I'm Dreaming of a WHITE Christmas!!!

We had a WHITE Christmas this year!! It was so beautiful and I LOVED the fact that it really felt like Christmas. It was so fun!! Here is our (looong) Christmas recap:

Our fam at Matt's parents house on Christmas Eve

Caroline and I had to go out and play in the "blizzard-like" conditions (that's what all the weather people kept saying on the radio :-)

Caroline loved making footprints in the snow.
We had a wonderful Christmas Eve. We went to our church's 4:00 Christmas service with Matt's family. After church we headed back to Matt's parent's house for a yummy chili dinner. My brother, mom, gma and aunt joined us for dinner too. As is tradition in our family, Caroline got to open ONE gift on Christmas Eve:

Christmas pajamas of course!!
I think she was bummed there wasn't a toy in that box, haha
Excuse Caroline's hair in these next few pics. By the time I put her pjs on, she was done with her bow. She told me "bow no pjs" so I guess bows don't go with pajamas :-)

Caroline and my sweet aunt Jean:

Talking to Santa
Pic of my in-laws front lawn...look at all of that snow!
Pic of our front yard...sorry it's blurryOn Christmas morning we woke up, gave Caroline her milk and read Luke 2 together. Caroline listened so intently (even though daddy's bible doesn't have any pictures :-)
Then it was on to the presents! When Caroline saw what was under the tree, she pointed and said "WOW!!" Having fun on her new "big suck" (translation: "big truck")
Caroline was way more into opening presents this year (vs. last year) but she definitely had no idea what was really going on and was overwhelmed some of the time. After opening presents, we moved on to stockings. When we asked Caroline if she wanted to open her stocking, this is what she did:
She was ready!

We opened stockings and had breakfast. This year we put a candle in our coffee cake and sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus. Caroline sang most of the song and then helped us blow out the candle. After breakfast, we headed over to Mimi and PopPop's house (Matt's mom and dad) to have Christmas with Matt's family.

She loved this vacuum cleaner and has been pushing it around our house non-stop since Christmas. Thank you Mimi and PopPop!

Playing with her new cell phone ;-)

If you asked Caroline what she wanted from Santa this year, she would tell you a "baby". So Caroline got LOTS of babies for Christmas.

We celebrated with Matt's fam then headed over to my mom's house for Christmas with my family.

My mom and Nannie, ready to open some presents!

Aunt Jean helping Caroline open a gift

Showing off her new Dora plate!

Okay, so my pictures stop here. I was SO tired of taking pictures by this time, I just gave up. Which is sad because I don't have many pics of Caroline with her presents but for some reason, I hit a major picture wall :-) After opening gifts with my family, Matt's parents and brother came over to my mom's house and we all enjoyed a delish Christmas dinner together! The guys ended the day with a football game and all the girls (minus Caroline of course :-) went to see the movie, "It's Complicated". Christmas was very special this year. Watching everything through Caroline's eyes was so fun. But the biggest blessing of all was getting to spend the day with those we love so much!! I hope all of you had a wonderful Christmas (and have a happy New Year!! :-)

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!!

Christmas Supper Club

Recently, we had our Christmas Supper Club at Kelly and Jason's house. They made a delicious meal as always and we had fun spending time together eating, talking & laughing, exchanging ornaments, and being entertained by the kiddos. Kelly set up the most adorable decorated kid's table with their own ornaments and sippy cups. The kids didn't last long at the table but it was cute nonetheless :-)

4/5 of the supper club kiddos were there (we missed Saylor...sadly, she was sick). It's so hard to believe that a couple of years ago not one of us (4 couples total) had any kids. Now there are a total of 5 sweet crazies running/crawling/laying around :-)

Our attempt at a group picture. L to R: James, Press, Mae and Caroline. I love how James is showing off that cute belly of his.

Preston (Press) is so adorable and is the sweetest baby. He is also the newest addition to our group.

Eating at the kid's table (by herself at this point :-)

Although it was fun having the kids at our Christmas dinner, all of us moms agreed that we're going to hire babysitters for all 2010 supper club evenings so we can enjoy fun nights out with each other without having to worry about what the kids are doing. We're definitely looking forward to that ;-)

Current Favorite Activity & a Video

Caroline's favorite activity of the month is...PAINTING!!
She loves it and will paint until there is no more paint in the container!

She doesn't quite get the concept of dipping the brush in water in-between paint colors to clean it off. She just dips her brush in one color after another. No worries...I think brown makes lovely art :-)

Checking out the water

"Mommy, I don't understand why you keep putting the brushes in the water!!"

Showing me her masterpiece

The video below has nothing to do with painting. Caroline is really into counting these days, and I finally caught her on the video camera when she was counting while sitting on Matt (see below). I didn't start the camera in time so I cut off the beginning but you get the idea. I was sure to cut the camera off before too much of our annoying commentary though :-)

The Reason for the Season

Yesterday, we went to a family Christmas Brunch at our church. The brunch was put on by our Building Blocks ministry for the purpose of teaching young children more about the REAL reason for this season...our Savior's birth! Matt and I were so excited to take Caroline because we knew she would have fun even if she is a little too young to understand the true meaning of Christmas. We started off by eating lots of yummy food then we headed into a big room with all of the families to sing worship songs and Christmas carols. Caroline loved dancing all around/clapping her hands to the live music.

After singing, some older kids put on a production of the Christmas story. Matt and I loved that part but Caroline lost interest and had more fun running around sitting in strangers' laps (what in the world?!? Caroline has NEVER done that before...it was pretty funny since we were at church but I think we need to teach her more about stranger danger :-) Then we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus and cut the birthday cake. We had been practicing the Happy Birthday song all morning so Caroline really loved that part...and eating the cake too, of course. After the cake, we moved on to do some arts and crafts.

Matt and Caroline making an angel

Picking out her colors

The finished product

After one craft, Caroline was ready to go. We had a great time and were so thankful to spend a morning as a family, worshipping God and telling Caroline more about why Christmas is such a special time of the year!!