Monday, December 26, 2011

Our Christmas

We had a great Christmas in the Parham house!!!  The kids are both at great ages and were really into the whole thing.  What a joy.

We kicked off the weekend with a visit from Steven, Kate and Samantha.  We like to try to see them at Christmas time and we managed to squeeze it in on a Thursday night this year and they actually spent the night which was so fun!  It was a pretty quick trip but it was so fun to spend some time together.


Adorable Samantha  :-)

Steven and Kate always bring the best toys for the kids

Playing Rock Em Sock Em Robots with Steven

Watching a little Dora on Friday morning

Waylon and Steven - friends for 23 years!

Steven and Kylie
After the Weavers left on Friday morning, Waylon went to work and I sent the kids to school to get some last minute Christmas things done.  I managed to get the rest of the shopping and wrapping and some cooking done!  It was nice to have that all done before Christmas Eve so we could just enjoy.  I got the kids a little early and met Megan, Jason and Ryan at the park.  Then we met Waylon after work for dinner.

Christmas Eve was nice.  We just relaxed in the morning and then went to run a few errands and have lunch out - more to just get out of the house than anything else.  After a little afternoon rest, we got all dressed up and went to the Sharpes house for a yummy Christmas Eve turkey dinner!  And we couldn't resist getting a few family shots in front of the tree....


Where is the time going!?


After dinner and lots of playtime, we came home to get ready for Santa.  This year, Nana and Grandaddy came to spend the night to experience the madness of Christmas morning.  When we got home, we had a package from Cousin Ron - books!!  I told Noah that Ronnie works in a book store and always likes to get books.  The next day, when we were opening presents from Santa, Noah was opening a package that was obviously a book and said, 'Maybe this is from Uncle Ronnie!'  :-)


Waylon pulled up a message from Santa on the computer.   The kids were enthralled.  :-)

Putting out coolies for Santa

And milk, too!

So sweet

We were a little riled up before bedtime.....  :-)

Crazy kids

And we had to read The Night Before Christmas - Noah even did a version of it for us on video... it was so cute!!!

After the kids were in bed, Santa came!!!  So much fun.

The kids' piles

The whole scene - complete with 'A Christmas Story' on TV!  :-)
 When I was growing up, it was tradition for my parents to take pictures of my sister and I after we went to sleep on Christmas Eve.  I snuck in and did the same.... so sweet.



Surprisingly, they weren't up too early on Christmas morning.  Kylie was in our bed by around 6:00 or so but went back to sleep (this has been routine for the past few weeks - ugh - at least she goes back to sleep!).  And Noah was up at 6:30 asking to open presents but we were able to hold him off until close to 7:00 which was nice.

Coming down the stairs!  So excited!!

Kylie went straight to her stocking and grabbed a Dora doll - she asked Santa for 'Dora Presents'

Digging into stockings right away!

Cars 2 for Noah and Tangled for Kylie!!

Noah got Maximus (from Tangled).  This is one of his favorites.

And Kylie got Rapunzel

Dora Presents!  This one is a bath toy but she's been carrying them around all over and even slept with them last night!  :-)

Noah was so excited about his pants (note sarcasm)  :-)

Super Noah!

And the big finale!  Noah had been asking for a Monorail toy ever since we went to Disney World.  He was SOOO excited!

And Kylie got a tea set and cart.

Opening stockings from Nana and Grandaddy!

Hugs for Nana
 We stopped halfway through opening presents for breakfast.  I made two breakfast casseroles and orange rolls.  Yum!  Wish I had gotten a picture of our beautiful table.

Grandaddy and Daddy set up Noah's monorail

He was so excited!!
 We forgot that we had a few presents from 'us' rather than Santa.  Both kids got a game for the Wii.  Can't wait to try that out!


Super Kylie!  :-)
Nana and Grandad left around 10:30 to go see Savannah's loot and we Skyped with Grammy and Papa.  Then after a little rest for everyone, we took off to Nana and Grandad's for Christmas #2 of the day!

What a spread!

Savannah opening out gift to her - Rapunzel's Dress Shop

Noah got some dress up things!


A big boy helicopter

Cowboy boots and a hat!  Yee Haw!

Kylie loves her dress up shoes

Nana and her girls

Some games on the ipad before saying goodbye.
In the midst of all the present opening, we took a break and had another super yummy dinner.  It was a whirlwind but so so fun as always.  Waylon and I also got some awesome presents from Nana and Grandaddy, too.  The highlight of which was a Kate Spade purse for me!!!!  WOW!

I can't believe after all the preparation, it's over.  But the good news is that we get to have Round #3 with Grammy, Papa, Leah and Bill later this week!  The kids and I will head to MD on Wednesday morning and Waylon will join us on Friday.  We can't wait to keep celebrating!  I hope you all had a great holiday, too!!

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Here come the holidays!

As you will see in this post, we are in full swing holiday mode!  What a fun and busy time of year.  Both kids are so excited and we are having so much fun watching them take it all in.  Noah has really had a lot of questions about the logistics of Santa this year - I can't believe we might have only a few years left of belief.

