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. 

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.  

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!

Christmas

So I'm a couple of posts behind.

But I didn't want to forget about Christmas!!!!

I learned a couple of things this year. 

1. I procrastinated everything till the week of, and that was a really bad idea. I learned that there is true wisdom in getting everything done early so that you can feel the spirit of the season.  Sometimes I guess you just have to learn the hard way.

2. 1 1/2 year olds don't need a lot of presents.  Mr. H and I went a little overboard this year for baby C, and then everyone was so generous as well. It was so sweet of everyone!  But I think the lesson I learned was that they can be happy with one or two things.  

3.  Wrap presents BEFORE Christmas eve.  Ha. :)

MOVING on to the big days:

Christmas eve was a lot of fun.  We went up to Mr. H's family's and the boys sledded for about ten minutes and then we tried to put baby C down for a nap, which would not happen.  So we all hung out together.  I love chatting with the H's and seeing all the cousins together.  My brother S on his mission called at one, and so the three of us ran down to my house to skype with him.  He is doing so good, and is such a cutie.  He was so happy and sweet.  Talking to him was a good reminder of what is truly important about Christmastime.  

We then ran back up to the H's, and enjoyed a delicious dinner.  Then came the annual Christmas talent show, which is always a lot of fun.  Our little family attempted to get baby C to perform 'Once there was a Snowman', and we enjoyed giggling and enjoying everyone's talents.  

Baby C finally went down for a nap!  and we got to chat some more, especially with Mr. H's Grandma D.  She is a lot of fun, and it was nice to relax.

We headed down to my family's around four, and we enjoyed hanging out there.  It is fun to have L and J in town for the holidays.  We got chinese take-out for dinner, which was super good.  We played some games, and then did our annual christmas carol sing-a-long.  It was so nice this year: Brother A played his violin and brother O played his trumpet and it was beautiful.  We enjoyed a beautiful evening together.

Mr. H and I got home and put the babe to bed.  We then set out to wrap all the presents.  We always enjoy doing this.  We  are still kids at heart, and wrap each other's presents in private.  We then do each other stockings and set out a present from Santa on the couch.  We cover it up with a blanket, and the last person leaving the room takes the blanket off without looking so the next morning we can both be surprised. :)  

We got to bed late that night, and were both so excited for the  morning.  

We were so excited, we didn't sleep a wink.  Silly us.  We enjoyed our Christmas morning together.  Mr. H gave me a map of the world to start marking off our adventures, Taylor Swift's "RED" CD, pajamas (first ones since I was TEN!) and some cute earrings.  Thanks to my mom, I gave him a tee-shirt quilt of a ton of his shirts he had kept throughout the years.  He really liked that. :)  

We then woke up baby C.  I don't think he appreciated us waking him up, but he got excited when he saw his toys.

We headed into Centerville to the H's house.  We opened presents all together.  It was so fun.  Baby C started getting really good at knowing if you tear up some paper, great things are in store. :)  

We then hung out and enjoyed playing with the presents together.  

After lunch we headed down to the G's house.  It was fun opening presents with my family.  Baby C loved all the attention.  My uncle J came over and we played games, had a delicious dinner and hung out.  It was great.  

After bedtime, Mr. H and I went and saw "Saving Mr. Banks" with the H's.  It was AMAZING.  I had done some background research on PL Travers, and the movie wasn't really accurate, but if you get over that, you will LOVE it.  Such a beautiful story.  I loved how it taught us to live in the present, and not be limited by our pasts.  I loved what it taught us about forgiveness.  I also thought it was powerful to see such a wonderful man destroyed by an addiction, and how addictions can make us lose the most beautiful things in the world: our family.  But I also thought it was powerful to see that (most) sometimes the best of people have addictions, and it is our job to love them and help them.
Anyway--go see it if you can!

We slept over at the G's house.  Baby C had a rough night, so we all ended up on the floor.  One of my tenderest moments from the season happened this night, however.  C was so scared, and it was the most beautiful thing to see Mr. H calming him down.  He was so soft and loving, and I couldn't help but think how lucky our kids will be to have him as a father.  Baby C fell asleep holding Mr. H's hand through the rails.  

We were so grateful for everyone's kindness this season.  It was a wonderful Christmas.