Christmas 2014

 Well, all of our Christmas festivities have come and gone and although we're sad to see the holiday season to go, I was so happy to have my house back in order! And I finally have a few minutes to upload all of my pictures, which means blog time! Christmas this year was amazing. Christian was the most excited ever to see presents under the tree, we got to see lots of family and friends and eat way too much good food.

On Christmas Eve, we always go to Dustin's grandma's house and then my grandparent's house. My aunt takes family pictures every year, and this year was no exception. Our family just keeps growing, so it took a good minute to fit us all into the frame! 

After the festivities, we put the boys to bed and set up all the gifts. Luckily we had wrapped them as we bought, so we just had to take them out of storage. 

We were pretty exhausted after our long day, but we put on our comfy pajamas, grabbed some old fashioned cokes out of the fridge, turned on Elf and did our Christmas exchange.

I was the most excited about my new white dishes! My mom got me one set and Dustin got me another. No more mismatched hand-me-downs for this girl!

Christmas morning was a blast. We actually had to remind Christian that Santa Claus came during the night, because he decided to sleep in (of all days!!). We opened our stockings first and then headed downstairs to see what kind of goodies Santa dropped off. 

"Presents! Presents! Presents! Can we open them?!" He was pretty excited to say the least. Gavin wasn't interested in anything but escaping to the stairs. He didn't even care about the wrapping paper, which shocked me. He did however love his two new toys from Santa...for a couple seconds...and then he was back to climbing stairs.

After opening presents, we made cinnamon rolls for breakfast. Christian didn't have the time to eat because of all of those new shiny toys, so Gavin snuck behind us and finished his breakfast. He was really sorry about it. ;)

One of his favorite toys was from us...a fireman outfit! Lunch made by a fireman? I'll take it!

Gavin loved the kitchen, too. Although I think he was slightly disappointed when the food wasn't real.

The day after Christmas, we took it pretty easy. Christian and I had "lunch" together again. Cheers!

Friday night, we went to a friend's Christmas party while my mom watched the boys. And no friend's night out is complete without a trip to Taco Bell! I feel like we're 21 again...except without the hangover since I'm not a big drinker. A glass of wine is all this momma needs to have a good time!

Saturday was a super lazy day (thanks to a fevery baby...see below) that ended with a family game night.

Christian won...again. We don't ever let him win when we play games, but he always manages to beat us anyway.

We finished the weekend off with a double-date night to Eddie Merlot's with our friends from Germany, but somehow managed not to take a single picture!

And that sums up our Christmas festivities! We are very ready to ring in the new year. We will be having a New Year's party here at the house with friends, games and food. I am pretty excited about 2015...Gavin's 1st birthday, some family vacations, new babies joining our crew and who knows what else! I'm not sure that I have any real New Year's Resolutions...I could say the typical "I'd like to eat healthier, exercise more, be a better wife and mom, yadda-yadda...", but let's be honest, I'm doing the best I can right now with two wild little boys! Haha. So I'll just say, my New Year's resolution is to do the best I can every single day. If it's not perfect, oh well! 

I hope everyone has a fun and SAFE New Year's Eve! 

I'm going to attempt to do a blog before NYE of my favorite 2014 moments, but if that doesn't happen....

Cheer's to 2015!

Lights, Presents, Family & Friends!

Whew, what a whirlwind week it has been! I can't believe all the things going on right now, but I absolutely love all the hustle and bustle. But it's important to take some time for yourself during naps & preschool to sit down and unwind...and devour a freshly glazed donut. I may or may not have also devoured a blueberry cake donut. I'm a sucker for the donut shop in our town, what can I say?!

We picked up big brother from school on Thursday and went home to set up our train around the boys' Christmas tree. They loved it at first, but then Christian couldn't stand it when Gavin would try to knock it over. He decided he would rather not play with it when "bad baby Gavin" was around. 

We started our weekend off with a trip to the underground MegaCavern to see Lights Under Louisville. This is absolutely one of our favorite things to do during the Holiday season. I grabbed the boys from their carseats (no worries, folks...you drive 2.5mph in an assembly line of cars) and let the oohing & aahing being. Despite Gavin's distracted and terrified faces, he loved it. He danced to all of the music and cracked up at some of the lights. Christian had a ball...he got to "drive" the car, which was the most exciting part of all for him. 

After the lights, we went to the roadhouse, where once again he devoured the rolls and begged for more.

On Friday, we went to C's preschool Christmas party. We decorated cookies, made an angel, played a guessing game with his teacher and chased after Gavin as he explored the classroom. He was like a little puppy dog...all of the kids kept following him around and petting his head.

After the party, we finished up our homemade ornaments and hung them on the tree. This is a tradition I started with Christian and can hopefully keep up with until they're mean teenagers who are too busy for their mom. Cue sad, crying face.

We played down in the basement, so I attempted to feed Gavin his lunch in the bumbo. This was a huge fail, as everytime I tried to give him a bite, he would throw his head back and forth and I would get sweet potatoes all over the place. He thought it was a fun game though!

