Christmas 2013

Can you believe Christmas has come and gone?  Neither can I!  I feel like I just put the tree up last week, only to take it down this afternoon.  It's always a little sad putting the tree away because it really means the season is over, and we are onto new things.

As for Christmas, our Christmas is pretty simple.  We have 2 gatherings.  We celebrate with my family on Christmas Eve and Aaron's family on Christmas Day.

Let's get to it, shall we?

Christmas Eve was really great this year.  I told Aaron that I would love to have a Christmas Eve like this every year.  Aaron had the whole day off on Christmas Eve.  We were done with all our wrapping, so there was no scrambling to wrap last minute gifts.  We just did what we wanted on our time.  After breakfast, we went to visit my Mema in her nursing home.  Then, we had lunch at Wendy's and got J a haircut before his nap.  A super relaxed day!!!

 

Christmas Eve this year was a little different.  My aunt and one of my cousins didn't come because of some strange circumstances.  It made for an unusual gathering with two major players missing, but it still was great.
Our Christmas Eve tradition is tamales.  My parents always go and get tamales and then my mom makes a meal around them.  This year we had tamales, chips and chili queso, rice, veggie enchiladas, and snickerdoodle bars. It was delicious.  My contribution each year is fudge.  I don't know when I started making fudge, but I have been making it for a LONG time!!!

Addi loves J and J loves Addi!!!

 Sweet Addi

 Owen and Jeremy

 RaRa and J

 Done opening gifts so time for dessert.

 One of J's gifts from RaRa and GPa- a slide

Addi took the only family pic of the night.  This was at 8:30.  J was not cooperating at this point because he was DONE!!!  As usual Christmas Eve was great!!!  I love my family and spending time with them.  We all just "get" each other, and it makes for a fun night.

Christmas Eve- After Dark

So now that we are parents, we get to do the really fun stuff on Christmas Eve night.  We become Santa's elves putting together toys!!! We were up until 2 am putting toys together.  In fact, the truck didn't get finished because it was so complex!!!  We ended up giving it to J on Dec. 26, so Daddy would have an extra night to work on the construction.  I definitely think I got the easier toy to assemble, which is a good thing because I am not mechanical AT ALL!!!

Christmas morning--

 Cars Race Car Garage

 

 My First Slide

 First set of "car" legos

 

Another tradition of mine is that I always take a dessert to our Christmas Day gathering.  I am not asked or expected to bring it.  I started this tradition back in 2007 and just haven't stopped.  It's something I look forward to doing and am always looking for a new dessert I haven't made before to take each year.

This year I made an Oreo Brownie Trifle using candy cane oreos.  It was so delicious!!!

 

Christmas Day with the Chandlers-- 

Before we start opening gifts each year, my mother-in-law always takes a photo of the crew.

 

 Aaron drew that Daredevil picture for Will.

 Yes, in the middle of all the chaos everyone stopped and took a nap.  Even Aaron and I laid down and slept for about 45 minutes.  I personally think it is torture for the kiddos to have to wait to open the rest of the presents, but I don't think Brooke minded!!

After naps, we finished up opening gifts, watched 2 episodes of Duck Dynasty, and played a game as a family.  I can't remember the name of it because I was too busy playing with J.  Then, we ate a second time before heading home.  It was a long but fun day!!!

 





And here' s a pic of J the day after Christmas with his truck.  It took Aaron another 2 hours on Christmas Day evening to get this bad boy put together.  Note to self, from now on, we might need to start assembling toys a few nights early so they are ready on Christmas morning.  Luckily, J didn't know the difference! Somehow, I think in coming years it might not work out as well though.  What do you think? 

All in all, we had a great Christmas.  J was so much fun this year.  He really could have cared less about most of his gifts.  It was usually the first one or two toys he opened that got him distracted and he wanted to play with them.  I think next year will be even more fun because I really think he will be more into the whole thing!!!

Until next year... Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Eve Eve

I kept reading about this on different blogs.  Have you heard of it? Christmas Eve Eve?

