December was a whirlwind of activity. It happens every year but for different reasons, at least this year's December whirlwind was all happy and festive reasons!
On December 1st as expected and anticipated-our Elf Charlie showed up and was hanging from the light fixture and had left us a North Pole Breakfast as he does each year!
After enjoying our North Pole Breakfast, we headed out to basketball games! On this day in particular Carter had a really great game-scoring several baskets! Go number 1!
While we were gone to basketball, the 1st Advent gift appeared!
Then we made hot chocolate and decorated the Christmas tree...guess who loved the hot chocolate!?
The kids changed into their pjs for Christmas tree decorating.
We had to rearrange a little bit of furniture to make room for the tree since we are in this small rental house, but it worked and we were all pleased with the finished product!
The next morning Nora Kate's choir sang in church.
She loved it.
Then that evening John and I went to his work Christmas party at Top Golf. Such a fun party!
Nora Kate has outgrown her bike, and she keeps showing off how she can ride Carter's bigger bike in the neighborhood. She's asking for a new bike for Christmas.
Picture with Santa 2019
December weather was really back and forth-we had beautiful, warm days, then we had freezing cold days! Unfortunately the Huntsville Christmas Parade was on one of those really cold nights-but it was SO worth bundling up and going anyway. This will be something we hope to go to every year. It was a REALLY long parade with lots of cool floats.
We baked Christmas baked goods!
I used my birthday money to buy a robot vacuum, and I LOVE IT!
It's amazing at getting dust, grass, etc off the floor while I'm cooking dinner. Clayton was slightly cautious about it when it was new, and he was yelling for me that he was stuck on the couch because of the robot! HAH! This is how I found him.
We visit our new under construction house at least once a day at this point, as all the final details are getting wrapped up it's changing so quickly and there is a lot we have/want to check on. One evening we went over to check the progress and found the first Christmas decorations this house will ever have-the trim guys decorated their truck with lights and left it in the driveway overnight-thus our first Christmas decorations at the house! Haha, the kids thought this was great!
We made gingerbread houses like crazy this year. The kids got on gingerbread house as an advent gift, then they each chipped in some of their commission money they earned from chores to buy a second one because the first was so fun, and THEN one of John's coworkers sent in a kit for our kids to make yet another one. We spent hours making three houses this year. We also made a gingerbread train, but somehow I don't think I every got a picture of it, although it was equally enjoyed.
Gingerbread house construction is messy business
One weekend morning we decided to take the kids to Top Golf since they hadn't been in a while. They always love this outing! Clayton was way more into it this time than he had been in the past, and it was adorable!
Nora Kate enjoys it too!
Top Golf selfie
Clayton even insisted on carrying his own clubs (the clubs they gave him to hit with while he was there).
Both boys choirs sang several times this month. Here was one particular Sunday morning they sang in traditional worship.
One Monday night we were out super late for a school night due to another work party for John. This party was great-it was the entire team Johns on and their families including kids! It was at Kona Grill and so yummy! I was a little concerned about the late night for the kids with school the next morning, but then we got a call that school would be a 2 hour delay due to freezing water on the roads! Perfect timing!
After being in Maryville where the kids never got out of school, Carter woke up thinking that if school was out for ice it must be serious, so he bundled up (in the picture above) and begged to go out to play in it. Well, there was no ice, at least that we ever saw-but he did have a cold little jog around the yard before coming back in! Then we enjoyed our 2 extra hours together before school.
Nora Kate's friend Annie came over to play and we had fun baking.
One fun thing we did when we lived in Huntsville before was take Dawson to Santa's Village at Christmas time, so we knew we wanted to take everyone this year. Here they are peeking at the reindeer.
Decorating Christmas ornaments (bells) inside the train.
Every 15 minutes they blew snow. It of course melted as soon as it hit the ground, but the kids still had fun running around through it.
Family picture at Santa's village.
More Christmas baking.
Another Christmas fun event we did was to go to the Tinsel Train in Downtown. This was AMAZING! We will definitely add this to our yearly Christmas fun list.
So many trees. So pretty. We also loved the huge life size nativity on the hill, but my pictures of it weren't great since it was dark out.
There were some beautiful trees and some funny trees...you can guess who thought this poop emoji tree was way too funny---all four of my kids!
At church one Sunday morning.
One Sunday after church we took the kids to Dunkin for a donut treat. I just think he looks too cute biting into that giant donut!
