting to me, and I don't care for pumpkin pie, so I didn't like it, but the sliders were so good and easy, and I loved the potatoes too! Jaxsen and Piper seemed to like the potatoes as well, but they sure are eaters and like just about anything! haha I will include these recipes in another post in case you're interested! :)
We ended up not watching Christmas movies either! haha But next year we HAVE to ;). Instead, we decided to go ahead and exchange gifts.. us adults anyways! Judy and Jerry came down and ate with us, and the boys ended up getting their big gift from Judy and Jerry too! It was a good night! We had a lot of fun! :)
Aiden has already watched The Elf on the Shelf movie, I think last year maybe.. But anyways, I purchased the book for my nook (which was an early Christmas gift from Justin <3 thanks babe!), and I told him that Santa had e-mailed me the book to my nook! So, we read it.. he was so excited! And the awesome thing about the book on the nook, it let us be interactive with it, and play a game with the book! :) So, a day or two later, here is how our elf, Mario Luigi (you'll Never guess who named him ;-P haha) arrived:
He was different than most of the elves that we had saw.. Santa must've sent a special one ;) He was found many places, and I wish I had thought to take pictures of all of the places he was found, but I only have a few. :( The best spot he probably was found was inside the fridge, holding a can of Dr. Pepper with his face down on the can like he was drinking. :) Aiden was so very excited to find the elf each time. :) At first he didn't think it was the REAL elf because it looked different, but then he noticed that the elf was moving an awful lot, and Mommy was busy working, so she couldn't have moved him... he then decided, he REALLY was Magical. :) We will continue this tradition, and hopefully take pictures of each spot next year. :)
This year Christmas Eve was spent with my Mom. She had an early morning Christmas flight out to spend time with Jeff, so we decided to have Christmas with her on Christmas Eve! We had a wonderful time! She made us a nice dinner and we opened presents! Everyone except Aiden, myself and Mom ended up taking a nap! We ended up watching The Time Travelers Wife... very sad, good movie! :)
After mom's we came back home, and ended up letting Piper and Aiden open their gifts from us as well! They got probably too much already at this point, but it's fun for the kids, and I love seeing their reactions! :) Aiden just did not want to get to sleep, so Santa came VERY early into the morning! It took him quite a while to get to sleep, but I remember that feeling at his age, all too well! He was so excited! :) And Christmas morning, it was so worth it! :)
He was so excited!
Piper's First Barbie! :))
I had initially planned to give the ugly dolls to other people.. I bought this one for Aiden, then thought he was too big for it, and was gonna put it with Jaxsen's gifts.. but Aiden ended up loving it, and I ended up getting Jaxsen a bunch of other things I liked better.. so both the kiddos got an Ugly Doll :)) I have wanted one for years lol. They're so adorable!
We got Aiden and Jaxsen both matching sock money hats! :)
How adorable is her ugly doll? :)
I love this one.. it has my 3 loves in it :) <3
Piper got an owl hat from us.. she did not like it, as you can see. :) :(
Justin's Miami Heat tickets. We opened our gifts early, but made sure we had one to open! :)
What a bad picture.. but here's one of my gifts. We opened our gifts early! :)
My nook!
Christmas is a very busy day for us usually. We have lots of places to go, but this year, we had separated them all out into different days and times that we finally got to relax for once! Christmas is my Dad's birthday too, so I always want to make sure I try and spend a little extra time with him. We went to his house first that morning, and woke him up, like we do every year. I think he gets excited about the kids expressions too! :) Aiden got a Red Ryder BB Gun from Papaw this year, so they took some time out together to practice shooting for a while before we headed over to Nanny and Papaw's. I was very surprised that they already had breakfast done... usually we all wait until everyone gets there, then we open gifts and have breakfast.. then usually, we have to dash off to Memal's to have breakfast with her right after, but this year she was in Michigan. :( My nanny got a laptop! Wow! :) Exciting! My dad is such a cut up! He had some crazy gag gifts from "santa" for Justin, his girlfriend and Nanny. I got to spend time with Josh, probably my closest cousin; he lives in Nashville now, so we don't get to see each other nearly enough! Here is the kiddo's on Christmas morning:
Awe, look.. Santa came! :)
Sorry for the pictures not being upright.. having trouble with my computer atm! :(
Christmas evening was spent at Judy and Jerry's. We opened gifts and they had fixed us up a nice dinner! I ate wayyy too much cheesecake! ;) haha! Only thing missing was Aiden.. he was spending time with his Daddy and his family. Jaxsen and Piper were a riot there! It was just one of those things you had to be there to see them! haha
It was a wonderful Christmas! :) Time spent with family is always great!
The next day, Josh was still home so we went and had a late lunch, and did a little after Christmas shopping! I will post my haul in another post! :)
On New Years Eve, we had our second get together at Josh and Kaylen's. We munched on burgers Jerry and Judy made.. I don't know how, but they make the best burgers! Then we played board games till midnight, and all loaded up and went to bring it in with Josh because he had to work! We came back and played some more board games until like 5 am! We are some crazy people, I know! ;) It was so much fun though! :)
Doesn't Piper look like a little Diva Mobster with her little pink faux fur coat, hat and purse? lol!
