December 2020

December 2020...while this month was surely different that all of our past Decembers without many Christmas parties and the usual festivities, I was determined to still make this month special! Long post ahead....but I wanted to capture as much as possible so that we could remember looking back on this December that even though it was different, we still had a special month celebrating Christmas and spending time together.

We love attending the Botanical Garden's Galaxy of Lights.  Last year was our first year to attend the walking nights, and we said would would never go back to driving it because we felt like we got to experience it so much better by walking! The only downside is that the walking nights are the week of Thanksgiving and I'm usually anti doing Christmas activities before Thanksgiving, but for this we made an exception.  So these first few pictures were from November I held them back for our December post since they were Christmas-y.  Last year we had a family picture taken in this spot at the Galaxy of Lights, but we didn't want to hand anyone the phone to take our picture this year so we opted for just a picture of the kids.

One of our favorite areas...the ice sickle area...this is a neat tunnel of lights and they attempt blowing snow here (this year it was bubbles? not cold enough I guess). But it was still really neat. 

We got hot chocolate to enjoy while walking through the gardens.

Such a fun night!

The weekend after Thanksgiving we started decorating.  This year we had decided to have 3 trees.  This is our main tree in our living room.

One of my favorite things at Christmas is looking at our stockings as I walk by each time and thinking of we have so many sweet blessings with stockings hung to be thankful for.

We bought Christmas pajamas to wear all month long. We gave them to the kids on the last night of November so they could wake up in them on December 1st.  Duke even got to match!  It was sweet how excited about their pjs the kids were.

We decorated for Christmas...can you guess who contributed this?!

Hah

I was so pleased with the way the living room tree turned out in all white. I wanted to snap a black and white picture of it too.

then our "fun tree" is in the bonus room.  It holds all our special ornaments made by myself, John, and the kids. It also has colored lights which the kids LOVE.

Then we had a 3rd tree this year in our office.  I was worried it would feel super crowded since we spend  A LOT of time in the office doing homeschool, but it wasn't and we all enjoyed having the festive decor in our "classroom." Best part was getting to see it lit up in the office against the window at night from inside the house and outside.

Duke is such a wonderful pup...and so patient.  Photo proof that he will let his people do just about anything.

December 1st...as always our Elf Charlie arrived right on time.  He was in his usual Dec 1 location of the chandelier over the kitchen table with Christmas lights and a North Pole Breakfast.

December 1....first Advent Gifts! 

Charlie the Elf's North Pole breakfast consisted of waffles with SPRINKLES!

Bagels with sprinkles!

I didn't take pictures of Charlie in every spot this year, just some of the ones the kids enjoyed the most!

Clayton and Duke in their Christmas jammies watching a show.

It's Duke's first Christmas so we took his paw print in ink on this ornament! 

(FYI, it's really hard to get ink off a puppy paw...probably should have used paint!)

Most of the parades in the area got canceled this year (thanks, Covid), but the Athens one did not.  I feel like it's the perfect small town American feel, but the parade itself was super long! We had a great time walking around downtown on the square before the parade drinking the hot chocolate we brought from home.

Seeing the tree at the courthouse

And then the parade started. It was such a good parade! We will have to make sure we go every year.

Another favorite spot of Charlie's.  The kids thought it was hilarious that he tried the dog's bacon strips dog trets.

Of course, we had to visit the big tinsel trail in downtown Huntsville.

(we actually ended up visiting it another time laster in the month too)

Dawson made a really neat ornament entirely out of Legos.  Even the string it hangs by is made of Legos!

The kids and I finished Little House on the Prairie and moved on to book 4-On the Banks of Plum Creek.

We all went in Walmart one day so the kids could do some Christmas shopping for each other (they enjoy that so much). Clayton put on his mask, and then said he wanted his sunglasses and hood so he would look just like a robber. Hah!

This year Huntsville had something new to do at Christmas...since the Trash Panda's Stadium was completed they had drive through lights there.  It was a lot like Shadracks that we used to go to in Tennessee, and we really enjoyed it.  Here are Clayton and John as we went through the lights.

After driving through you could get out of your car and go into the stadium.  The kids got to get inside this snowglobe which was really neat.

We went on a Monday night in early December and had the place to ourselves if you can't tell from the pictures.  It was great!

Anna, Elsa, and Olaf were there.

Then another night we went to Bridge Street to check out the giant tree and lights.

