Christmas 2016: Part Two

Christmas Part 2 involved driving to Nani and Papa's house for the weekend!  We left on Friday morning after Anthony's chiropractor appointment and hit the road.  We were all a little exhausted from all of the fun the night before for my birthday, but were excited to get on the road!  I was cooking a meal for everyone that night so I was anxious to get to Hickory and get my grocery shopping done.

We arrived right on schedule and Nani and Paige were there to greet us!  Papa still had to work, so Anthony went with me for a "grocery shopping" date.  It was nice - even if we were in the grocery store!  We spent the rest of the day cooking and breaking in Nani and Papa's new oven.  They got a fancy new oven and I was the first one to cook in it!  I felt so privileged :)  The meal turned out great, even if we did burn the first batch of crostini to a crisp.  The broiler works really well in that thing, apparently.

 

We woke up Christmas Eve morning and made the best food ever - Monkey Bread.  Nolan enjoyed mixing up the biscuits in the cinnamon-sugar mixture.  He liked eating it once it was baked even better!

 

We have been talking more and more about the true meaning of Christmas this year, and we kept telling Nolan that we were going to be celebrating Baby Jesus's birthday, and that's what Christmas was about.  After telling him this story a few times, he proceeded to tell me one morning on the way to school that we need to make Baby Jesus a birthday cake.  Since he is a baby and has two teeth, he can eat birthday cake and we needed a cake for him.  It melted my heart, and made sense to me, so we decided to make a birthday cake for Baby Jesus on Christmas Eve.

 

We had a Gingerbread man tin that I bought just for Christmas, and decided that it was the perfect pan for the birthday cake :)  Nolan helped me make the mix, and even decided to leave his handprint for Baby Jesus in the cake mix.

 

 

After his nap, the cake was cool enough to decorate!  I had to get a picture earlier on of the name "Jesus" on it, because I knew that it would quickly be covered with an inch of sprinkles and sugar.  I was right!  Thank goodness it was warm enough outside to let him do it on the back porch - we would have had a sugary mess if not!

 

The finished product!

 

We decided to try to make it to Christmas Eve service again this year, and I am so glad we did.  Nolan did really well throughout the entire service.  I think he really enjoyed the singing, and there were hundreds of new people he didn't know, so he had plenty to watch.  It was standing room only, so he split his time between us on our row, and Nani and Papa a couple of rows down. I about died when he walked around to come sit with us in the middle of service and said, loud as could be, "I had chocolate, Mommy!"  It cracked us (and everyone around us up).  Of course he had chocolate whilst sitting on Nani's lap - big surprise :)

 

 





 

Even though I can barely get a "normal" smile out of him these days, these pictures still melt my heart!  He is for sure my biggest and best present ever!

Christmas 2016: Part One

I am sure I say it every year, but Christmas with kids is SO much fun, even if it is exhausting!  We lived up the Christmas spirit this year - from cookie parties with friends to light shows and parades.  It was so much fun and Nolan was happy and healthy which made things that much better.

We missed our first "round" of Christmas with Mom's side of the family due to weather and a little cold, but Nolan had a great time opening his gifts they brought home and sending a video to everyone.  I really missed being able to see Granny read the Christmas story, but I am already looking forward to hearing her read it next year - just a week shy of 90 she'll be!

We celebrated an early Christmas/birthday at my mom's house on my actual birthday.  We had Tommy and Jeremy in town too, which was nice since we don't see them often.  And Nolan loved having two big uncles around to play with!

Mom cooked my favorite meal and we had red velvet pound cake for dessert.  Nolan seemed pretty confused that it was my cake and not his :)

After going to the funeral earlier that day, it was such a fun night to just have time with family and relax.  Nolan got some super fun gifts, the star of which was his HUGE racetrack from Ollie and Gie.  I don't think he realized just how big it was until we set it up at home!

 

Christmas Round 1 was a complete success!  Sometimes, it's nice to have your birthday and Christmas so close together - sometimes :)

We Finally Made it to the Light Show!

We live just a mile down the street from this farm that does a huge haunted house in October and a huge Christmas light show in December.  We made it to the haunted house the first year we moved in, but we have never been able to make it to the light show.

It seemed like we weren't going to be able to make it again this year, until last night!  We decided on a last-minute whim to try and get in before it got too busy.  We planned to grab Nolan from school and then rush back to the farm once we went home and changed clothes, in order to be there right when they opened.

 

They have a huge fire pit, Santa was there in his sleigh, plus they have a sweets shop and the main event; a 30-minute hayride through the woods to see thousands of Christmas lights!  It was cold, but we bundled Nolan up really well and made it in perfect time - we were able to get on the first trailer out and didn't have to wait in line at all.

Turns out, it was really worth the ticket!  The trailer carried about 40 people, and it played Christmas music the whole time.  The trail didn't really look all that impressive until we saw that the lights were on motion sensors and so they came on right as the trailer pulled up to them.  They were even timed with the music which I thought was really impressive.  Nolan loved it and they had some pretty cool set ups.  There was a huge gingerbread house, a train, and then tons of other sections.

It's literally impossible to take pictures in the dark while moving :)

The ride was the perfect length of time; we were all really cold and ready for dinner by the time it was done, but I am so glad we made it this year!  We will for sure keep it as a tradition going forward.

On Being 35...

Well, it's official: I am 35 today.  Mid-thirties.  Five years to 40.  I'm pretty sure I am even in the next check box of ages that you complete on surveys.  Oh boy.

