Deck the Halls!

I love taking a peek into other people's homes at Christmas!  We did most of our decorating before Thanksgiving this year.  I just like to be able to enjoy it for as long as possible! :) 

I am looking forward to having Georgia Kate help us decorate the tree next year, but for this year, we did it after she went to bed one night.  Reid was SO excited about the tree.  I really try to notice and appreciate the kids' ages every year at Christmas time because next year at Christmas they will be an entire year older.

I love the ornaments we got for the kids this year for their personal collections!  For Georgia Kate I went with a peach because she's our little Peachy, obviously. :) 

I decided that Reid absolutely needed a drum ornament to represent his love of music!

I think themed trees are so neat and pretty, but ours is a random assortment of personal ornaments and I love that too!  Maybe one day I'll have enough energy to do a themed tree and a personal tree, but that time is not now. :) The finished product…  

I loved watching his face as we turned on the lights!

The next morning Georgia Kate enjoyed checking out the tree.  

Love this sweet picture of Reid telling her about it!

We have an entry table this year, so it was fun to add a little Christmas cheer there.  Our Christmas card box is already filling up!  I love having pictures of our friends and their beautiful, growing families!  

I am working on something to go between the stockings, but it's not quite finished yet.  Someone I taught with made Chris and I our stockings (and our tree skirt) as a wedding gift!  I thought that was such a unique and special wedding gift idea!  

My favorite part of our Christmas decor is always the snow village.  My mom gets us a new piece for Christmas each year.  I love imagining that we live in a magical, snowy place (instead of a place where we are wearing flip flops today)!

We started this "A Meaningful Christmas" advent tree two years ago.  You can check out the details here! http://www.ameaningfulfamily.com

My mom found these adorable door hangers for Reid and Georgia Kate's bedroom doors!

 I can't get enough of handprint and footprint art, so we made these little snow people!

Reid and I made snowflakes to hang from our kitchen light fixture.  He was so proud!

The outside and inside of the front door...

I didn't take any pictures of the outside of our house, but I love these pictures of Chris and Reid working on the lights.

Is there anything sweeter than babies in Christmas jammies?? I really don't think so.  I gave the kids their new pajamas on Thanksgiving night and I had to convince Reid to wear them because he really only wants to wear his firetruck pajamas these days.  This is Georgia Kate's first nightgown and I just think it's so sweet!!  I was ready to take a perfectly precious picture of the kids in their matching jammies and this is what we got… yep.

After the successful photo shoot, we went outside to show them the Christmas lights on our house!  We ended up walking around our street and looking at a few other houses too.

LOVE Reid's sweet face in this one...

As usual, Georgia Kate was not impressed… ;)

Fa La La La La!  Merry Christmas!

"Official" Santa Pictures

Last night we made our annual trip to Bass Pro to see Santa.  We will continue to go to the free Santa until all of our kids are no longer terrified of him!  Reid refused to wear his shirt that has Santa on it, so we were off to a great start! ;)  

Mumsie made this beautiful corduroy bonnet and vintage cape for Peachy.  I just adore it!  

Reid loved looking around and playing with some of the trucks and cars they had out, but wanted nothing to do with Santa.  I decided to not force the issue, so here is our official group "Santa" picture for 2014. :)

 Another bonnet picture because it's worthy of another picture.

Reid agreed to a reindeer picture instead of a Santa picture.  

And now I present to you… our actual official Santa picture of 2014!

Bless her heart.  As cute as I think the crying pictures are, I really do feel so bad that I did that to her!

Ho Ho Ho!

Christmassy Things

Whew!  We've had a busy few days full of Christmassy fun!

It started on Friday when Georgia Kate and I met up with some friends for lunch.  We had fun admiring the beautiful tree at La Centerra while we were waiting.  

While we were lunching, Reid got to go with Grandma and Grandpa to check out the train display at Second Baptist!  

Friday night we got the kids dressed in their Christmas jammies and went to look at Christmas lights!  This little session was my second attempt at getting a matching pajama picture.  

On Saturday morning we went to breakfast with Santa at one of my high school friend's parents' house!    For Reid there was breakfast, but not with Santa.  

Georgia Kate decided that she would look at Santa, but not actually sit with him. 

When we got home, Reid and I did some baking for our fire department (more on that later)!  He LOVES to help me in the kitchen!  

Alli and John invited Reid to spend the night at their house on Saturday night!  He had a blast!  

Chris and I got some very rare time together with just our baby girl.  This is not the best picture, but we loved getting to just focus on her and enjoy her together.

