Christmas was really nice this year. Riley left a gingerbread man and milk out for Santa and I was so on top of the game this year due to my surgery that all we had to do was set out presents and stuff stockings and we were done! I should be this on top of it every year. The boys were super cute when they came into our room Christmas morning. All wonder and amazement at Santa's deliveries. It is so precious and I'm a little sad that these days won't last forever as they wil stop believing in Santa soon enough.
Carter was into Christmas for about 2 minutes. He liked the stockings, but then wanted to just play in his room. Riley could not understand why he didn't want to open all his presents right away. We did eventually get him to open his gifts. Both boys got long sleeve shirts from GAP and Riley got a GAP hooded sweatshirt.
Riley also gave us our last two gifts from the Lily B holiday store. He got us each a handful of lizards, hence Chad's face below.
Riley's first big gift this year was an iPhone, my 3GS repurposed one with a new green case. He was very excited about it. I pre-loaded it with games and he has been playing with it every day.
Carter finally opened one of his big gifts. It was red dragon that Riley also wanted so we had to explain why Santa got Carter toys that Riley also wanted.
Luckily Riley was appeased a moment later when he opened his other big gift, the Skylanders video game. He plays it at Cool Cuts 4 Kids when he gets his haircut so he was very excited to get this gift. We've played it a lot and it's a good gift both for young kids and for adults. Easy enough yet also challenging.
Around 1pm we headed to Grandmommy & Haha's for Christmas and we started out by eating lunch. Wyatt was dressed as a very adorable Christmas elf.
The boys got toy pop guns in their stickings. Carter was super excited about his!
Riley got more Skylanders figurines for his game and also this really cool t-rex head to hang on the wall. He named him Rudy. He was a little scared of Rudy at first, but warmed up quickly enough.
Carter disappeared to the guest room when we were in the middle of opening presents so he could play with toys.
While we were opening gifts it started snowing and it was coming down hard, so after the presents were opened the boys went outside to play in the snow.
We then packed it up and headed over to Chad's Aunt Michele and Uncle Art's house for one last Christmas. We did a chinese gift exchange this year and it was so much fun. Chad's cousin Alex and her husband Josh had this idea and they hosted the party and we had a blast! Here is Josh wearing his big mustache he won in the gift exchange as a unibrow. Fun times!
When we got home I commented to Chad about how much I loved the snow in the cracks of the stone walkway and he took these pictures our house blanketed in snow.
The day after Christmas our cleaning lady was coming at 3pm so Chad and I started to try and rein in the Christmas explosion. While I started downstairs, Chad installed the boys Hot Wheels Wall Tracks Power Tower in Riley's room.
He then hung Rudy on Riley's wall. Roar!
And finally he hung this glass heart that Grandmommy got Riley in his room under one of his skylights. So beautiful!
Chad got an iPad mini for Christmas from me and his parents and he has been loving it. He took this picture with it.
Chad's big present to me was new bedding for our bed. We had not gotten new bedding since we were married almost 9 years ago. Come to find out we had a queen duvet cover on our King comforter for the last 9 years! Our new duvet cover fits so much better!! Chad even got me two sets of the bedding so that I could have a back up set and he even got me new decorative pillows and two new pillows for the King shams.
Needless to say our bed feels amazing! Niki thinks so too.
On the evening of the 26th the boys went to Nana and Papa's to spend the night so that Chad & I could go see Les Mis with friends. The next day when we went to pick them up, they did not want to get out of their PJs. Carter even played me a little piano in his PJs.
Riley also wanted to put out Christmas lights. We only had 1 string so instead of putting them outside, they settled on lighting the spiral staircase that leads up to his room. I must admit, I kind of like them!
It's been pretty cold since the snow came, so the dogs have been spending a lot of time inside. And Princess continues to calm down more and more. Sweet little snuggle bug!
On Friday the boys spent the night with Grandmommy & Haha so that Chad & I could have a date night. We got our nails done and went to Fireside Pies for dinner and finished up seeing This is 40 at Movie Tavern. Great night!
The boys had fun too. Riley exchanged his boots for new boots and also got a bow and arrow. How fun! Looks like a Lost Boy in the making. We've also been watching Peter Pan with Cathy Rigby on repeat. KWC is doing Peter Pan in June so Chad bought the DVD for research. The boys LOVE it. I love this because I loved the Mary Martin version when I was growing up and have fond memories of singing and dancing to the songs with Jake.
We had such a great time off. No alarm clocks waking us up, lots of down time for me to recover. Unfortunately, this also meant that Carter did not go down for naps and a lot of days would fall asleep in the car or on the couch around 4pm. He doesn't ever want to admit it, but he does still need naps.
On the Saturday between Christmas and New Year's Chad & I went to a party for the man who owns Magic Etc/Fort Worth Costume. He's been inviting Chad for years, but we had never gone. We finally went and it was such a cool party. The house was one of a kind. It was full of museum quality magic tricks all over the place. Floor to ceiling shelves holding all sort of magic tricks. At the room upstairs there was even a big room with a stage where there were 3 magic shows happening throughout the party. How fun! Between the magic shows we wandered around and in every room you could find a magician with a small group of people, doing a trick. There was even a room full of pinball and slot machines (with bowls of coins to play with) and finally a jungle bathroom with a Swiss Family Robinson style faucet. Apparently there was even a dinosaur in the bathroom that would growl at you. We'll definitely be attending this party again and I'm ashamed it took us so long to attend for the first time.
On the 30th we attended Elizabeth's Birthday Party at Pump It Up. It was lot of fun even though I wasn't able to bounce in the bounce houses.
On New Years Eve we celebrated Nana's Birthday over lunch at Red Lobster. My present to Nana is to take her to paint Van Gogh's Starry Night one night in January. That evening, the Lovelady Family came to our house and we had one of the best New Year's Eves I can remember, esoecially since having kids. I made stuffed shells for dinner and we picked up nuggets for the kids and while they had a picnic upstairs we had a lovely adult dinner downstairs. We even ate in the nice dining room! We bathed the crazy children who were a bit stir crazy.....
They were in bed by 10pm and then the adults played Catch Phrase and we laughed so hard and it was midnight before we knew it.
Yesterday morning the kids took over the bed and then we had waffles for breakfast.
Great end to 2012. And wonderful beginning to 2013.
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