Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Christmas 2012 - Part 2

Our second Christmas celebration was at my Parents' house on Christmas Eve. Every year, on Christmas Eve, we get together with my Mom's side of the family. Her Dad, brothers and her brother's families all came for dinner and presents. Here are a few pictures from that evening. 

(You'll notice in these pictures that Jackson has a boo boo on the bridge of his nose. He got that at my MIL's house the Sat. before Christmas when he fell and hit it on the edge of a trash can. Poor baby cried pretty hard with that one and it broke my heart. But its all better now.)


Jackson LOVED playing with the tissue paper.



Landon showing me a gift he got.

Jackson opening another gift.
  
Family. ♥

Later that evening, we went to church for the Christmas Eve Candle Light Service, which always puts me in the mood for Christmas and the true reason for the season.

Just a quick reminder about my Super Bowl Recipe Link-Up tomorrow!! I can't wait to read about all of your yummy Super Bowl Party recipes!
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Tuesday, January 8, 2013

Christmas 2012 - Part 1

Our Christmas festivities began on the Saturday before Christmas. This was the day we celebrated with Jake's Mom, brothers and his brother's families. 

We got together at Jake's Mom's house at around 1, where we had lunch, opened presents and played a game. Here are a few pictures I took that day. ☺

There are always a ton of presents under the tree. I think there were 4 presents for each of the 9 children, plus 3 presents for each of the 7 adults!

A quick little family picture before we started opening presents.

My nephews Larry and Ethan with their stockings from Grandma.

My nieces Bella and Sophia with their stockings from Grandma.

My nieces Kyleigh and Alexis with their stockings from Grandma.

Jackson with his stocking from Grandma.

My nephews Jack and Larry, wearing a hat they had each gotten in their stockings.
My nieces Sophia and Bella with their cute monkey hats on that they had gotten in their stockings.


My nephew Ethan wearing the hat he got in his stocking, and getting a kiss from Grandma. ☺

Jackson checking out some of the fun toys he got in his stocking.


Then it was onto opening gifts.

Jackson, sitting on Daddy's lap with all his gifts piled on top.





My niece Bella holding a puppy she got for Christmas.
 

My nieces Bella and Sophia in their new jammies, holding their new baby dolls.

We had a lot of fun that day. Its always fun to watch the kids open their gifts and see their reactions. Bella was hilarious because she was so excited about each and every gift she got. 5 years old is a very fun age for Christmas. ☺

Also, just a reminder about my Super Bowl Recipe Link-Up this coming Thursday.
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Monday, January 7, 2013

Its Monday Again and a Fun Upcoming Link-Up!

Well, its Monday again. The upside of it is, I'm off work today and will be spending the whole day at home with Jackson! ☺ I plan on taking the last of our Christmas decorations down and doing some cleaning around the house.

We had a great weekend, I hope you did as well!

Friday night, after I got off work, we got ready and met some of Jake's family and our friends' Chris and Holly at Max and Erma's. We were getting together for my nephew Jack, who is having surgery next week. You can read about his surgery here, on my Sister in Law's new blog. His parent's planned a little dinner for him, his choice of restaurant. We had a fun evening, but please say a little prayer for him next Wed. when he goes to have his surgery.
 (Jackson and I, before going to dinner Friday night.)
 
Then Sat. we went to my niece Sophia's 7th birthday party at a local bowling alley. It was Jackson's first time bowling and we all had a really fun time. ☺

The birthday girl!

Then Sunday, we went to church, then Jake and I went and saw, "This is 40", while my parent's kept Jackson for us.

Sunday night was spent at home, just hanging out. ☺


So that was our weekend! I hope yours was great as well.

Now onto an upcoming Link-Up of mine... After Christmas and New Years are over, I start thinking about preparing for our Annual Super Bowl Party. We've had a Super Bowl Party at our house every year since we've been married. They are always a lot of fun, though I often don't really care or pay attention to the game. Ha!

