Christmas 2014

We had a wonderful Christmas this year, despite everyone getting the stomach flu (aside from Jake) and both kids getting a cold/pink eye! We celebrated with Jake's side of the family a couple of weeks before Christmas, we spent Christmas day at home with just the 4 of us and then we celebrated Christmas with my side of the family on the Saturday after Christmas! I love having it all spread out and spending so much time with family! It was a lovely Christmas season and it was so much fun having both kids this year. Jackson is at a great age and Avery... well she enjoyed trying to eat the paper and ribbons. ;-)

Here are a few pictures from each of our family celebrations.

Jake's Family:

Santa Came!

After opening a few presents, we went to the St. Charles Christmas Parade, which was very fun!

I love this shot of the 4 boys eating their popcorn at the parade. ♥

Christmas Morning:

(Jackson had on his Christmas jammies before going to bed, but ended up getting the stomach flu that night, so the jammies got "glucky" as Jackson would say, so we changed to Spider Man.)

Avery chewing on a bow...

... and wrapping paper. Ha.

Jackson loved his new stuffed Pluto. ♥

Big brother enjoyed helping Avery open all of her gifts. :-)

The best present this year. :-)

Jackson loved his Ninja Turtle Sleeping bag. :-)

Jackson got this super cute bowl in his stocking and he couldn't wait to try it out. He is always wanting to drink the milk after eating his cereal but that often ends in a mess, so I found these cute bowls at Target and snatched one up for his stocking. He loved it!

At one point, I snapped this picture with my phone to show you how crazy it got with the toys all over the living room floor... just the way it should be on Christmas day. :-)

Christmas with my side of the Family:

Avery loves these singing snowmen. She rocks back and forth everytime the music starts. :-)

Opening stockings.

Avery with her "big" present from Maw Maw and Papa!

Jackson and Mason got bikes!

Our annual Christmas meal tradition... bacon, eggs, sausage, biscuits and gravy! Yum.

We had a really great Christmas this year. I hope you did too!

Happy New Year!!!

Our 2014 Christmas Card

Now that our Christmas cards have all gone out and been delivered, I wanted to share our card with all of you! 

I hope you all have a Very Merry Christmas!

Favorite Photo Friday

I haven't shared this on the blog yet, but Avery was chosen to be a brand rep for Sassy Sweet Pea Designs and we are so excited. Marie from Sassy Sweet Pea Designs makes headbands (and a few other handmade items) and has her own Etsy shop. The headband we were sent for the month of December was a beautiful Christmas theme. It went perfectly with Avery's Christmas outfit, so while we were in Old Town St. Charles for their Christmas Parade last weekend, I took a few pictures of Avery in her headband. We had fun with our little mini photo shoot. :-)

I hope you all have a great weekend!

What Avery is Getting for Christmas This Year

I'm so excited for Avery's first Christmas and it's been so much fun shopping for little girl toys for a change. :-) Here's what Avery is getting this year:

Her Santa gift this year will be the Fisher Price Magical Moments Mirror. It is just too cute!!!

A gift I knew I wanted to get her was a little tea set for her age and I found this one on Cyber Monday. It's the Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Pretty Please Tea Set. It's so cute and plays music, which she loves. :-)

We found her this cute book on Black Friday. Its the Fisher Price Growing Pals Peek-a-Boo Book!

And we also found this cute Fisher Price Growing Baby Fun Sounds Flip Phone because she loves our cell phones. ;-)

These super cute pajamas! These will be her first set of 2 piece pajamas.

Then we ordered five books from Scholastic for Avery as well. 

So that is what Avery is getting for her first Christmas! I'm so excited and can't wait for Christmas morning!!

What Jackson is Getting For Christmas This Year

We did some Black Friday and Cyber Monday shopping this year and are pretty well done shopping for both Jackson and Avery (besides stocking stuffers). So here is what Jackson is getting:

His Santa gift this year is going to be the Fisher Price Discover Disney Castle. He's been asking to go to "The Castle" ever since he saw a commercial for Disney World a few months back, so when I saw this and it was a boy version, I just knew he would love it. 

We got him the nabi DreamTab so he has his own ipac (as he calls it, ha).

He's been asking for some Jake and the Neverland Pirates pajamas, so his wish will come true for those. Walmart had a set of 2 pair for only $10 on Cyber Monday. :-)

We were also able to get this Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle Sleeping Bag for only $10 on Black Friday! :-)

I picked up this stuffed Pluto the other night to add to his stuffed Mickey Mouse Clubhouse collection. He has 3 different Mickey's and Goofy so far, so he'll be excited to have Pluto now. :-)

We are also getting him a bike helmet. He is getting a bike from my parent's so we thought we'd get him a helmet to keep him safe while riding. :-)

We also ordered him some books from Scholastic to give to him for Christmas. We ordered each of the kids 5 books, so I'm excited to have some new reading material. :-)

And finally, we are taking a trip to Phoenix to visit a friend in January, and because Jackson's been asking to go to "The Castle" so often we thought this might be a great time to try and make a trip out to Anaheim to visit Disneyland since we'll be somewhat close. So we will be driving to Anaheim to visit Disneyland for 1 day and 1 night. So this is a big gift for him as well, even though I'm not really sure he will understand until we're there. :-)

So that is what Jackson is getting. :-) I'm really looking forward to Christmas morning this year now that he's a little older.

(I will post what Avery is getting tomorrow.)

Santa Claus is Coming to Town!

We took Jackson and Avery to see Santa Claus last night at the mall. I was unsure how they would do because Jackson wasn't too excited about him last year. But, much to my surprise, they both did great! Jackson was a little nervous at first, but we started talking to Santa and Jackson warmed up to him pretty quick. He told Santa that he wanted a Dinosaur Train toy, a blue bike and the Mickey's Castle toy that he's been wanting for quite a while. It was super cute. He also told Santa that Avery wanted baby girl toys and he wanted big boy toys. :-) Avery sat right on Santa's lap and smiled for the camera several times. After about 8-10 shots, we finally got one where they were both looking at the camera and somewhat smiling. I call that a win!!

P.S. Avery was making this face all evening. I think she feels a tooth coming in and keeps doing this with her mouth to feel the new tooth. Ha. She also made the same face when I was taking her picture later in the food court as we were eating dinner. :-)

Jackson's 3rd Birthday Party

So it's been almost a month since I've published a blog post... bad blogger!!  So I thought I'd try and get back in the swing of things and post about Jackson's 3rd birthday party. Better late than never right?

We celebrated Jackson's 3rd birthday with a party at the Frisco Train Store on October 26th! He had such a fun time with his family and friends. The kids played with the trains, played a pinata game, ate cupcakes, watched the train go by out the window and Jackson even got to put his hand-print on the wall. :-) He got lots of great gifts. It was such a fun party!