Santa Claus is coming to town

This weekend was such a whirlwind.  We had a lot on the agenda.  I am loving time with my little family right now.  Both Landry and Hayden are at great ages.  I look forward to our weekends together so much.

On Friday, we found Choo-Choo sitting on the couch with the remote waiting on family movie night.  We made homemade pizza and watched Rudolph.  

Saturday morning we were up bright and early to headed to Bass Pro for our picture with Santa.  Tim had this great idea to get there when it opened and be first in line and be done.  Well, it seems everyone else in Grapevine had that same idea.  When we got there they were passing out time cards to come back at a certain time, so we walked around Bass Pro and waited on our time slot.  Not actually a bad place to be stuck for an hour.  We got a snack, watched the fish tank and sat in recliners to pass the time.  Hayden ended up falling asleep sitting in his stroller, so when we were waiting in line, I got a little nervous about waking him up.  He is usually my easy going child and doesn’t mind strangers, so I figured passing him off to Santa would be no big deal.  Boy was I wrong!  He screamed the minute I handed him over!  But, we got a funny picture and one I laugh at every time I see it.

After we went home and rested we went over to Tim’s parents’house and ventured out to Prairie Lights.  I was so excited to do this!  I haven’t been in a few years and I just remember loving all the lights.  Well, this idea would have been great except that everyone else in the metroplex had the same idea! We waited in our car for over three hours!  Luckily we had a fun car full of people and Hayden slept, so it wasn’t too bad.  We just know next time to go when it opens.  

Sunday, Landry went outside and played on her scooter.  She won this in her fundraiser and loves it!  She had to sale so many items to win it, and she worked hard to do it.  I’m not going to lie, it is really fun!  We live on a street with a hill going down towards the end, so we went up and down that hill multiple times.    

Sunday night, we went and celebrated our favorite red head.  My friend Hilary bought all the little girls these shirts to match the mommies and Landry loves it!

My mom hosted the family over to her house to celebrate my Grammy.  My Grammy is one wonderful woman.  She is the epitome of the matriarch of our family.  She is a Godly woman, she knows how to shoot a gun and she’s in the Women’s Bowling Hall of Fame!  Love celebrating her and the life she has lead thus far.  

Such a fabulous weekend.  I’m so excited for this week.  After this week I’m off work for the rest of the year!  I have some fun stuff planned with my kiddos and hubby!  

Friday Favorites

 

This week has been such a busy one.  I feel like this season of life is so crazy, and I’m going to look back on it with fond memories.  I absolutely love my children’s ages right now.  They are both so fun and into such different things right now, that it really keeps me on my toes.

 

Here is our weekly update in the form of Friday favorites.  Once again, I’m linking up with Andrea, Narci and Erika.  

 

Daddy Daughter shopping…

Monday night, a tradition 18 years in the making continued.  My dad has been taking my sister and me shopping for my mom since I was 15 years old.  Five years ago, we started including Landry and we look forward to this night every year.  My sister wrote about it way better than I ever could, so you should hop on over to her blog and read all about it.

Tacky sweater…

So, my office holiday party was Tuesday and the theme was wear your tacky sweater.  I don’t actually own a tacky sweater so I opted for cute sweater instead.  Some people did show up in the funniest sweaters they had made!  Way too creative for this girl to pull off.

 

We’ll be independent together…

Tonight is smith family movie night and we are watching Rudolph the Red nosed Reindeer, the classic one!  I can remember every December my family would sit down and watch this together.  It is my mom’s favorite Christmas movie.  I’m so excited to sit down with my girl and Tim and watch this as a family.

 

You better watch out…

Tomorrow the Smiths are headed to visit Santa!  Landry has been waiting all week for this.  She has her list all ready and she’s going to tell Santa what Hayden wants too.  I’m actually anxious to see how Hayden reacts.  Will he be frightened, screaming or my usually smiley baby?  Time will tell.  This is their Santa picture from last year.  Hayden was 2 months old and Landry was 4.  Where has the time gone?  It needs to slow down though.

 

Speaking of slowing down time…

This sweet boy turned 14 months old yesterday.  I couldn’t love him more if I tried.  

 

Have a great weekend!

