December 2014 and Christmas 2014

Since most of what we did in December revolved around Christmas, I decided to lump the blog post together!  
The Christmas season becomes more and more fun each year as the kids understand everything more!  This year Dawson and Carter were both really into everything Christmas related from the songs to talking about Jesus being born to looking for our elf each morning, looking at Christmas lights, visiting Santa, and picking out gifts to give people!  This year was also fun because Nora Kate had fun opening gifts too!
Everyone had fun finding Charlie the Elf (our elf on the shelf) each morning. Even Nora Kate would point to him and talk about "dar-lee" (Charlie)!  The boys loved it when Charlie was driving trucks, trains, or a even a school bus one morning!  

we were so excited to celebrate our first Christmas season with John not being in retail, that I caved and we put the Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving, hence why Dawson has on a turkey shirt decorating the tree.  Here he found the Christmas pickle!

Tree decorating

Fantasy of Tree Sugar Cookies

Fantasy of Tree Sugar Cookies

Fantasy of Trees

Fantasy of Trees

Fantasy of Trees

Fantasy of Trees

Fantasy of Trees

Fantasy of Trees

Fantasy of Trees

Went to build a bear at West Town and built a reindeer!!

This was Carter's first time and he loved it!!!

John had fun in Build a Bear too! :)

Just like always, Charlie the Elf made his appearance on December 1 bringing with him a North Pole Breakfast of red and green pancakes, Cheerios with red and green sprinkles in them that made the milk turn red, and donuts with red and green sprinkles!

Love this girl!

As a party of Junior Service League, I worked with two local schools to collect for Toys for Blount County!

Look at all those toys!

Nora Kate LOVED the trees!

Christmas Shopping!

Visiting Santa

Breakfast with Santa at Green Meadow Country Club with Lolly!  So fun!

Breakfast with Santa

Breakfast with Santa

Breakfast with Santa

Toys for Blount County

Organizing Toys for Blount County!

Visiting Santa at Daddy's work, the kids got to sit in Santa's chair!

A Christmas Tradition, driving through Shadrack's Lights at the Smokies Stadium!

One of Dawson's school friends had told him all these great things about Bass Pro Shop, and Dawson just had to go in while we were nearby seeing lights at Shadracks-it was pretty fun!

Carousel at Bass Pro

Carousel at Bass Pro

Christmas at Dollywood! SO fun!

Christmas at Dollywood! SO fun!

Christmas at Dollywood! SO fun!

Train ride!

Christmas at Dollywood! SO fun!

oops!  I packed gloves and hats for everyone, except I forgot John's hat! SO SORRY! :)

Christmas at Dollywood! SO fun!

Christmas at Dollywood! SO fun!

Christmas at Dollywood! SO fun!

Christmas at Dollywood! SO fun!

Lolly saw Santa there!

Christmas at Dollywood with Lolly and Pop!

These two are becoming really sweet friends!

One day Charlie the Elf brought a really special, sugary treat!

Nora Kate LOVED them!!

The boys with Santa at John's work!

Dawson's class had a field trip to view the Christmas trees on the Court House lawn and siblings were allowed to attend!  It was fun...and cold!!!

Part of Dawson's class on the field trip to the court house.

they keep me laughing!

Matching polar bear Christmas pajamas!

Dawson helped me put stamps and return address labels on all the Christmas Cards this year-what a help!

Our good friends, the Myers, had their annual Christmas Cookie Party!  It was so much fun! Nora Kate enjoyed a sugar cookie!

Dawson was totally into decorating Christmas cookies and all the crafts (hence the Christmas beaded necklace he's wearing)!

I decorated a Christmas tree cookie!

(John was in Greenville, SC for work during this party, and we really missed him, but I'm pretty sure Carter had enough sugar for both of them...)

Yup, there's a cookie under there!  That's the cookie Carter decorated!

All the kids at the Christmas Cookie Party!

The Moms at the Christmas Cookie Party!

The boys had fun making suet and hanging it in the trees for the birds to enjoy!