Time to decorate Christmas cookies!
I looked away for one second and this is how Clayton decorated a cookie...there's a Christmas tree cookie under those sprinkles somewhere.
I was thrilled when Dawson's teacher asked me to do the class Christmas party. Every parent chipped in and brought snacks and they had a TON of food! We made reindeer food, decorated ornaments, and read a story.. SO fun! His teacher sent me this picture of me with the class and me with Dawson.
Love these sweet memories.
On Friday, December 21st we officially closed on our new home!
I hope to (eventually) blog a little on the house, but for now I will share two pictures of the house. We have LOVED the building process. People always talk about it being stressful to build, but I loved having something I had to check on, follow up on, pick out every detail for, etc. It has been really fun. Now I can't wait to move it!
Mom came into town about an hour before John and I went to closing, so she kept the kids while we closed and then we actually started moving some stuff into the house the next day while she was in town.
This is way out of order, but here are some of our Christmas cookies we made this year!
Holding the keys at closing to our new home!
(We laughed at how many keys we had!)
Right after closing we went back and got the kids and took Lolly to the Rocket Center-always a favorite. Clayton LOVES Rosie the Robot.
After the rocket center we drove Lolly over to show her our new house (the last time she saw it was in September and it looked much much different!), then back to the rental house to pile on the couch and watch ELF. The kids all 4 think this movie is hysterical.
Our Christmas tree in the Neptune Rental House.
Saturday night we celebrated Christmas with Lolly. We had our Christmas dinner, and then exchanged gifts!
Before Christmas dinner.
The kids were SO excited to tear into their gifts.
We moved a lot of stuff while Lolly was in town with a uhaul we rented.
The day she left, we started thinking we must be crazy but we were really wanting to go ahead and sleep in the new house...so we rushed around and moved a few more things and on December 23rd (a week earlier than we planned) we slept in the house for the first time! YAY! There was still a lot to be moved, but this was so fun for all of us.
Thankfully Charlie the Elf followed us...and as his first position in the new house-he picked the chandelier over the kitchen table. Look at Clayton's sweet face looking up at the elf.
Since we were now in the new house and our tree was in the old house, we decided to get the kids little 4 foot tree. We got it out and they decorated it entirely on their own. This will be a sweet little memory of the first Christmas in this house.
Christmas Eve
Christmas Eve the boys choirs sang in Christmas Eve service at church.
It was a beautiful service.
We were hopeful Santa would find us at our new house and he sure did! It was kind of fun opening gifts in a living room with zero furniture...you had plenty of space to try everything out...even her new bike! HAH!
And what a wonderful Christmas wrapping paper mess we made
The aftermath of unwrapping
We spent the majority of the rest of Christmas playing with new toys in our pajamas before going outside to ride Nora Kate's new bike and Dawson's new hoverboard which he mastered instantly! I hopped on for a second and didn't master it like he did. I'll wait a bit before I try again!
The day after Christmas our sweet friends the Houghs offered to help us move. Kelly kept our 4 kids (along with her 3) while her husband helped us move. Our good friend Ben helped us move too! Fun fact-Ben helped us move in our very first house we ever bought back in 2008.
The kids had a blast and we were SO productive and got everything else moved!!!
That evening Nana and Grandad came for a visit!
We celebrated Christmas with them and they helped us get settled and clean up the rental house for which I was so thankful! The kids loved having them here too and they did lots of fun things including going to Stars and Strikes.
The day Nana and Grandad left we headed to downtown Athens to explore a little on the square.
Enjoying some candy inside UG Mercentile.
Clayton checking out the giant ornaments outside the court house.
Here are a few pictures from Christmas morning that got out of order...
Our small group Christmas party date got shuffled around a couple times and then kind of last minute got moved to New Years Eve. So basically it wasn't exactly a Christmas Party but a belated Christmas party/New Years Eve get together. The group has done this progressive dinner Christmas party since 2007, and we got to participate in 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, and now 2018. Anyway it was a lot of fun getting all dressed up.
Haha! I think John was expecting this to be a regular selfie-but, surprise! HAH...
we had a great time, I wish I had gotten a good full body picture since you can't even see my fancy dress (as Nora Kate called it, lol) in this one, but it was fun.
It was a great ending to our whirlwind of a December and 2018.
2018 has been a year of lots of changes, we are ready to get settled in our new house and see what all 2019 has in store.