Bridgestreet

Our neighborhood had a golf cart parade.  We decked out the ranger, played Christmas music loudly and joined the parade...so much fun!!!

Getting ready to start the parade!

Carter's All Star soccer team from November got together this month to be presented with their medals!

We made so many things out of gingerbread this month that I lost count. They loved everyone one of them though!

Lots of laughter

I have NEVER had good luck at all growing carrots in our raised bed gardens. We have always laughed saying we only grow baby carrots no matter what we do. At the end of summer we had a few carrot seeds left, and I said we should just plant them in the veggie garden since we didn't have anything else to plant.  We have done absolutely zero for these seeds/plants.  Well a couple days before Christmas the kids pulled them up and apparently we can grow carrot when we don't try at all! Haha! We even had one saved out to give to Santa for his reindeer.

Clayton was excited to make goodie bags to take to his preschool class.

In an attept to find more Christmas-y things to do since there weren't parties, we visited another Tinsel Trail.  This is Athens' version and it was great! It was around the duck pond in Athens. It was super cold the night we decided to go, but definately worth it.

More gingerbread creations.

This one was Anna and Elsa's castle.

Carter's lessons the last week of school were centered around Christmas around the world. We "visited" 10 different countries. He thought it was funny the idea that in France they make Yule log cakes ("Why would they want a cake that looks like a log?") so we decided to make our own one fun Friday to celebrate the end of the 9 weeks of school and beginning of Christmas Vacation!  FYI, Yule Logs are way harder to make than I realized.

Last year we went to Tennessee the weekend prior to Christmas to celebrate with family, but with John's work schedule this year that wouldn't work so luckily our families were willing to come to us.

Our Christmas festivities started on December 19th when John's Dad came down to visit for the 19th-20th. Nana and Grandad were both planning to come, but when Nana wasn't feeling well Grandad just came on his own. The kids missed Nana, but were still thrilled to see Grandad.  Lots and lots of "hey Grandad, look at this." They were also excited that Grandad delivered Christmas gifts! The picture above is the kids in their new boots from Nana and Grandad.

Christmas Celebration Number 1

While Grandad was here we took him to Historic Downtown Madison's Christmas and by a house to see "dancing lights."

We had a great time during Grandad's visit.  He left about 10 on Sunday, and then our second Christmas celebration started around noon when Lolly arrived. Lolly stayed Sunday through Tuesday. We celebrated Christmas with her, opened gifts, went on Slingshot rides, visited downtown Huntsville's Tinsel Trail, made Christmas cookies, made another gingerbread house, and tried out Christmas gifts from Lolly.

The pictures are a little out of order but here they are...

decorating Christmas cookies (yes, in skeleton pjs)

Carter got the brain game Kanoodle...not surprisingly he's great at it!

(he fell the night before and hit his lip. It healed remarkably quickly, but that's why his lip is red and swollen in a lot of these pictures.)

Christmas cookies we made while Lolly was here.

While Lolly was here the Bethlehem Star was in the sky.  So neat. The picture doesn't do it justice.

Christmas cookies

Lolly gave Dawson a bird feeder, and we have all enjoyed watching the birds flock to it.

Clayton got a Kylo Ren mask from Lolly that lights up.  To say he loves it would be an understatement.

Lolly and the big boys in downtown Huntsville.

Making another gingerbread house.

Christmas cookies

Nora Kate got a baking show Lego set from Lolly.  She finished building it while Lolly was here.

Clayton got a superhero Lego set and LOVES it! 

Carter and Dawson got these SUPER POWERFUL waterbead shooting guns.  They're automatic, and the boys have thankfully and surprisingly good aim.

Before opening gifts with Lolly 

There are the waterbead guns.

Clayton had his last day of preschool before Christmas break on the day Lolly left to go back to Tennessee.  It was also pj day for him at school.  Clayton got home from school and we wanted to get one more pic of everyone before she left and Clayton obviously wasn't feeling it...although he enjoyed her visit.

Carter rolling out the cookie dough while Lolly was here.

Opening gifts with Lolly

Clayton ready to head to school for Pajama Day!

Decorating Christmas cookies

On Christmas Eve Nora Kate and I made reindeer food.  We made an extra bag to share with our neighbor.

Christmas Eve!

John was off.  We played at home, finished our Christmas puzzle (just in time!), made reindeer food, ate our traditional Christmas Eve Chickfila meal (at home), and gathered virtually with the Wade family through zoom.