Can you believe it?!?!  I think I'm still in disbelief that Dawson is old enough to loose a tooth!!  On December 16 (so at 5 years, 6 months, and 27 days old), Dawson lost his first tooth!  He was so excited!  The funny part of this was that he had been showing us how loose it was for days, and we kept assuring him it would fall out when it was ready.  Then after dinner Dawson asked if he could have a piece of candy that he had gotten from the Christmas parade that Lolly and Pop had taken him to the previous weekend, I said yes.  He picked a fun size (little) Twix.  (side note We are always super careful about nuts in our house since John is allergic and we don't know if Carter or Nora Kate are yet or not.  We usually just throw all candy or food with tree nuts in it out so that no one accidentally gets it that shouldn't have it.)  Dawson started chewing his Twix and said, "oh no!! this has a nut in it!!  I want to spit it out!"  When he did it wasn't a nut...it was his tooth!! He thought it was so funny!

About a month or two before his tooth fell out, I made him this tooth pillow for when the big day arrived.  He can hang it on his door knob, bed post, or nightstand drawer, put his tooth in the red pocket mouth, and the tooth fairy takes it and puts his money in the pocket mouth.  I didn't give it to Dawson until the day he lost his tooth though.  Dawson thought this tooth pillow was pretty cool, and was excited to use it!  The tooth fairy brought Dawson a gold dollar for his tooth!  He was so excited.  The next day at school, he told all his friends.  AND he got to wear a special sticker that said "I lost a tooth!"-which is a really big deal. :)

Carter had to take a break to sit on the mowers outside Sears while doing some Christmas shopping.

Dawson's school had a Christmas sing-along the day before Christmas break started.  Lolly, Nana, Grandad, Carter, Nora Kate, and I were all there to sing along!

sing along!

a quick post-sing-along photo during which Carter obviously melted to the ground.  silly boy!

sing-along!

Santa came to the sing along and handed out candy canes!!

Dawson's class with Santa.

During the month of December there were boxes EVERWHERE in our house as we started packing to move.  Nora Kate and Carter had so much fun crawling back in them to play!

Dawson is playing Upward Basketball at our church this year.  He is SO excited!  Two of his good friends, Carson and Bailey, are on his team!  AND John and Carson's Dad are their coaches.  This is their first practice.

Look at these two!!  I feel like this is a fast forward to high school-they're just shooting hoops and talking.  They look so big!  

I think this is the only picture I managed to get from our Sunday School Christmas party!  It was at Barley's Downtown and was a lot of fun!

One rainy December day we were running out of indoor things to do to keep the kids entertained, so I took them to our new house which was still empty at the time and just let them run.  They  LOVED it!

Our Christmas tree-it's hard to see but Charlie the Elf is on it and the note on the floor is from Charlie.  He's always on the tree the last day with a note telling us that that night he will go back to the North Pole with Santa.

Had to capture this sweet moment.  It is SO SO rare that our sweet Nora Kate gets to take a bath by herself.  John was on a special outing with the boys, so I bathed Nora Kate alone-she didn't know what to do without her brothers being rowdy in the tub.  Look at that sweet smile!

Our first Christmas celebration!  Christmas Eve we went to Nana and Grandads.

Dawson had been talking about a banjo for several months-he was always really impressed when people at Dollywood would play a banjo.  Nana and Grandad surprised him and got him a banjo!  He was sooo happy!  He has carried this with him everywhere!

Grandad and Nana with Dawson, Carter, and Nora Kate on Christmas Eve.

After the Christmas Eve gathering at Nana and Grandads we went to the Wade's Christmas Eve celebration.  Here are 5 of the 6 Wade siblings in their festive necklaces!

Christmas morning!

Santa came!!!!

I love this picture and the next how truly excited and happy Carter is opening his gifts.  

Look at that sweet face.

Love him!

Nora Kate would open a gift and want to play with that one thing right them.  She opened this book and had to have it read to her before she could go on to open more gifts.  Look at that face-can you tell it's a new book she's never heard before?!

Sometimes brothers like to help you open your gifts!

And when it's all said and done you just have to sit in the box!

After Christmas morning at our house we went to Lolly and Pop's.  Here are my guys in front of Lolly's tree.

Opening more gifts.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE the tutu Nora Kate wore Christmas day.  Had to get a picture of the back!

When Nora Kate's Great Mamaw (and namesake) arrived, Nora Kate went right up to her and wanted on her lap.  

After all the Christmas morning festivities were over, Nora Kate fell asleep in her carseat on the way home!

Christmas Evening we got together with Cousin Hailey, Cousin Drew, and Aunt Em.  All the kids enjoy playing with Hailey.

Look at these two playing a game on my phone-they look so big!

Nana and Grandad and the grandkids.

Nora Kate has been pretty attached to her Grandad lately!