On Sunday afternoon I went to a cookie exchange!  This has become such a fun tradition!  Thank you Amanda, Katie, and Kristen for hosting!

As soon as I got home from the cookie exchange, we loaded up and headed to Santa's Wonderland!  We had the best time!  We purposely went on a non-groupon night and it made a HUGE difference.  We were actually able to enjoy everything that Santa's Wonderland has to offer!  We rode the hayride through the lights, went to the petting zoo, ate dinner, walked around the shops, and the kids did lots of dancing to music played by the live band!

Georgia Kate begged me to take her picture in this little chair because it matched her outfit! ;)

Our Christmassy fun continued after the weekend was over…

Tis the season to wear Christmas shirts to school!

Tonight our small group brought goodies to one of our local fire stations!  The kids had so much fun!  

It's the most wonderful time of the year!

Thanksgiving 2014

Thanksgiving always looks different for us from year to year.  Sometimes we go to Chris' family's ranch, sometimes we go to my parents' house, but this year we hosted at our house on Friday!  We hosted Thanksgiving our very first year of being married and haven't since then.  My mom did most of the cooking, so I had the easy part!  Alli's husband's family all came down this week from Wisconsin.  Alli's husband John went to LSU and his brother is there now.  Chris and I, as well as Alli and John and John's family all went to the A&M/LSU game on Thursday.  My parents watched the kids for us while we went!  We decided to do Thanksgiving Friday so it wouldn't be rushed.  Chris' parents we are the ranch and we missed them, but we really enjoyed spending time with John's family!

A little selfie in front of the "old" Kyle Field! It won't look like this next year.      

 Hosting is not my gift, but it was still fun!  We used our china for the second time ever, so I was happy about that!  I thought I had 12 place settings, but apparently I have 10, so I had to ask my mom to bring over one of her plates.  The table cloths are also wrinkled.  It was all so pinterest-worthy! ;)

Reid loves getting on Uncle T's shoulders because it makes him about 7 feet tall! 

 Twins

 I really wanted to get a good picture of the kids, but they were more interested in having a tickle fight!  I love love love seeing them have fun together, so I love this picture so much more than I would have loved a perfectly posed one.

 When I see a picture of the four of us, I can't help but think, "One of these things is not like the other!" I mean, I don't even look related to these people! ;)

 Reid had a blast getting attention from Uncle T, Uncle John (who he now calls Johnny), and both of John's brothers!  

I'm so thankful for my family!

 The whole group!  

It was a great day!  We have so much to be thankful for.  Now we are ready to kick off the Christmas season!

Reid is 3.5

Reid officially turned three and a half years old on Sunday and because I feel like he's changed so much in the last 6 months, I wanted to do a little update!  I will say that three has been challenging for me as a mom, but I think we may be starting to turn a corner.  Challenging moments or not, I just adore this boy of ours.

I feel like I've looked at him lately and thought so many times, "He just seems so grown up."  He often prefers to take showers instead of baths and is basically done with naps.  Those are two very grown up things! :)

He is starting to say to us some of the things we say to him.  That's pretty humbling! ;)  The two we hear most often are, "Mommy, I have a job for you!" and "Daddy, I'm trying to ask you a question!"

When Chris was out of town the last couple of times, Reid really took on the job of our caretaker.  It was so sweet!  He was all of sudden very interested in helping with things that he usually isn't interested in helping with and he kept saying, "Mommy I will take care of that!"

He still loves school, which I am so thankful for, but he's going through a little phase of not wanting to be separated from me.  I hate seeing him cry, but I know it's just a phase.

He definitely has some quirks (don't we all?)!  One of these quirks is that he is OBSESSED with left and right, which is so random.  He's constantly asking, "Is that the left one?" or saying, "I want the one on the right!"  He is also very protective of his favorites.  His favorite animal is an elephant and nobody else is allowed to like elephants.  The same goes for firetrucks and the color purple.

His favorite show is Daniel Tiger's Neighborhood.  It's really the only show that he ever wants to watch or will sit through.

He loves to joke with me and make me laugh!  I love it too. :)

Although the sibling rivalry is in full swing, I often catch Reid watching Georgia Kate in such an adoring way.  It's precious.  He may not admit it, but I'm pretty sure he thinks she's adorable and funny!

Reid's love for music continues to grow.  We've started listening to Christmas music in the car.  On certain songs he will listen and start shouting out when he hears a certain instrument or the instrument changes.  It's actually quite impressive!

One of the things that I love most about Reid is that he is such a joyful child.  It's something that others notice and comment on a lot and I have to agree with them.  It's such a blessing to be around someone that is (usually) so happy!

I am so proud to be Reid's mommy!