So to get us all prepared for Super Bowl, I thought it would be fun to do a link-up of our favorite Super Bowl recipes, so that we can get ideas for a new dish to take to the Super Bowl parties we all go to. The Link-up will be this Thursday, so start thinking about a yummy recipe that you've taken or plan to take to a Super Bowl party and link back up here with me so that we can all get some yummy ideas. :-)

Here's the button for the link up. I can't wait to see all your recipes. :-)
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Friday, January 4, 2013

Our Christmas and New Years via Instagram

I thought I'd give you a little run down of my time off from work last week during the holidays, via Instagram. :-) 

The Friday before Christmas was my last day of work and that evening and the next morning, I wrapped gifts for all the Christmas family gatherings we'd be going to.

That night, our dog Max decided to lay on top of me in bed. LOL. He's so cute and sweet. ☺

Then we went to my Mother-In-Laws the next day for our Christmas celebration with Jake's side of the family. Jackson got lots of fun gifts there.☺ Jackson also managed to get a pretty bad boo boo that day by falling and hitting the bridge of his nose on a trash can edge. He cried so bad and it turned black and blue. :-(

A super cute picture of 2 of my nieces wearing hats that Grandma had gotten for them. 

The next morning was church, lunch and just hanging out at home. We took some family pictures that morning at church and I shared this one of my nephews on Instagram. I love it.

I also recieved this super cute ornament that morning that a friend of mine made for me. I love it! She printed Jackson's picture on fabric and sewed a little ornament using it. How clever.

We spent that afternoon just playing at home.
Jackson learned to climb up onto the couch by himself. Now we have to watch him like a hawk because he's still not entirely mastered getting off the couch.

He made lots of messes!

And decided to play inside his toy box!

The next day was Christmas Eve. We spent a majority of the day at home, just drinking coffee and enjoying some down time.
I took this picture of all of our yearly coffee mugs from Sullivan's Tree Farm. Each year that we've gotten a tree there, they give us a new mug for that year. ☺

We also took our traditional Christmas Tree Family Photo that afternoon before heading to my parent's house to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side of the family.

After that, we went to the candlelight service at church, unfortunately I don't have any pictures of that. :-(

The next morning was Christmas and we woke up that morning and opened gifts with Jackson. Though it was his second Christmas, it was his first Christmas that he was able to actually open gifts on his own. He had fun with the wrapping and tissue paper.
Here he is playing with the gift he got from Santa. (More on that in a later post)

That afternoon, we went to my parent's house again, to celebrate with just our immediate family (my parents, sister and my sister's family). I got this super cute tree decoration as a gift from my parents. My dad cut it out of wood and my mom painted and decorated it. ☺

The rest of the week was spent playing with Jackson, cleaning, taking down our Christmas tree and having my dad come and fix a few things at our house. Jackson also got his very first haircut that week. (I'll post on that later too.)


Jackson, the day before he got his hair cut.

And then after his hair cut.

Jackson also started making this face when he doesn't get what he wants. Its pretty funny, but I have to try not to laugh.

We had lunch with Maw Maw and Papa that Friday at Burger King.

And then that Saturday, Jackson and I went with my parents to visit my Dad's parents. My cousin Brice met us there with his little boy Dallas. It was great to see them, since we live about an hour 1/2 away and don't see each other very often.
It had snowed quite a bit there and Jackson and Dallas enjoyed looking out the window at all the snow.

Sunday was church again, and then later that day, a bunch of the ladies met up to decorate our tables for our New Year's Eve dinner that we have every year. Here was the table my sister and I decorated. We went with a silver and red theme this year.

Then New Years eve was spent at home and then that evening we went to the dinner at church. After dinner we rang in the new year at some friends of ours house. 

Then New Years Day, we just spent the day at home. 

Jackson loving on our dog Libby. ♥ So sweet.

Then it was back to work for me on the day after New Years. It was a great week and a half off. I hope to be able to take this week off every year for Christmas. Its nice to spend some time at home with family for the holidays! It really was the best gift of all.