After we got home from MD, we were ready to get a tree so we went one weeknight and after some hiccups (mostly potty issues!), we found the perfect one, loaded it up and got it home.  It took the whole week to get it up and decorated - picked it one night, put it up the next night, got lights on the next and finally got the kids to help decorate on Friday night!  Phew.  Amazing how you have to break up the tasks with kids!  Some pictures of the whole ordeal.....  :-)



Noah was still having fun - not sure what this face is about.  They both look so big to me though!!!

Friday night - first ornaments on the tree - Disney ornaments from Grammy and Papa!

The finished product!
Saturday morning, we went to see Disney on Ice with Nana, Grandad, Andrea, Sean and Savannah!  So much fun!!  This year, it was a princess show - Princess and the Frog, Cinderella and Tangled (the Rapunzel story).  The both loved it but Kylie in particular was really enthralled.  Noah liked it too but actually got a little scared during some of the more intense parts.  Afterwards, we went to lunch with Nana and Grandad.  A great day!  Thanks, Nana and Grandad for the tickets!!!




The finale - all of the different princess couples came out!


That night was a treat for all of us!!  We had a party in the neighborhood so we had the director of the daycare come to our house to babysit!!  The kids were so excited that Miss Twanda was coming to their house and ran around showing her the house.  She did great with them and we had a BLAST at the party.  No pictures from that night, though.  :-(

The next day, we were all pretty tired so we stuck close to home for the most part.  We ran to the mall around 11:30 to try to see Santa but the line was pretty long so we gave up and just had lunch instead.  We promised them we'd go back later in the week and we made good on that promise on Wednesday night.

As close as we got the first try...


Grammy had to come down last minute for her cousin, Tommy's funeral.  :-(  A sad reason to come but we took advantage of having her here and tried to have some fun.  She arrived Wednesday night and we went straight back to the mall to see Santa.  This time the line wasn't too long and we made it.  Kylie had a death grip on my finger so I wasn't really sure how it was going to go, but at the last minute, as we walked up, I told her she'd get ice cream if she went up to take a picture with him.  She said okay and hopped right on his lap!  :-) 

In line



Telling Santa what he wants - a monorail toy is the #1 thing!
The 'official' picture.  :-)


After seeing Santa, we had dinner with ice cream for dessert of course and then Kylie and Noah pretended to be reindeer all around the mall using Grammy's scarf.  :-)  Aunt Karen, Uncle Michael and Cousin Reeves showed up just as we were heading out so it was fun to visit with them for a bit, too!


Grammy stayed with us Friday, too.  The kids had parties at school that afternoon so we sent them to school and got some holiday shopping done.  We came back at 3:00 for their parties and they were excited to have us there. 

Kylie's room

Noah's

Kylie joined Noah's party after hers  :-)

Grammy and Kylie
Grammy stayed to babysit the kids Friday night so we could go to another neighborhood party.  This one was supposed to be an 'Ugly Christmas Sweater' party but we kind of skirted around it by getting a silly tie for Waylon and some pins and earrings for me.  :-)  We had a great time and are so thankful that Grammy stayed so we could go!


Sunday morning, Grammy left pretty early but not before an early morning story time.



After she left, Noah helped me make some goodies for his teachers at school.  We had such a good time doing it together and he was a great helper!  It was lots of fun.


Saturday night - another treat!  Aunt Karen and Uncle Michael got us all tickets to go see Cinderella at the Raleigh Little Theater!  Karen used to take my cousin, Katie, every year when she was young so she offered to start the tradition for us.  It was so fun and the kids LOVED it.  There was even a part where the prince came out in the audience and tried Cinderella's shoe on little girls in the audience and he tried it on Kylie!  She LOVED it.  He asked if he could try it on her and she said, 'Uh Huh' and stuck her foot right out to him!  :-)  It was so adorable.





After the show, the characters were out front signing autographs.  We met the Fairy Godmother!

They really were excited, I promise!!  :-)
 Our neighbors, Carolyn, Eric and Abby came also and we managed to get a picture of the three of them after the show before we went to a late dinner.  So much fun!


And today.... another Christmas celebration - this time with Waylon's extended family.  Always fun to see Uncle Royal and Aunt Danita, Meghan, Cameron and Lily Kate, Uncle Ronnie, Aunt Robin and Justin!  And of course, Nana, Grandaddy, Andrea, Sean and Savannah.  It was craziness with a 4 year old, a 3 year old and two 2 year olds!  :-)  So fun....

Hiding in the 'bear cave' that Grandaddy made them.

Our bag lady - good thing Santa is bringing her a backpack with her name on it!  :-)

Uncle Royal and Lily Kate dancing  :-)

All the kiddos!

Sweet picture of Noah and Savannah

Coloring

Siblings - Royal, Kay and Ronnie

Nana and her grandbabies!
One more week and then CHRISTMAS!!  So fun.  We'll be staying in town for Christmas day and then heading back to MD for a long weekend the following week.  FUN TIMES!!!