Christmas Day

So embarrassingly, Mr. H and I woke up at five a.m.  

I repeat: five a.m. No joke.

We were both so excited!  However, I refused to let us wake C up.

And the little guy decided to sleep in.  Ha!

So finally at 7:45 he woke up.  That morning was one of the longest Christmas mornings I can remember!

We had so much fun running into the room to see what was brought.  

We opened presents slowly, but it was hard because Mr. H and I wanted to open ours! :)  

It was a nice morning.  Mr. H and I were both spoiled rotten... and it was so sweet and kind of everyone involved.  

Mr. H also surprised me with this amazing video:  He is incredible!  This was what he and little C worked on while I was gone. 

C was the cutest when he watched this with us: he thinks he is hilarious and half the fun is watching him watch it. :)

We made a delicious breakfast of pancakes, cream and strawberries: and thanks to pinterest made them look like Santa Claus.  Super fun. 

C got a little overwhelmed from our morning...he got so many fun things, and in retrospect, we should have tried to space it all out even more.  

Needless to say, afternoon naps were in order and enjoyed by all.

We then headed to some friends for Christmas dinner which was really nice.  We had a delicious dinner and enjoyed playing games. 

It was an amazing Christmas Day.  We enjoyed having all the time in the world together.  

Merry Christmas!

Showing the camera his dinosaurs....

Christmas Eve

This was the first Christmas Eve Mr. H and I have ever done without our families.  (3rd for him since he served a LDS mission).  But together, it was our first. :)

We really wanted to have an enjoyable holiday, even though we would be missing our families.

On our agenda:

-Eat fancy dinner

-Act out Nativity

-Sing Christmas Songs

-Read Christmas Book

-Set out cookies and carrots for reindeer

-drive around and look at Christmas lights

-be Santa!

-watch a Christmas movie 

Our good little helper!  He loves pushing that ladder over to the counters to help us out!

Mr. H tried to spruce up our table a bit for me...who knew that a fancy dinner table for Christmas was important to me?

If you can't tell...that's Mary and Joseph, with Joseph insisting on holding baby Jesus and the sheep. 

The lovely shepherd coming to adore Joseph and the baby Jesus. 

The wiseman giving gifts

Ha!  Our nativity made me laugh, but it was fun to play with C and let him be a very hands on Joseph. :)

Driving around looking at lights was fun...C loved it!  It made me a little homesick seeing all the gatherings in people's homes....it's nice to be together on the holidays.  But I was also so grateful to be together with my little family.

We got home and put C to sleep.  And left out our Santa snack. :)  He was very intrigued by this.

Mr. H and I had a lovely evening watching Home Alone and getting excited!  It was a great night. 

Miss K's Wedding!

I was so lucky to fly out and be a part of Miss K's wedding!

I was a little stressed out to be leaving my family, but it ended up working out great.

I was bored to death flying alone...seriously.  C has spoiled me with how much fun he is to fly with, and I read way too many books.

I got to hang out with my family a bunch which was fun.  My sister and brother in law were in town, and it was good to be together.

Miss K was so excited for her big day!  We did a trial run the day before, and then woke up at 5:15 like champs the morning of to get her ready in time.  She looked beautiful.

Her temple ceremony was beautiful, and I enjoyed seeing her take all the pictures afterwards.  The Salt Lake Temple sure is pretty.

We had a little bit of time, and so my parents and I browsed Anthropologie...which was really fun to do with them!  They are two people that truly understand window shopping and how to make it great. :)

The wedding luncheon was super nice, and it was fun to talk about Miss K.  And then they were off!  It was a great couple of days, and I felt blessed to be able to be there with her.  

Mr. H had a blast with C.  Every night they would send me pictures of all the fun they were having.  He also transitioned C into a big boy bed, which was nice to not have to stress out over. I felt really lucky to have such a great husband to take care of things at home so I didn't have to worry.  