You know, it honestly came upon me pretty quickly, and with a three-year-old I haven't had much time to really ponder it.  Some nights I get a quick flutter of panic that I am indeed getting older, but they are usually fleeting because I am so tired that I fall asleep in 5 seconds flat.  Having a preschooler will do that to you, and I am truly thankful for that.

I went to a funeral today.  Certainly not how I would spend my birthday, but that is a nominal thought considering our friends lost a wife and a mother this past weekend.  We also lost a member of Jacob and Lexie's family this past weekend too.  A 16 year old.  And here I am gulping at turning 35.

It's a mixed bag of emotions for me today.  I am thrilled because it's Christmas and I LOVE Christmas and it's even more joyful having Nolan to celebrate it with.  But I am sad, too.  I grieve as these families try to figure out how to move on while having a huge aching hole in their hearts.  I cannot even fathom doing this thing called "life" without my Mom, and forget not having Nolan.  You can just forget that.

But I still smiled and laughed today.  Because the passing of these two sweet people only reinforced that life is too valuable to spend any other way than happy and full of thanks.  God gave me more gifts than I can imagine, and especially a gift in the message of the funeral I went to.  The Pastor spoke about how Ms. Kathy's family found solace in her house.  How she cooked and "mom"ed for everyone around her and for those she loved most, they got the very best.  And while it was a sad service, I left feeling full of purpose and honored that I heard that message today.

I am 35.  I am SO blessed to be 35 and have my family, my husband, and my son.  I have had 35 years of love, laughter, trials, lessons and experience.  And I know my purpose in life even more than I did before.  I want to be that solace, that comfort and that rock.  I want everyone that knows me to feel my love for them.  To know that I do my best for them.  To have the memories of me that I was there and they knew they could count on me.  My purpose is to smile, be positive and show God's grace all the days that I am blessed to be on this earth.  Each day is truly a gift, and I plan to savor each one.

Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. ~Eleanor Roosevelt

Annual Cookies and Cocoa Party!

After the kids enjoyed decorating Christmas cookies so much last year, I figured it would be fun to start a tradition and host an annual "Cookies and Cocoa" party this year :)  Hopefully, we can keep it going year after year!

We ended up having to reschedule from the first time, which turned out much better because more of our friends were able to make it the second time.  My amazing sister-in-law made some adorable favor tags for our favors, and I did up the rest of the kitchen.

The favors were special spatulas, and I think they turned out really cute!

 

I tried to contain most of the action to the kitchen, so as to keep the "sprinkle fairies" from sending sprinkles all over the house :)  It worked well and the kitchen was festive and perfect for a party.

Elfie had to make sure he had the perfect spot for supervising...

We had sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, tons of icing and to-go boxes.



Nolan clearly loved it!

 

The new icings in the squeeze bottle made things so much easier.  And I didn't have to make it!

 

 

Just to stick to the theme, we had a hot cocoa station.  We had candy canes, marshmallows and little tiny cookies for topping.  I made sure to pack "to-go" bags for everyone so we weren't tempted with it all in the house!

 

Overall, the kids had a great time, the adults had a great time, and it was a success!  Next year will be even more fun when all the kids are older I am sure.

 

Clayton Christmas Tree Lighting

I really wanted to take Nolan to Clayton's Christmas Tree lighting this year, since he was a little older I felt like he would get a lot more out of it this year.  Anthony was coming home late from work, so I ran Nolan up to the town square to try and get in a little fun before it got too late.

We were able to find a pretty good parking space and walked up Main Street to find our neighbors.  On the way we passed lots of carolers, music, and the live Nativity scene that even had lambs and cows.

Nolan was very interested to see the Nativity scene, since we have a few of them up around the house but he doesn't quite know what they mean yet (except for you can't touch them and that's Baby Jesus :)

Bad lighting, but it was really well done!

There were two baby goats in the back that were the cutest!

We made our way to meet our neighbors where we were able to take a quick train ride with Jasmeen and Kaleb.

On the train.

 

The train ride just so happened to be next to Santa Claus, but I didn't have much hope we would get a picture this year.  Nolan didn't really want anything to do with Santa last year for pictures, and the line was so long to sit on Santa's lap.  I took him over there anyway, just so we could say we saw Santa, and it turns out it was a great idea!  We saw our friends in line, and so we just "snuck" Nolan into line with them and no one complained :)

 

We only had to wait about 10 minutes before it was his and Calvin's turn to sit on Santa's lap.  Much to my surprise, Nolan jumped right up on his lap and gave me the best smile!

 

So cute - red eyes and all! :)

 

I was able to get a couple of photos and then Calvin joined him and they both sat there and listened to what Calvin was asking from Santa for Christmas.  I almost had to drag Nolan to get him off of Santa's lap this year - amazing how one year changes things!

 

Once they were done, a couple of photographers stopped us and took a couple of pictures of Nolan and asked his name.  I didn't think anything of it, and then the next day Jasmeen sent me this picture of Nolan from Clayton's Facebook page.  Too funny - he was chewing his candy cane that he got from the elf and was paying NO attention to the photographer :)

 

 

Then, a couple of nights later, I got a text from Jen and she said that the boys made the front page of the Clayton News Star!  Sure enough, the newspaper that I run over in my driveway 15 times before I finally throw it away had a picture of the boys right on the first page.  They even spelled their names correctly, which is a miracle!  Glad I didn't throw this paper away this week!