'Tis the Season

Thursday, December 1st

Mimi came over to bring the boys each a small early Christmas gift.  This was the babies first experience with unwrapping presents.  They are in a very "grabby" stage so they actually did pull at the paper some.  Luckily, they had their big brother there to help them finish the job.

Saturday, December 3rd

Hudson couldn't sleep...which, of course, meant that I wasn't sleeping either. I decided that since I was up I might as well be productive so I started putting lights on the Christmas tree at about 3:45am. Hudson was in his exersaucer watching me, and his eyes lit up when I plugged in the first strand of lights. I had to put the lights down and run grab the camera. He was content watching me long enough for me to get the lights finished.

I spent most of the day (at least most of my "free" time between Griffin's basketball game and all of the feedings and diaper changes for the babies) putting the ornaments on the tree. When I was finished, I sat Baylor in the floor near the tree and he kept reaching out and feeling one of the low branches.  I ran to grab the camera and Griffin decided he wanted in the picture too. 

Saturday, December 10th

We made a much anticipated visit to Santa. Griffin sat on his lap first and quicky rattled off the list of cars from Cars 2 that he still "needs."  Then we sat both of the babies on Santa's lap.  In his usual way, Baylor studied Santa intently but never cracked a smile.  Hudson checked him out for a minute and then gave the photographer some smiles. 

Friday, December 16th

Griffin performed in his school's Christmas concert.  The kindergarten class performs the nativity pageant, but Griffin's class got to play the handbells this year as well as sing a couple of songs. Griffin was very focused when he was watching the cue cards and ringing his bell.

Saturday, December 17th
Mimi had given Griffin a gingerbread house kit earlier in the month.  I had to actually "construct" the house (with some help from Mimi who happened to show up at the perfect time) and do most of the icing, but Griffin had fun putting the candy decorations on.  As soon as he had put the last piece of candy on, he asked if we could eat it.  Of course, I wanted to wait and let everyone see his cute creation, but I gave in the next day since he kept asking and saying, "but it just looks so yummy!"

All December long
Aunt Lacy gave me this cute Pottery Barn Kids advent calendar last year, but not before the 1st of December nor before I'd already bought one of the advent calendars with chocolate.  I hung it up last year, but this was the first year we'd actually used it to count down to Christmas.  I put a tissue-wrapped surprise inside each pocket of the advent calendar.  I had it ready a few days early so there was a lot of anticipation for the start of December.  Normally we have to practically drag Griffin out of bed in the mornings to get ready for school, but he popped out of bed (unprompted!) almost every morning from December 1st until Christmas so that he could run and grab that day's surprise. 

Griffin also invented a new game called "Pretty Lights."  When we would be driving at night and see houses with outdoor Christmas lights, we would yell "pretty lights!"  And he really would yell it out...sometimes with such excitement that Matt and I couldn't help but laugh out loud. I love that he gets as into Christmas as I do!