After he was finished bathing in his lunch, he decided stealing brother's lunch would be a good idea. Christian didn't agree.

Mmm, toes!

Saturday morning snuggles with dad are always a big hit around here.

Saturday evening we had our Christmas with my mom's family. We always cook way to much food, open gifts from each other, play a $5 white elephant gift exchange and have one too many inappropriate conversations...AKA we have a great time. ;)

We also discovered Gavin LOVES pickles...FINALLY! Someone else in the house who can share my obsession.

My mom got a selfie stick for her white elephant gift...which was a total blast to play with!

After the Christmas party, we headed to our friend's birthday party where we got to visit with our friend who has been stationed in the army for the past 3 years. He is on leave now for Christmas and the birth of sweet baby Gemma, who is due any day now. We are beyond thrilled to have them both back in the states for a short time, and we're probably going to go into a depression when they leave again. Cue more sad, crying faces.

And we finished our weekend off with my dad's side of the family's Christmas...the Thomas'. I'm not going to lie, the attempt to get all of the great-grandkids in the picture cracked me up. Luckily, they cooperated for all of the other pictures!

And that was our festive weekend! We are so excited about the next couple days...there is so much going on right now, it's crazy! But good crazy, so we are ready! I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas and gets everything they wished for!

'Tis The Season!

Well, you could definitely say the Wilson family is in the Christmas spirit! We've been holiday-ing it up around here, and we still have so much more to do before the 25th! Just a little recap of our past week...

I took some pictures of the boys for Christmas card photos, and here are just a few of my favorites.

We had lots of pouts, painted ornaments at preschool, watched Rudolph, Mickey's Christmas & Frosty more times than we can count, and are eating almost every meal with reindeer or moose ears.

We visited Santa at Bass Pro Shop...both of the boys did so well! Gavin fussed at first, but then Santa started talking to him and he calmed right now & stared at him like he had 3 heads.

Carousel rides!

We had lunch at Texas Roadhouse, where Gavin has officially been initiated into our roll-loving-family. He probably ate more rolls than all of us combined.

I ordered & mailed out our Christmas cards...the pre-addressed envelopes were free with my order...win!

I finally (after years of wanting to do so) started my snow globe collection. I've always loved them & can't wait to pick out a new one each year!

I took a picture of some of my favorite ornaments...I mean, of course they are of the boys!

We had our first Christmas with the Wilson family. Gavin opened his first ever Christmas present! And yes, of course he cared more about the paper than the actual toy.

We went to Christmas at the Galt House...and we we're pretty disappointed. We went a few years ago and there was a huge Christmas display of lights and blow up figurines that Christian loved. This year, it was based off of A Christmas Carol, so the entire display took maybe 30 seconds to walk through and Christian hid his face from the creepy music and ghosts. It wasn't at all what we expected, but the tickets were free through Dustin's work, so we couldn't complain too much.

They also have a little Christmas town set-up after the lights display which Christian enjoyed, so it wasn't a complete fail. Plus, Santa! Christian's new BFF.

AND Gavin has been in the best mood ever today...which needs to be praised, documented and shouted from the rooftops! I also got a bunch of new Norwex cleaning supplies from my party last week, so I plan on spending the rest of the day cleaning, organizing and getting the house Christmas ready!

And that's been our week o' Christmas fun! Hope you all are enjoying this holiday season! 

A November Snow Day!

Ready or not, here comes winter! Although the first official day of winter isn't for another month, mother nature has other plans. However, I'm all about some snow, so you won't find me complaining (until about March...then I'm DONE with snow and beyond ready for sunshine and warmth). 

We woke up here in southern Indiana to about 5 inches of beautiful, powdery blankets of snow. I found this out not because of the blinding whiteness peaking through my blinds, but by Christian coming into my room screaming that it's Christmas time. How confusing for a 3-year-old mind when I tell him it's not even close to Christmas time (in toddler time...in adult time, Christmas will be here in the blink of an eye)! 

This then followed with staring out of the window and asking 37 times if we could play in the snow. I tried to time our snow play during Gavin's naptime, because I knew baby G wasn't going to love army crawling through snow that was deeper than him (thanks to the snow drifts). I snapped a couple of pictures, laid Gavin down for his nap, and then Christian and I braved the freezing cold temps for some snow fun. 

(Gavin was NOT happy about his snowsuit. He could care less about the snow, but that suit? Life ruiner.)

We drew pictures in the snow, attempted a snow angel (and failed miserably because he didn't like snow on his neck) and then once our fingers and cheeks were frozen icicles, came inside for hot chocolate and cookies by the fireplace. 

It was so much fun making memories...and I really enjoyed spending time with just me and Christian. Hopefully he remembers how much fun snow can be, and that since there's not a darned thing you can do about it (except move states), to try to enjoy it and all the beauty that comes with it. Hopefully everyone at least somewhat enjoyed our first real snow...and I'm sure it will be far from our last...I have a feeling we're in for a long and snowy winter. 

Thanks, Disney...I'm totally blaming Elsa. Stay warm, my friends!