Christmas...It's a wrap

Since we are halfway through January and headed quickly to birthday week, it seems time to talk about our Christmas.  Ha! These pictures have been loaded for 3 weeks but no words have found the page until now.  Let's see if I can even remember our holiday season...

Christmas kicked off with the kiddos school Christmas parties.  I am the homeroom mom for Keatyn's class so the party was all me, BUT when you have a representative from every child's family show up for the festivities, it essentially runs itself.  I love this school and the always willing to help parents.  

My girl and I even made the CCS blog and facebook website!

So, because I can't leave well enough alone and have obviously never heard of the Keep It Simple Stupid acronym, I go and decide to make 15 flower pot nativity scenes before the party begins.  Trace made these at church his Kindergarten year and I swoon every year when I put it out.  I wanted Keatyn to make a set also to sit beside her brothers.  These are the sweet little ornaments and I'll treasure them forever.  Rather than just making one with her at our kitchen table, I decide every child in the class needed one, so away we went.  Hot glue was flying everywhere.  Luckily, I had some other brave moms that were all on board to help and we whipped those suckers out in about 45 minutes before the actual party started.  They were adorable!!!  I hope every mama treasures them as much as I do when they pull them out next year.

Musical chairs...

Jimmy went to Trace's party since I was in charge of Keatyns and they had a great time too.  Afterwards we hit the mall to visit Santa.  Apparently a dab was in order for the big man.

Our annual cookie decorating/gingerbread houses tradition with my girls changed this year to pottery painting.  I love this tradition and how much our babies have grown throughout it.  My kids made Christmas plates.  It all became real how fast my babies are growing, when Trace's hand was too big to fit on the plate and I had to settle for his fingerprinted lights around the plate instead.  Sigh.

Cheeky, our Elf, made his appearance this year.  He brought us Christmas plates to eat on during the Christmas season and the movie Elf, which is a family favorite.  He was up to his old tricks as usual, but this one was pretty cool.  Thank you facebook...

Our little buddy got RSV for his first Christmas so he was essentially home bound for all the festivities.  It broke our hearts but he was so lucky to have come through it so easily and is totally fine now.  It brought back a lot of scary memories from when Trace spent 3 nights in the hospital at 2 weeks old with the same thing. But Roman did great and hardly acted sick at all.  Andy and Kadi brought him to mom and dads the night before Christmas Eve and I ran over by myself to get some Christmas sugar from him and exchange presents.  It wasn't the same kind of Christmas without them there, but we will have to make up for it next year.  Love this little guy to pieces!

After that, I went to Granddaddy and Sisty's for a Christmas steak dinner on the "fancy plates."

Keatyn opened her Hatchimal, THE 2016 present of the year apparently.  Ugh...I had no idea these things were such a big deal.  People were scouring stores for them and then selling these $50 creatures for hundreds of dollars on the internet to desperate parents.  I told my family whoever found one first can be the hero and give it to her.  Granddaddy and Sisty always come through.  He loves a shopping challenge and actually ended up getting 2!!!  They didn't put the extra on Ebay for $500 but gave it to their neighbor for her little granddaughter that wanted one.  See why I love them so much.

Trace's new drone.  Can't wait to play with this thing!

So the hatching begins...

It was a true family affair.  We rubbed and rubbed on that thing for hours and nothing.  It would make all kinds of creepy noises and light up like the instructions said, but wouldn't hatch.  I told Jimmy some pervert that lives in their parents basement obviously came up with this idea.

Still rubbing...

We finally put it to bed that night, unhatched, and started again the next morning.  We were essentially in labor for about 12 hours.  Waiting... waiting... rubbing... rubbing...

Finally!!

Christmas Eve morning the kids made gingerbread houses while I cooked.

That afternoon we had our first family Christmas at Eagle Drive.  It was wonderful!  We were missing several but we had a great time.

I'm so very thankful for these people I get to call family.

Then it was time to come home and play Santa.  Trace plays along, but we only have one true believer in the house now. He told me later, when K wasn't listening. " You... I mean Santa, did good mom."  Boo hoo...

Our dear friends, Christy and Eric, had a friend getting rid of his used drum set.  He wanted them to go FOR FREE to a kid who wanted to learn how to play.  This was so amazing!  We didn't know how to put them together so we told Trace there was one more surprise in the basement.  He was so excited.  And they are LOUD!!

The grands came over for breakfast and to see all the loot Santa brought.

Nana and Papaw got Trace some drum sticks, a throne (which is a fancy word for a chair) and a boom box for his drum set.

Later that afternoon, Uncle Andy came to visit and brought Pie Face, Beyblades and goodies.  They went a few rounds with Pie Face, which was hilarious!  Roman was feeling really good by then but still wasn't allowed to be around other kids.

This was the first year since Jimmy and I have been together that we didn't either wake up in Alabama or drive down there on Christmas Day.  We changed up the tradition a little this year and it was really nice.  We spent the whole day in our PJs at home.  The next morning, the kids, Granddaddy and Sisty and I all headed out for a couple of days at Sheilas.  Jimmy had to work and was really bummed to miss it.

Three amazing sisters and their wonderful hubbies.  I am so grateful to have married into this wonderful family!

Some, but not all, of Mimmie's grands.  Hannah and Grace Ann had to leave that night to head back but we packed in a lot of Christmas before they left.

Keatyn had her first sleepover that night at Mallory's house.  She loved it!

The next day we took all the kids to Chuck E Cheese to burn a little energy.  We loved our time down there and it just wouldn't be Christmas without this tradition.  Love my family so very much!

And this is out of order but there's way too many pictures to move.  Before Christmas, Mandi and I got really brave and took the kids to Six Flags to use our season passes one more time.   We had a blast and the weather was perfect.  The big kiddos loved the roller coasters and Keatyn and I found plenty of rides to keep us entertained.  Love these guys!

We had an amazing Christmas and are back in the swing of things with school.  We're only weeks away from celebrating 10 and 6.  Oh, my babies are growing up too fast!