Christmas Day 2013

Christmas Morning!!! Yay!!! The morning I have personally been waiting for because this is the first Christmas morning that we have together with a little one who understands Christmas!!!

Ryan and I expected we would be waking up early. However... we did not think that we would be waking up at 5:30am to the sound of the dog getting sick. Blah... Merry Christmas?! Roxie, our black lab, got sick in our office room. We woke up to quickly clean it up so that it wouldn't mess up any Christmas morning activities. While we were cleaning... guess who else woke up!?!? Blake!! So here we are at 5:30 have Christmas morning. LOL!

We walked into the living room with Blake and he immediately got to see one thing that Santa brought him... a tool set/work bench!! Now he can help Ryan with all of his handy work. :)

 

He then quickly wanted to start opening up his other gifts...with the help of his saw from the work bench. 

 

His next big gift from Santa was his train set! This was the biggie!!! And the train set links up to the car set that he already has. So it turns everything into a little city. And that little metropolis took up our whole living room! Check out his first reaction! Priceless!

Blake also got to open all of his gifts from family in Utah. He got a hot wheels race track from Grandpa. He got another small Thomas the Train set from Grandma. then he also got lots of clothes and things from his aunts, uncles, and cousins.

Rika got us all matching BYU shirts, so we decided we would wear those for our Christmas Day picture! Merry Christmas!!!

We had a very busy morning opening all of our gifts. That afternoon we went to my dads house to celebrate there. I also forgot to show the pictures from Christmas at my moms house. We will post those pictures next!

Christmas Eve 2013

Wow... I had no idea that Christmas with a toddler would be such a whirlwind. As the "big day" approached, I had very little down time to blog each and ever event. So, We will be breaking our Christmas into several different posts... all worth reading! This year was an AMAZING Christmas and we are so ready to share it!

Christmas symbolizes family traditions to me and I want my family to have those great traditions of their own! It is difficult to start family traditions with a little family when you are also still doing awesome extended family traditions too, but I was determined to have Christmas Eve and Christmas morning be just my little family. Not sure if I will be able to get away with that every year, but this year I did. :)

First of all.... Christmas Eve is a very special day to our family. It is the day that Ryan proposed!!!! Without that special day, we wouldn't have this family! You can look back to our post in 2010 for the full details, but lets just say it was the best trip to Temple Square to see the Christmas lights!!! :)

On Christmas Eve, we let Blake open a specific gift from Utah family. They were his Christmas Jammies! That will be a yearly tradition for us to open on Christmas Eve. Blake was so cute in his. Ryan and I also got some Jammies from my side of the family but we didn't get a picture of us... I was kind of just focused on the kid, LOL!

We also made Christmas cookies to eat and also to leave a couple for Santa! Blake LOVES cookies so we were almost worried he wouldn't leave any for Santa! :)

  

We watched a Christmas movie (The Grinch) and we read Blake a toddler version of The Christmas Story. Then...bed time!! Luckily Blake doesn't quiet have the anticipation for Christmas Day yet, so we had no problems having his go to sleep! I think Ryan and I were almost too excited to sleep! Christmas Day to come in the next post.... 

Christmas Card 2013

Here are the pictures from our Christmas Card for 2013. We wanted to to be a little humorous this year. :)

 

 Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!!!

Christmas Lights @ Hill Ridge Farms

We went out to see Christmas lights this year!!! Remember when we went to the pumpkin patch?!?!!? Well... we went back to the same place. They do a festival of lights where they decorate the whole property with lights. It is amazing really. 

It was rather chilly last night, so we had to wrap up good and bring a blanket. Part of the excitement is that you get to ride on a hayride to see all of the lights. They even play Christmas music on the lighted hayride. So fun!! Blake loved it. Ok, Ryan and I did too. They had so many different things to see. Blake would point and then he would also squeal out of excitement!! LOL. He had several people giggling with him. What can we say, our child is the life of any party. :)

They even had Santa there and Blake got to sit on his lap....Blake did great with Santa! He didn't cry, but he was shy. He told Santa he wanted a Choo Choo (train set). When it came to picture time, Blake wouldn't sit with Santa alone, so we turned it into a family picture!!!

Going to Work With Daddy

Ryan had his weekend with the National Guard this month... but this time we go to go too! Well, for one afternoon. His unit had their Family Day/Christmas Party on Saturday.

The afternoon started somewhat roughly. I had to hold off Blake's nap a little until it was time to make the hour drive to Smithfield. He wasn't too happy about that AND he didn't nap in the car very well. Short nap plus place equals a disaster for our little one. He just wanted to whine and cry. Sigh.... That's one of those times that you as a parent just feel like crap. Talk about some serious mommy guilt!

Taylor and I (by the way... Taylor came with us!) put Blake back in the car and we drove around town hoping that he would fall back asleep for a bit. He got really quiet and mellow, but he never actually fell asleep. Thankfully after about an hour of driving, he finally started to show an attitude change. We went back to the Christmas Party and had a blast! I was just thrilled to spend time with Ryan and see some of our friends. Blake loved seeing his daddy...almost as much as he loved playing in the bouncy house!

When did Blake get old enough to play in a bouncy house?!!?!?!?!

We also got to eat a very nice catered dinner and even see Santa!! Blake actually did pretty good with Santa. He was a little clingy to Ryan but he didn't cry! :) We will see Santa again this week, so maybe this was good practice!!

Speedy Christmas Decorating

I think this year set a record for decorating the Christmas Tree. Perhaps that had something to do with a little one named Blake. :) We thought that it would be nice to turn on some Christmas music and decorate the house and tree as a family this year. Blake is getting to be the age where he can participate in things like this.

So we thought...

Little did we know that Blake would see the ornaments as balls! He decided to throw them around the house while we frantically chased them down and put them on the tree again. We also had to prevent him from getting a hold of the hooks. Maybe I should have used yarn instead?!?!

Ryan and I just laughed as we finished decorating the tree in about 30 minutes. We figured the faster we got the ornaments up there the less time Blake had to throw them. Luckily Blake did slow down long enough to correctly hang a few ornaments and the angel. He also has an awesome groove to some Christmas music! That kid loves to dance! I guess what matters is that he had a blast! We also now have a BEAUTIFUL (real) Christmas tree in our house to admire. We love it!

 

 

O Christmas Tree

December 1st and our Christmas Bucket List item is to pick out our Christmas tree. I think I was more excited than anyone. I haven't had a real Christmas tree in two years and I am so ready to have one for my family in our little house. Something about them makes the house seem so much more magical during the Christmas season. Plus, the smell is amazing! We haven't decorate it yet, but that will come soon. Since Blake has the attention span of a fly, we have so space these things out! :)

Blake loved the trip to the tree lot. I think he just liked running in between all of the trees. I don't think the actual trees interested him that much. He did look the part though... cute as a button!