Virtual Christmas Eve gathering.

The 3 days leading up to Christmas we told the kids we were working on something in the garage for Christmas at night after they went to bed.  We said they could not sneak out to look in there. I had put a sticky note on the door knob to remind them incase they accidentally started to go out in the garage, but Dawson and Carter changed the sign to look like this.  I feel like we have such good kids that really want to be surprised and let us surprise them, not one of them wanted the others to look.

What were we doing in the garage?! Building a trampoline! 

These pictures are all from Christmas, though they are not in order.

Nora Kate was so, so excited when we told her that her big gift from us was in the garage...she ran out and saw a trampoline in the garage!  It does have a safety net, but we couldn't build that part in the garage and we wanted her to get to enjoy it some on Christmas without having to wait on us to assemble it, so this was what she got to see on Christmas!  Right after this we carried it out to the backyard and everyone started jumping! So fun!

"One of the most glorious messes in the world is the mess created in the living room on Christmas day.  Don't clean it up too quickly." --Andy Rooney

Christmas morning

Nora Kate got a Wellie Wisher doll.

Dawson and Carter got the big Pirate Ship Lego set to share/build together.  It says for ages 16+ although I'm sure they'll have it built in no time.

It was SO SO SO cold on Christmas day.  Last year it was 70 degrees and we spent the day outside, this year the kids wanted to spend the day outside so we did in in little increments of time.  

She loves it!

The next day John and I got the safety net put on.

Carter riding his bike on Christmas.  He wanted a new bigger bike...with gears!

Loves it! And he's already put several miles on it.

Dawson's Christmas wish was for a hoverboard go cart! This thing is so cool!

Clayton got a dirt bike.  He was SOOO excited!  He asked for one, but initially we told him no that he was too young.  Then we found this one for kids his age.  He had no idea we had found one his size, so he was beyond excited and surprised.  He's great at riding it too!

I have to document this.

Every year we get another nutcracker to add to our collection.  We have so many now that our goal is to always find a unique or different looking one.  We have all the traditional looking ones, a ballerina one, a cat nutcracker, dog nutcracker, hippie nutcracker, golfer nutcracker, turkey nutcracker, well this year with Clayton love of Star Wars we added a Darth Vader Nutcracker to the collection.  Clayton LOVEs it!

We had an amazing Christmas. We were thankful that John got a couple extra days off work.  The down time was really nice. We were thankful that our families were willing to travel to visit us which made things so much easier in the time of crazy schedules. We are thankful for so many things especially after the crazy year that has been 2020.  While lots of people have said 2020 has been a time that they have been able to slow down, it has been quiet the opposite for us since the company John works for has been busier than ever thanks to so many people being at home.  So that being said, we were very thankful that his off days at Christmas and New Years gave us a little time to slow down and enjoy the holidays.  It was wonderful to have had family down the week leading up to Christmas. It was like a weeklong celebration for us.

We had the best little stay at home New Year's Eve to wrap up 2020! We decided to let the kids all stay up until midnight to ring in the new year (a first) and to have a 6 hour long party for the 6 of us. (A plus side of being a big family is that you always have enough people for a party!) We popped a balloon every hour on the hour from 6pm to midnight. Inside each balloon there was an activity for the hour-like a special dinner with fancy drinks (orange fanta, ginger ale, and sparkling white grape juice for the kids), a 3 on 3 nerf war, minute to win it games, setting goals for 2021 and talking about the bests of 2020, watching a movie we had never seen, popcorn, and lastly ringing in the New Year with party blowers and Dawson playing Auld Lang Syne on the trumpet while watching fireworks from our back patio that were set off by our neighbors.

2021 pizza

Some of the activities inside the balloons

Cupstacking minute to win it game.

Family photo in our NYE get up.

Clayton making his 2021 goals and recapping bests of 2020.

New Years Eve

Clayton during the minute to win it cup stacking game.

See the marshmallow mid air.  This game was called Kabroom. Another minute to win it game. 

Dawson and Carter were surprisingly good at it, and I was not!

You dropped a broom on to the edge of the table which catapulted the plate throwing the marshmallow into the air and then had to catch the marshmallow in your cup.

We had such a fun New Years Eve spending it all together.  What a perfectly fun and special end to the craziness that has been 2020.  So long 2020! We're ready for 2021!!