I took a red eye flight home that night which was..... not that great. :)  But, everything was on time and I ended up sleeping more than I thought I would.  (Like on the floor of the Charlotte airport.) 

What a great week!

12 days of Christmas

We wanted to incorporate one of Mr. H's family traditions this year by doing 12 fun Christmas activities leading up to the big day.  

It was fun to try out!  We had some flops, but some real winners!!!

Day 1:  Made (and supposed to deliver) Christmas Card

This one caused a lot of stress! ha.  I had this grand idea to design it myself, but then could not figure it out for the life of me.  After a lot of tears, Mr. H encouraged me to keep going and we finally pulled it together.  

Day 2: Primary Party

Day 3: Make and Deliver Christmas Cookies

This worked out okay....we made a TON of cookies, but in the long run ended up not passing them all out like we were supposed too... it's the thought that counts?

Day 4: Game Night

We did end up playing games with our neighbors, which was fun!  

Day 5: Christmas Book

We got "The Polar Express" and a little jingle bell for C.  He liked it...but liked "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" better.  Oh well...it was a fun tradition to get a Christmas book for the season.

Day 6: Christmas Toast

This was surprisingly one of my favorite things we did!  We just bought some sparkling apple juice, used our fancy glasses and made toasts to each other.  C LOVED the toasting part, but gagged hard core when he tried the apple juice.  Poor kid had never had carbonation before, and I don't think he'll be trying it again anytime soon.  

Day 7: Christmas Shopping

We took C Christmas shopping to the dollar store to pick out presents for us.  He had so much fun picking something out for each of us:

-a princess puzzle for me and a race car for Mr. H.  :)

Day 8: Our City Christmas Date

Day 9: $3 dinner night

This one originated in Mr. H's family, where everyone get's $2 to spend on something at the grocery store for dinner.  I had us up it to $3, but we still couldn't really figure it out...ha.  We ended up just getting a rotisserie chicken and bread with raspberries.  Mr. H said he remembered it being a lot more fun growing up.    :)

The next couple of days I was out of town for my friend's wedding, so Mr. H and C had a ball being together.  Seriously---funnest dad ever. 

Day 11: Service Project

The day I got home, we got some people from our ward together and sang Christmas carols at a local old folk's home.  It was really fun!  

Day 12: Christmas Eve. :)

Overall, it was a very fun '12' days.  

C + a primary party

Just wanted to document some cute pics of C.

He is getting so fun!  

He loves playing pretend...I love watching him think through so many fun situations.  

Also....the flash kept blinding him this one morning...we tried so hard to get a normal picture.... 

 We also hosted a primary part for our class.  It was lots of fun, and they were really cute.  We found that C loves Doritos that night. :)

Mario Kart tournament 

City Christmas Date

We decided to have a fun 'downtown' Christmas date.  

We had heard there was a fun light show by Fanueil Hall, so we headed that direction and enjoyed the Christmas Store.  

I'm not going to lie....temple square does spoil us rotten.  We were a little underwhelmed at the light displays.  Ha :)

It was fun to be out with C though. We grabbed some dinner and enjoyed being together. 

First day of Christmas....

Getting home was good.  I struggled getting back into routine, and I was really stressed to get Christmas STARTED! :)  Next year I need to remember to not stress it too much.

But we went and got our tree and spent a night setting up all the decorations.

He loved the nativity...

...and was really excited for baby Jesus! ha.

two peas in a pod right there

Downtown Christmas Tree Lighting

Kicking Christmas off in full swing, Mr. H had us go downtown to see the Boston Commons Christmas Tree Lighting.  

We took the T downtown, which C loved.  

It was a really fun idea: every year they have a fun concert, have good food around and then light the tree.

This year was interesting as in there was a protest going on during it.  There was so much yelling and police officers it made it a little unnerving.  But it was still fun, and fun to get downtown.

When they lit the tree, they had fireworks go off which took me and C both by surprise! But it was pretty and fun to see fireworks!

oh that smile....

you can kind of the see the tree through all the smoke and lights!