Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

We started getting in the Christmas spirit by going to Fantasy of Trees the day after Thanksgiving.  It was much busier this year than last so Baylor & Hudson had to stay in their stroller while we looked at all of the trees.  Their patience for riding started wearing thin so we found some places to get out and play.  They all had fun riding on the plasma cars, but it was hard to catch all three of them in one picture (Griffin was trying to help me out, but his brothers weren't being super cooperative).

Griffin and Baylor had fun on the carousel, but Hudson still wanted to play it safe and ride on the bench. 

After playing, the boys all enjoyed a cookie that they had decorated.

On Saturday, we went to breakfast at Long's and then to Mayo's to pick out our Christmas tree. The boys were more excited about this Smokey statue they found than they were about finding the perfect tree!

On Sunday, December 1st, the boys woke up to cinnamon rolls and all of the gingerbread house supplies.  We also started the advent calendar and Griffin's first surprise was a Lego character which is what he is holding in this picture. These are packaged so that you don't know which character you'll get--it turned out to be the Abominable Snowman, whom Griffin had never heard of before.  Griffin decorated his big Candy Cottage that I had bought at Fantasy of Trees last year, and Baylor & Hudson decorated two smaller ones that I ordered after using the big one and deciding that it was one of the best products ever!

Elgie, our Elf on the Shelf, also showed up on December 1st.  He thought Griffin did such a good job on the gingerbread house that he decided that's where he would land when he came back the next day.

We decided to forego the professional pictures with Santa at F32 that we've done for 5 years straight. Instead, we just made sure we got a cute one of all the boys with Santa when we went to Ms. Sherri's annual "Cookies with Santa" party on Wednesday, December 11th.

On Friday, Dec. 13th, I took the day off from school to go to Baylor and Hudson's school nativity pageant. Since Griffin had performed in this same pageant for 4 years, we thought he would have fun watching his brothers sing so we checked him out for school for a couple of hours to join us for the nativity and then lunch. Even from several rows back, we could distinctly hear Hudson singing in his deep, silly voice!

On Sunday, December 22nd, we went to Pop & Chaz's for dinner and presents.  All three boys got new UT hats and Baylor & Hudson quickly put theirs on before digging into their other gifts. really into Legos so Pop & Chaz got him three new sets as well as this "Lego-head" for storage.

On Christmas Eve, we went to church with my family and then went to Pop & Chaz's house for dinner with Matt's family. I tried to get a picture of Baylor & Hudson with Pop, but they wouldn't sit on his lap. They told me to sit on his lap...so we all sat on Pop's lap for a picture!  It was a late night so when we got home the boys quickly got into their reindeer pajamas and we put out cookies for Santa.  Griffin was so worried that Santa was going to come before he got to sleep and that he wouldn't come to our house.

On Christmas morning, we got up early and the boys checked out their gifts from Santa and Momma & Daddy.  Griffin also had presents to give to everyone --he had used his library points at school to "buy" gifts for me and his brothers and Mimi had also taken him shopping to pick out a few little presents for us.

After breakfast and presents at our house, we went to Mimi & Papaw Al's house.  This picture was taken when we first got there, but Baylor is already looking tired!

After much more present opening, Baylor, Hudson, and Hollins decided that they'd had enough of the Christmas festivities and would just go wrestle on the couch (that is Hudson that is stripped down to his diaper--this boy usually takes his clothes off about as soon as he gets through the door at home!).

After we finished up at Mimi and Papaw Al's, we went home for a much needed nap for the little boys and some quiet time for everyone else.  That evening, Weezy came over for dinner and gifts.  Every time I asked Baylor & Hudson what they wanted for Christmas, Baylor said "Buzz" and Hudson said "Woody."  They never gave me any specifics and they never gave me any other answer.  Well, Weezy came through with Buzz & Woody lovies, t-shirts, and dinnerware.  Griffin's big present was Skylander Swap Force for the Wii, which had been a late addition to Griffin's Christmas list (after Santa had already finished his shopping!).

Bebe and Lacy also stopped by after dinner.  Lacy brought two boxes full of clothes for the boys.  By the time this picture was taken, Baylor & Hudson had both changed out of their Christmas shirts and into two of their new shirts and Griffin had put on the robe that was a gift from Harper.

Aunt Lacy gave us a Dollywood season pass for a gift and we decided to make our first visit on December 28th, It ended up being a pretty chilly day and it started drizzling later that afternoon, but we managed to stay warm and squeeze in some fun before the weather ran us off (we sought a few minutes of shelter in the arcade and played a little air hockey and skee-ball).  We're looking forward to more visits this spring and summer when it's a little warmer!

We spent New Year's Eve with our friends Sarah & Bo and their two kids, Brody & Anna. We were home by about 9:30 to get the kids in bed, but I almost stayed awake until midnight--I looked at the clock at 11:45 and then again at 2:00!  On New Year's Day, Holly, Jason, Harper and Hollins came over for dinner--Matt smoked his first Boston Butt on the Big Green Egg that was our present from Pop & Chaz, but it was a pizza dinner for the kiddos.