We had an amazing Christmas and are very blessed to have three sweet kids, parents, siblings, a niece and nephew, a grandmother, many aunts, uncles, and cousins, and lots of wonderful friends with whom to spend the entire month of December celebrating Christmas!

Our New Home

(disclaimer:  I typed this up back on December 22, but didn't get it posted since we were without Internet for several weeks during the move.  so read it as if it were typed Dec. 22!)

We have exciting news!  We are moving! 

We are moving from Alcoa to Maryville.  Our new house is only about 15 minutes away from where we are living now!  

In January it will be THREE YEARS since we moved to Tennessee.  The past three years have gone by SO fast!  When we moved up here we still owned our house in Alabama, and thankfully we ended up finding great renters to live in it! BUT we knew we did not want to own two houses in two different states, so we have been renting since early 2012.  The house we have been renting, definitely feels like home since we have gone from a family of three here to a family of five in this house.  When we moved in I was pregnant with Carter, and so we got to bring two babies-Carter and Nora Kate-home to this house from the hospital.  The layout of the house was perfect when John was working nights and sleeping days because the playroom is on the opposite end of the house from the master bedroom!  This house was equally convenient to our family and church in Maryville as it was to John's job in Turkey Creek.  Now that John's working in Vonore though, there's no reason to be on this end of town.  Since March when we sold our Alabama house we have just been keeping our eyes open, but not necessarily actively looking for a house.  After John got his new job in October and we knew we were much more permanently in Tennessee, he started looking around and discussing the possibilities of moving a lot more seriously.  

THEN at the beginning of November we found a house in Maryville that would cut about 10 minutes off his drive to work, be closer to church and our family, and was in a school district we liked.  We also really wanted 4 bedrooms plus an additional room that could be used as a playroom and to be in a neighborhood.  We had a much longer list that this, but these were three of our "big" wants.  The house in Maryville met all of these qualifications, and it was in an area we really liked.  We looked at it the first time in early November.  Dawson immediately talked about how he loved it because "it's a house of living rooms and it has stairs!"  Silly boy!  The house was empty so I think all the rooms-dining room, living room, family room, and sunroom seemed like living rooms to him--hah!!  When we were looking at the house the first time it was hard to see past ALLLLL the blue flower wallpaper and border EVERWHERE!  

We went home and started thinking about how we liked the layout and would be willing to update the house ourselves to make it ours.  We decided it would be fun!  We decided to take John's dad back to see the house to get his opinion just to make sure we weren't getting in over our heads with all of the updates it needed/we wanted to make.  He liked it.  Over the next few days we took my parents and John's parents to see the house.  We were getting more excited about it-cautiously excited though!  We decided to put an offer in on it.  At this point a lot of things seemed to fall in place with the house.  We decided that if we hit any major hiccups and it didn't work out that we just weren't meant to have a house that we were going to have to put some work into updating and making our own.  Well, everything fell into place!

On November 14, we signed the contract with a closing date set of December 19.  So on Friday, December 19-the house was ours!  We signed the papers, got the keys, snapped a quick picture in the front yard, went through the house to take  "before" shots of each and every room so we could remember our progress.  

We packaged up Christmas cookies that Dawson had helped make and delivered them to our new neighbors so we could meet them-they all seem very nice!  Then we started ripping up linoleum and attempting to steam off wallpaper.  Whew!  It was a very busy busy weekend, and I think we are all still recovering from working all weekend on the house.  We are going to get as much done this week as we can, since we are moving in next weekend!!!!  We are trying to get big things done this week-wallpaper removed, linoleum ripped up and new flooring put down, walls painted, add shelving to a pantry with no shelves, install overhead lighting where there is none.  Hopefully we get get most all of this done before next weekend when we move.  There will be other renovations/updates we do after we move in and really over the next couple of years.  We LOVE the idea that we get to update this house and make it our own!!!  

Big changes like this are always exciting, and we cannot wait to move in!

                                            Our new home!!

Nora Kate is 16 Months!

