A Very Merry Christmas

We hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas! 

We began by starting our Christmas cooking a few days before Christmas.  In the picture above you can see Dawson using his Melissa and Doug mallet to help crush Nutter Butter cookies to make Nutter Butter Bark.  He's so resourceful!  :)  Dawson LOVES to help me in the kitchen so he was thrilled to help me make a few new recipes, and he helped for over an hour before he lost interest!

We began our festivities by traveling to Tennessee on Christmas Eve.  We arrived early in the afternoon, and Dawson's Uncle Logan gave him his gift early.  Here Dawson is with the BIG gift!  He was thrilled!

It was hard to unwrap!

YAY!  Dawson loves it!  Uncle Logan did a great job shopping for Dawson.  He loves his masculine kitchen!  No pink in this kitchen-just brown and green! 

Christmas Eve night we went to my Aunt Janice's house for the traditional Wade Christmas Eve Gathering.  Dawson kept asking if it was a birthday party and saying he was so excited!  We told him it was a birthday party for Jesus.  The photo above and the one below is of the kids at the gathering.  Left to right:  Dawson, Ashton, Josie, Eli, and Corbin.  Dawson and Corbin are only 2 months apart, and Dawson has talked about Corbin several times since Christmas Eve.

One more picture of the kids lined up.  It's hard to get 5 kids all looking at the same time!

All the kids got several gifts to open.  Here Dawson is tearing into one of them!  Then the adults played our usual game of Dirty Santa, which always makes for a good time!

Dawson was excited about the cars he got!

(Also, notice he's wearing the Christmas bow tie I made for him.  When we put it on him, he asked if we were going to church! Hah!)

Christmas morning we woke up at Lolly and Pop's house.  On top of all of Dawson's presents there was a box of gummies (his favorite!), he was thrilled with this gift alone.  Not to mention when we got to Nana and Grandad's he got ANOTHER box of gummies...I think his grandparents really know what he likes!  :)

After getting over the excitement from the gummies, Dawson got to open his bigger presents.  Check out all these Thomas the Trains he got.  Thanks, Lolly and Pop-we will never have to buy another train.  Dawson's recent favorite has become Percy, and we've even learned of some trains we had never heard of before.  John and I are excited to use our gift from Lolly and Pop in the next couple of weeks-we got a trip to Harrah's Casino in Cherokee, North Carolina plus childcare by Lolly and Pop for Dawson (and Bentley) while we're gone!  We all had fun exchanging gifts Christmas morning!

After exchanging gifts with Lolly, Pop, and Uncle Logan, we headed next door to Jeannie's house for our traditional gift exchange and mimosas (just orange juice for me and Carter this year!).  The picture above was Dawson on the walk to Jeannie's.  His hat says, "Santa's Helper," and he was VERY interested in this birdbath.  We just thought it was sweet of him standing on his tip toes looking in the bird bath.

After Jeannie's, we walked back to Lolly and Pop's house for a get together with Lolly's side of the family.  Here Dawson is with his great Mamaw!  Dawson and Carter are the youngest great grandchildren all of which are boys!  It was great to see everyone, but we were unable to stay too long because we had another Christmas gathering to attend. 

Next we went to Nana and Grandad's house.  We ate a yummy lunch and visited with everyone.  In the picture above Dawson and Jared are opening some gifts!

Tearing into his Aqua Doodle which he loves!  He has fun doing anything art or writing related so this was right up his alley.

Dawson also loved his chain saw from Nana and Grandad.

And he was quick to find a wall in their house that he thought needed repairs!  :)  I think almost everything has been "chain sawwed" since he got it!  He even pretended to give me a hair cut with it the other day! 

Aunt Emmie gave Dawson a pillow pet turtle.  Dawson LOVES his pillow pets.  Since the one he has to sleep with every night is a panda pillow pet, he calls all pillow pets pandas.  He also has a dog pillow pet at home which he calls "panda doggie."  Aunt Emmie was hoping he would see the turtle and call it Mike the Turtle.  :)  When she asked if it was Mike the Turtle he said, "No, it's panda turtle."  Oh my!  He loves that panda turtle though!  She also gave us a University of Tennessee Garden Gnome, and I wish I had on video how excited Dawson was when he opened that gift!  He cannot wait to put it outside.  Thanks, Em!  :)

On Christmas night we drove back home to Alabama.  We had planned that Dawson would sleep in the car since we wouldn't get home until 11pm, but he stayed awake talking about Christmas the entire foggy drive home.  Santa visited our house on Christmas night, and we awoke the next morning to open gifts on "our Christmas." 

Dawson immediately went to open his largest present first!

I think this was the gift we were most excited to give Dawson.  He turns every stick into a pretend weedeater, so we thought a real weedeater would be perfect.  He loved it!

We also gave Dawson his first game for Christmas.  He loves playing Don't Break the Ice!  Here are Daddy and Dawson playing for the first time.

Dawson also got some army men.  I'm pretty sure my former co-workers at Hawk would be happy about this gift!  :)

AND FINALLY...the last package Dawson opened was the only thing he had really asked for....SUCKERS!  Every time someone had asked Dawson what he wanted Santa to bring him, his response was, "SUCKERS!"  When Dawson opened the last box and saw that it was a bag of 600 dum dums the picture above was his reaction!  He held up a sucker and jumped up and down!  We loved watching how excited he got over the smallest gift!

Here is an action shot of him jumping around holding one of his many suckers in his hand.  He was thrilled!

After all the gifts were opened we assembled this construction site he got.

It has trains and dumptrucks...perfect for Dawson!

Playing with Christmas toys.

Dawson showing off his Christmas pajamas that have a cute little reindeer on the side!

One of Dawson's stocking stuffers was the capsules that expland into shapes and animals when put in warm water.  He thought these were the coolest thing!  Here he is watching the first couple "grow."

The first one grew into a lobster!

Dawson was excited about the rain boots we got him and insisted on wearing them over his footed pajamas...it's a good look for him, I think!  :)

We hope you all had a very Merry Christmas as well!