Happy Birthday, Jesus!

As I sit back and browse through all of the pictures that were taken over Christmas, my heart is filled with warmth and joy.  We may not be perfect and our lives may have struggles, but we are so incredibly blessed to have a God who loves us regardless of our faults.  A God who gave us the gift of His son, our Savior, on Christmas Day so long ago.  And a God who has now blessed us with two beautiful miracles of our own.  Words could never do justice in describing how I feel or what it is like to see the joys of Christmas unfold through your child's eyes.  So I won't even try.  Instead, I will give you just the littlest glimpse into Christmas with our precious loves.  We hope yours was just as special!

Saying so long to our elf!

Hayes was so excited to be able to touch him, so he gave him a big hug... 

...and a little kiss. 

Then, he set the milk and cookies right by his side. 

 Waiting for Santa.

 (And trying to stay protected from Hadley!)

Hayes diligently sprinkled food outside so the reindeer knew to stop by our house.

I guess it worked because we woke up to all this! 

 Hadley's loot.

(She had been asking for a kitchen!)

 

And Hayes's goodies.

(He had been beggggging for a GREEN bicycle!)

 

We have a looong video of them opening all the gifts,

but this is the aftermath.

 I think they were happy with it all.

Don't you?

 

We wrapped the morning up with a breakfast birthday party for Jesus!

 And now we are already counting down 'til next year...

Gingerbread House

We were picking up a few things at the store a few weeks ago when I saw a gingerbread house kit.  Not sure why, but I threw it in the cart and decided that we needed to start (yet another) holiday tradition.  Then, we got home.  And life happened.  And Hayes spotted it on the counter and begged to do it right in the midst of us trying to get out the door to be somewhere else.  So I put it away on a shelf.  And then a few weeks went by.

But today we actually had a semi-calm morning and decided to bust it out and get to decorating, and Hayes and I had an absolute blast doing it!  (Cody and Hadley are not to be trusted around candy, so they played on the floor beside us.)  In true teacher fashion, I modeled how a gingerbread house should look on one side and let Hayes use his creativity to do the other side "all by self."  (His favorite phrase these days.)  And I have to say - I think I kind of like his side better.  What do you think?

 

 Getting started!

Hayes's side.

 My side.

Gingerbread house complete!

The Kids and Big C

Since this was our third year of getting the obligatory Santa picture, Hayes acted like he owned the show when it was time to make our yearly trek down to the mall to get our pic.  He climbed right up on the jolly old guy's lap and proudly informed him that he wanted a green bicycle this year under the tree.  And then he introduced his little sis to Big C and told him that she wanted a kitchen too.  He then turned to the camera, gave his sweetest smile, and we walked away with this gem to put in our special Santa frame.  Oooh, be still my heart.

Christmas Jammies

I seriously cannot think of anything cuter than a kiddo dressed in Christmas jammies.  Wait, I take that back.  I actually can think of something cuter - TWO kiddos dressed in Christmas jammies.  And this year, well, I went a little overboard on it.  I got Hayes and Hadley some coordinating Santa print jammies, polka and stripe jammies (pictured below), AND their special monogrammed Christmas Eve jammies.  And y'all...I can't even take it how adorable they look in them.  I just had to snap a few pictures to share with all of you.

You're welcome.  Hoping this little bit of sweetness made your day merry and bright!

Two Front Teeth

Well, if all Hadley wanted for Christmas was her two front teeth...then she got them!  Two pearly whites erupted simultaneously just the other day, and I am amazed that she showed practically zero signs of teething leading up to it.  Sure, there was a little drooling.  And yes, she was kinda fussy with the whole roseola thing.  But other than that - she has just been her usual happy-go-lucky self.  No dramatic screaming fits and not even the tell tale change in poo.  (If you're a mom, you totally know what I'm talking about.  If not, Google it...it's a real thing.)  Okay, okay, enough of the dirty details.  Check out these cute little toofers...

Elf Has Arrived!

He's here!  He's here!  Our elf has arrived!!

Cody and I were skeptical as to whether or not Hayes would remember his elf from last year, but he picked right back up where he left off from last year.  And then some.  He was so excited about having his little friend back to visit us, and he just had to keep revisiting him throughout the day to be sure he was still there.  And of course - he LOVED the marshmallows in his advent calendar too.  Next year I plan to add fun little notes of encouragement or tasks for the day to spread the Christmas spirit, but this year we decided to keep it familiar and simple.  We have enough chaos in our life to last until then!

Oh, and I know lots of other people have cute little names for their elves like Jingle McSnows-A-Lot or something equally as cute and clever.  But Hayes is keeping with the traditional, simple theme himself and just calls him "MY Elf."  Note to self - we gotta work on that one before next year when Hadley will want to get involved too...

Like a boss.

Hey there, MY Elf.

Does he not look like such a BIG boy in this pic?

Kinda makes me wanna cry.

Annual Christmas Tree Lighting

Decorating for the holidays with a two and a half year old and a seven month old is...well...challenging.  I have to make sure I put things up high enough so that the baby can't reach it.  I have to put stuff in every room to please the toddler.  And I have to make sure that no matter what - NOTHING is breakable.  So as you can imagine, my Christmas décor is slowly morphing and evolving from something you might find in the pages of a Pottery Barn catalogue into a much more kid-friendly look.  And you know what?  I love it!  (FYI - Twenty-something Kelly would die if she knew I would one day be saying that...but it's true!!)

And one of my absolute favorite little traditions we have created is the annual lighting of Hayes (and now Hadley's) Christmas tree.  It is one of the very first things we set up in the house, and the whole family gets involved in the decorating.  The adults help a little bit with the tree skirt and some of the trickier things, but other than that - we let the littles do it all themselves.  This year Hayes was really into the hang-every-single-candy-cane-on-one-limb look while Hadley was digging the shove-everything-I-can-into-my-mouth style.  Definitely not what Cody or I would have done...but it turned out absolutely perfect!  Don't you think?