A & E News: It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

We had a WONDERFUL time celebrating EJ's 1st Christmas with the boys this week! I cannot possibly give all the details of our week so I will just give you the highlights! Here is the breakdown:

Monday: Family Movie Night- we watched all of the classic television shows like Rudolph, Jack Frost, and Here Comes Santa Claus...when Daddy got home we ordered pizza and watched Charlie Brown Christmas and Polar Express...when the boys went to bed we enjoyed hot chocolate and watched Dan in Real Life...we LOVE watching movies but do not get to do it very often

Tuesday: We took the boys to see Christmas Lights- they both loved it, the entire street was lit up with a Night Before Christmas Theme, one of the houses had a real train going around the front yard...of course that was Anderson's favorite house, EJ likes anything with lights

Wednesday: Christmas Eve Candlelight Service, Bob & Becky's Annual Christmas Eve Party, Vick Christmas at the Ranch- the Christmas Eve service was a wonderful, very worshipful experience and it was nice to have my whole family there with us...after it was over we stopped by Bob & Becky's Christmas Eve party to say hello and wish everyone a Merry Christmas, we also got to enjoy some yummy peppermint punch and other tasty treats...then we headed to the ranch to celebrate Christmas with Gigi, Grandaddy, Auntie Jess, Uncle Seth, Caleb, and Auntie Sarah...we have always opened our family presents on Christmas Eve so that night we had our traditional cheese fondue meal and then opened gifts, including our matching pjs which we all took a picture in and wore to bed...usually we always watch White Christmas and eat cookie monsters but we decided to wait until the next day since the boys had already had a LONG day and were exhausted...we all went to bed instead

Thursday: Here Comes Santa Claus, Christmas at Oma's, White Christmas- Thursday morning we woke up and found the gifts that Santa had left for us the night before (big kids too!), we ate breakfast and then headed to Oma's to celebrate Christmas with my mom's side of the family...there the little ones get gifts and then the big kids do a Chinese gift exchange...Aaron ended up with some yummy Hickory Farms meats, cheeses and delicious peppermint candies and I ended up with 2 great movies, Wild Hogs and August Rush...we are both very happy with our gifts! It was so nice to see and catch up with extended family! Of course when we returned to the ranch we had pizza, cookie monsters and watched White Christmas, a family favorite

Friday: Boys at the Ranch, Girls hit the outlet malls, Annual Bon Fire- The boys hung out at the ranch all day, probably riding the Gator 100 times (that is all Caleb and Anderson want to do when they are there) while me, mom, Jess and Sarah went to the outlets to spend all of our Christmas money and gifts cards....we had a great time and bought alot of great stuff...everything was on sale! Back at the ranch, we lit up our annual bonfire and our friends Matt, Kristen, Mario, Denna and Mia came out to roast hot dogs and smores with us...we ended the night with a fun game of Mexican Train, our favorite family game

Saturday: Cowboy Shopping, Naps, Fajita Dinner-Granddaddy took the boys shopping for cowboy clothes, boots and jackets since they have outgrown all of their cowboy attire, then the boys took LONG naps...you can imagine their exhaustion at this point! That night, Seth cooked a delicious fajita dinner and we all went to bed early!

Sunday: A Day All to Ourselves! Aaron and I enjoyed a day without the boys... we left the boys at the ranch with Gigi and Granddaddy while we went out and ate some good food and did some shopping...we spent alot of our Christmas money and gift cards...we ended the day with dinner and a movie. Thanks for a great day off Gigi and Granddaddy!

Monday: A Week Off- Today we all headed home and did some organizing around the house...trying to clear space for the new stuff...we are looking foward to a week of having Daddy home with us as we recover from Christmas and anticipate the New Year!

Here are some pictures from the week:

With Granddaddy on Christmas morning...