Nora Kate turned 16 months on December 14th!  Time is absolutely flying by, and Nora Kate is growing and changing so much!  Her vocabulary is ever-expanding and her personality is becoming more noticeable every day.  It's funny when kids start realizing they can show preferences on what they do and do not do!  Nora Kate has seen a few fits thrown (ahem, older brothers)-not a lot, just a few, and it seems she stored this away for a rainy day.  A couple of times over the past month when we have told her "no no" that she could not do something she has thrown herself to the ground.  It's hard not to laugh because she's so young to be doing this and because she's really smart about it-rather than throw herself down on the hardwood, she walks to the carpet and slowly throws herself down.  It is really hard for John and I not to laugh, but the couple of times she has done this we found that if we have no reaction at all she gets up and goes back to playing.  Silly girl! 
Nora Kate is continuing to grow-I can really tell she's gotten taller this past month.  It's always funny to me how kids grow out then up, so she seems to have gotten slimmer this past month as she has gotten taller too.  She still has plenty of sweet little rolls, but not like she did just a few months ago. 
Our sweet baby girl loves books right now more than ever!!!  She will sit and read books on my lap for over 30 minutes if not interrupted by Carter or Dawson.  Nora Kate is so sweet to just bring one book after another.  Her favorites are still touch and feel books or books that make noise.  She also loves any books with animals in them.  A couple of her advent gifts this month were books that are shaped like purses (like My Little Pink Prayer Purse Book), and she loves to carry these around by the handle and sit and look at them.
Boxes are everywhere in our house right now as we prepare to move, and Nora Kate loves to climb in these empty boxes with a book or toy and just sit and look at it! She's so cute with her head just peeking over the box edge!
Nora Kate loves her brothers, and she always wants to be right with them!  This month I have really noticed how much she loves interacting with Carter especially!  With these two only being 16 months apart, it really is like a built in playdate every day-as I remind myself that some of the boys friends we regularly do playdates with are 16 months or more apart from them in age.  Carter and Nora Kate have started playing really well together-and it's amazing!  I'm so happy for Carter to have Nora Kate, especially on Dawson's school days, because he used to get so upset and cry when we would leave Dawson at school-and, of course, I'm happy for Nora Kate to have Carter as well.  Don't get me wrong-Dawson is awesome with Nora Kate too!  Dawson is really good to help her and watch her for me if I have to be in another room for a minute or two.  He's very helpful to her and me in this way.  He's also so sweet to sit and read to her.  Nora Kate is a very lucky little girl to have two big brothers that love her!
We didn't have a check up for 16 months-the next one is at 18 months, so no official stats on weight and height this month!

Nora Kate is 15 Months

Nora Kate turned 15 months old on November 14 (I typed this up in November, and I was waiting on the stats from her checkup and a forgot to click "post" after I got them, and then we got busy packing and moving and I never clicked to upload! So, rest assured the info was all written down back when it was fresh in my memory when she was 15 months!!). :)  
Nora Kate is a great walker now!  She has also learned to walk backwards which she thinks is HILARIOUS!  And she's learned to spin in a circle-I'm pretty sure Dawson and Carter taught her this.  She usually makes two circles, gets dizzy, and falls down laughing.  
Speaking of Nora Kate's big brothers-she would do anything to get a laugh, smile, or attention out of them--sound like Carter?  I can see Nora Kate and Carter getting into some mischief in the future!  Knowing everyone's personalities though, Dawson will let me know what they're up to! Haha!
In addition to loving her big brothers, Nora Kate loves he Grandad!  When Grandad is around, Nora Kate wants him to hold her or follows him around constantly!  Good thing Grandad loves her and is happy to hold her.  
Nora Kate's vocabulary is ever expanding- now when she says "uh oh" which is quiet frequently, she says, "uh oh.....getti oh"  She learned that "uh oh, spaghetti oh" from her brother!  She knows several animal sounds.  The other day we were in Kroger and there was a stuffed horse (that I didn't initially see), and she kept saying "neigh, neigh" over and over until I saw it!  
Nora Kate is still an awesome eater-I think she's the least picky eater of the three kids right now! 
Nora Kate LOVES reading books.  A week ago, John took the boys to run errands and just the girls stayed home-Nora Kate sat on my lap for 45 minutes without even trying to get up and just let me read her book after book.  It was so sweet!
Nora Kate had her 15 month check up and the doctor said she was healthy!  At 15 months she weighs 26 pounds 3 ounces and is 31 inches tall!  She's growing so fast!

Fall Family Pictures 2014

Back in November we had some professional pictures taken at one of the kids favorite spots to go for walks-the Maryville College Woods!  It was a chilly morning, but everyone did great-you can see a few pink noses from the cold here and there!  :)  We have had the same photographer do our pictures since Dawson turned one, and she's great and SO patient with the kids!  Here are the pictures...