I like it!!! I have decided it is a new holiday all in itself.  Quite by accident we celebrated in style.

We went to Fireside Pies with my parents.  It was a spontaneous gathering in honor of Christmas Eve Eve.  Not really, but it sounds good.

 

Twas the Week Before Christmas...

And this is what we were doing--

We went to the Parks Mall again this year to get Santa pictures, and I am so glad we did.  I love that they have the same Santa year to year.  They are such a sweet couple!!!  This year J did great!!! Santa hid and Mrs. Claus came over to J with a book.  They sat and read for a minute before Santa came around and sat down.  Santa didn't phase J.  He didn't get upset.  He didn't smile either.  He was too busy checking the man with the beard out!!! 

Then we took J to Cookies with Claus at our church and had different results--

 

Yep.  That's my boy!!!

Such a classic!!! I will treasure this one FOREVER!!!:)

It was a crazy week.  I spent some time baking on Wednesday for Aaron's work crew.  I didn't take a picture but I made Mississippi Mud cake, molasses cookies, and Oreo bark.  It was Secret Santa at my work. I wrapped A LOT!!! Like everyone else, I was super busy!!!
I received a nice surprise at work on Friday from Aaron.

And J got sick on Friday night.  This was at 2:30 after we did a breathing treatment because he breathing was so funky.

We took him to the doctor on Saturday morning, and he had croup.  Some steroids and he sounded a lot better.  Unfortunately, it meant J and I missed the Chandlers "The Sing" on Saturday afternoon.  My first to miss in eight years!!!

 

Thankfully, J was feeling better in no time, so we didn't miss any other Christmas activities!!!

 

 

Christmas Card 2013

I am so proud of myself this year.  I got my Christmas cards done in record time.  I had my cards in hand the week of Thanksgiving.  That's NEVER happened!!!  I didn't actually mail my cards until Dec. 9th but still that is really, really early for me.  Who knows if the stars will ever align quite like this again!!!

I love how our Christmas card turned out this year.  Every year I was always think it's the best Christmas card yet, but this year I really think it's true.  I ordered my cards from Tiny Prints for the first time, and let me tell you they did a phenomenal job.  See for yourself--

A huge thanks to a family friend, Scott, who took these pictures in the Fort Worth Stockyards in early November.  He is a great photographer with an amazing camera.  We had so much fun the Saturday we did these just walking around looking for fun spots to take pictures.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!!!

Christmas Tradition: Tree Lighting 2013

A few Mondays ago we headed to my in-laws for the Annual Chandler Tree Lighting.  This is a Christmas tradition in the Chandler family.  I have been a part of this tradition since 2005 when Aaron was living in Japan.  Since we were together even though Aaron was half a world away, I was invited to be a part of the celebration.  This is what this event looks like--
1.  We eat dinner.
2.  We hang ornaments on the tree wearing Christmas hats and listening to Christmas music.
3. All the lights are turned off in the house.
4.  Christmas tree lights are turned on.
5.  We sing Christmas carols with the 3D glasses on that make the tree lights into different shapes like snowmen, snowflakes, angels, etc.
6.  My mother-in-law, Ali, makes peppermint floats, and we look at the lights some more.
7.  Then, everyone brings in armloads of wrapped gifts to put under the tree.

This is the exact order and the exact same thing we do EVERY year without fail.

My family doesn't have traditions quite like this, so it's a fun thing to do each year.

The coolest thing about this year was that J got so into it.  He was all about putting ornaments on the tree. In fact, I think he may have put on the most ornaments of anyone.  Let me tell you this boy was on a mission.  He put one on and immediately went back to the box to get another one.  Needless to say I was very busy being his "assistant" with tree ornaments.

 Such a big helper!!!

 He loves lights, so he was interested in turning on the lights before we were supposed to.  :)

J was dancing as we sang!!!

There's a sneak peek at one of our family traditions!!!  Hope you enjoyed!!! :)