Christmas Festivities

December 23rd was Elizabeth's 3rd birthday.  The boys' school was closed, but I had to work so they spent the day with Nana.  I picked them up that evening and we went to the Lovelady's to celebrate with the birthday girl!

 Liz had 2 birthday cakes for her birthday.  A strawberry one that they cut earlier in the day and a german chocolate one that we ate with her.

 Riley had a really great time playing with Liz's new toys!

That night Riley stayed over for a sleepover and he and Elizabeth slept in sleeping bags under the Christmas tree!

We went back over the next morning to pick up Riley and to celebrate Christmas with the Loveladys.  The kids all opened their gifts and all the kids wanted to play with Zachary's gift and Carter's gift.  It was not the calmest of times, but it was fun to celebrate with them.  After that we put the boys down for naps at our house before heading to Nana & Papa's to celebrate Christmas with them.

Riley did a great job handing out everyone's stockings.

 The boys got a barn and horse trailers as well as spider man chairs and 3-wheelers.  Papa and Carter put the barn together.

After opening gifts Nana & Papa went with us to the 5pm "kid-friendly" Christmas Eve service at church.  It was a really cool service with lots of carols sung and people in costume acting out the Christmas story.  At one point Riley leaned over to me and said "Mommy!  I think this is a show!"  They also ended the service with candlelight which was a lot of fun for Riley.  Carter wanted his own candle too and that was bit trickier!

After church we headed to Grammy's to eat our traditional Christmas Eve taco dinner, followed by opening gifts.  The boys both got toys and Riley got superjero PJs and Carter got a hooded winter coat.  I got a Keurig coffee maker, which I have excitedly been using and LOVING, and Chad got a new electric razor. 

That night Riley left cookies and milk out for Santa.  Santa had a really hard time putting Riley's big present together.  It was a long green train like the Polar Express and Santa realized too late that it was an electric train for hobbyists and he could not get all of the trains to run on the tracks together.  Santa left the train running all night and when Riley woke up, he came into our room and told us that there was strange sound coming from the living room.  When we finally got up to go into the living room, Riley ran around yelling "Santa got me a train!  Look!"  It was so sweet and genuine, and when he had trouble getting the train to run on the tracks, Riley decided that he didn't even need the tracks, he would just run the train along the floor.  Problem solved!

Both boys got new clothes from Santa.  Riley got all pants with no buttons or zippers, as well as a Batman shirt and a robot shirt.  Carter got an Elmo shirt and hooded sweatshirt jacket.  They both got Dr. Suess books and lots of movies and Carter got a Little People Batman toy.  But their favorite present by far is their new umbrellas.  They play with them all the time and imagine that they are many things, like planes and parachutes.  As Chad said today, they would have been happy with just umbrellas only!

My favorite present is being used to write this blog right now!  Chad got me a new laptop!  My first laptop ever to get that is brand-new and not a hand-me-down.  I love it and am very excited to save all my photos in one central location!

Carter wasn't totally into opening gifts Christmas morning.  He mainly wanted to play with Riley's new train and his train he had received the day before from the Loveladys.

But all of the sudden while Chad was making breakfast, Carter decided he was ready to open his presents and just brought them to me and got started opening them!

 Christmas night we went to Grandmommy & Haha's to open gifts and had a great time visiting and hanging out.  Riley got a new Batman castle, lots of Green Lantern toys and another horse trailer and Carter got a drumming Elmo and a new Thomas Brio train to play with.

They spent Christmas night at Grandmommy & Haha's and we went back to their house on Tuesday night to celebrate Christmas with Chad's mom's side of the family.  That night in the car they were being super sweet and holding hands in the backseat.  This is what makes me feel so lucky and happy to have 2 kids.

 My work has been closed all week and we have had a really nice slow paced week at home, although it has gone by way too fast!  On Wednesday I took my mom to see The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo and then we did some shopping at the mall afterward before heading home.  The Lovelady's were over and so I made dinner for us all and we hung out together.

We went to their house on Thursday night because Chad & Jason were going to the Dallas Stars game together.  Kate made us all dinner and the kids played.  We did bathtime over there and then afterwards I read the 3 oldest a story.  Kate had to help me get them all in my lap because that is where all 3 wanted to be!

Yesterday morning we took Riley and Carter to the movies to see the Chimpmunked movie.  We were excited to discover that the 9:30am matinee is only $5 per person!  The boys both did great and this was Carter's first movie in a movie theater.  He made it all the way through and olny got a bit restless right towards the end.  There were some ginat chipmunks in teh lobby that the boys posed with both before and after the movie.

Last night the boys went back to Grandmommy & Haha's to spend the night and Chad & I headed to the nail salon to get our nails done.  I had challenged Chad to grow his hand and toenails out and he did so we went to the salon.  Chad really enjoyed his manicure and pedicure so maybe this will become a new thing we will occasionally do together!

After the nail salon we went shopping for computers for Chad and then had some dinner at Sushi Axiom before heading to the grocery store to get our grocery shopping done for the week.

This morning we slept in a bit and then the boys got home and we all got ready to go meet Nana & Papa at Lucile's to celebrate Nana's birthday!  We had a really great brunch and I bought a caramel pecan cake for dessert that was unbelieveably good!  Now the boys are down for naps and we will rest before Loveldys arrive to ring in the new year with us!

Happy New Year everyone!  See you in 2012!!