Our Thanksgiving break

I had good intentions of having this up last week, but then both my children went and got the flu.  Landry’s was followed up with strep while Hayden got an ear infection on top of his, so needless to say it was all I could do to brush my teeth last week :).  

But, we had a great Thanksgiving break and I want to document it, so here goes.  

On Wednesday night I got the brilliant idea that we should have our elf, Choo-Choo come back and bring him in with a breakfast.  It turned out to be the perfect morning for it.  I made cinnamon rolls and bacon and we all know bacon makes everything better.  Landry was so excited to see him back.  She jumped up and down and kept saying she knew he was on his way because the night prior we had watched the Elf on the Shelf movie.  She’s a smart one, that Landry.  

Watching the Elf on the Shelf movie

Choo-Choo brought Landry and Hayden a letter from Santa and it was just the nudging she needed  

Brother bear could have cared less he was there, he just wanted the bacon and cinnamon rolls!

After breakfast, mama had to get busy making food for Thanksgiving lunch and dinner.  I did have a handy helper at my feet, which if you’re a mom of a toddler, you know it takes about an hour longer to cook when you have someone constantly at your feet.  But, he was awfully cute helping me, so I didn’t mind at all.  

Then we all got showered and headed over to my Aunt and Uncles house for my family’s Thanksgiving meal.  After lunch, we packed the kids up and headed to Tim’s parents’ house.  This is what the kids did the whole way there.

Thanksgiving gave me a really good chance to look around and be thankful for all I have.  My wonderful husband, the kids I get to raise with him, our families who help us and our friends we walk through life with.  God has been so good to me.  

So, after it was all said and done, I sent Landry to Flower Mound with my dad and Hayden stayed in Irving with Tim’s parents.  Tim and I had talked a long time ago about doing a long weekend away just the two of us, and it was just what we needed.  

We went to a really nice dinner together

I did get to face time their sweet little faces though while I was gone.  This was the longest I had been away from Hayden, but it just made our reunion that much sweeter!  

Had to make our usual pit stop at DQ for a blizzard and then we were home 3 days later.  

It was such a great long weekend, and now I’m ready for Christmas!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

This is hands down, my favorite time of the year.  I get absolutely giddy when we go to storage to get all my Christmas decorations.  We keep all our decorations at a storage building about a mile from the house.  After almost 9 years of marriage, I have accumulated a lot of stuff, but last year I went through most of it and I only put out about half the decorations I own.  Most of it is sentimental to me.  

 

So, here is the Smith house decorated for Christmas!

 

Welcome to our little home…

I had a wreath up until a few years ago hanging on the door, but I found this cute snowman and hang him here now.

 

Our living room…

This is by far the biggest room in our house, so it has the most decorations.  I have the kid’s pictures with Santa on this table.  

 

Here is our mantle

 

Charlie Brown’s Christmas is one of my very favorite Christmas movies to watch and growing up my favorite part was when Linus would recite the birth of Jesus, so I love having this framed, after all, he is the reason for the season.

 

Next to the frame is my favorite Christmas decoration and also my most sentimental one.  My Maw-Maw died when I was 21 and I was super close to her.  The Christmas before she passed she gave me this angel that plays “White Christmas”.  It still works.  It always goes on the mantel and makes me think of her when I pass by it.  She loved Christmas and I still miss her so much, so having a piece of her here at this time of year makes it easier on me.  

 

Our stockings.  I’m actually going to stencil our name on them this year.  

My sister took our family pictures last month and this is the one going on the card, so I had it blown up and framed.  Love my little family!

 

Our tree…

I love our tree this year!  We actually bought this one last year after Christmas and it isn’t pre-lit.  So, I knew I wanted to add something besides lights and found this gold mesh ribbon and it was perfect!  

 

Here are a few of my favorite ornaments

 

I’ve wanted a nativity scene forever and this one was at Mardel last week and I knew it was perfect for our stage in life.  If Hayden wants to get the baby Jesus and play with it, no big deal!  

 

We got Landry her own tree this year for her room.  She loved it!  She got to hang her own ornaments on there. 

 

Brother did not get his own tree this year, because he is 1 and it would be all over the place, so he got Rudolph on his dresser.  

 

The kid’s bathroom has these cute candles I’ve had forever.

 

That about wraps up our decorations for this year!

 

I love walking into my house and seeing all this up!