We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

Christmas Day 2011

Our last bit of Christmas to share... Following Santa we pried the kiddos away from their new toys and off to Ebby & Poppy's for brunch with Jacquelyn, Jonathan & cousin Banks. Ebby is a bit of a Christmas fanatic so every inch of their house is decorated and its magical to see. After presents and some yummy grub we hit the road to see Honey & Pop and the rest of the White family relatives. A late lunch and an early dinner made for some very full bellies. 'Tis the season! Tyler & Harper left no gift unwrapped and no toy broken in. Court has never seen so many trains or cars in his life as he has in his new collection. The next day we hit the road yet again to see Grumpa & Libby and then settled back in High Point for a few days of R & R! What a blessed Christmas spent with the ones we love!

We wish you a Merry Christmas!

The tree at Ebby's!!!!

Ebby & Court

Tyler helping to give Banks her present from all of us... some real cowboy boots.

Harper got makeup for Christmas.

She loved it!

Our little elf!

Santa decorated the breakfast table...

Then off to High Point...

Missy & our truck-train-car boy!

Honey & the gals!

And then the camera was put up for days... it was so nice!

We hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas, we sure did!

Ho Ho Ho!

Christmas morning was a blur.... good thing we took lots of pictures to remember!

It went something like this...

7:15am Court up. No idea it is Christmas. Wants to watch Chuggington in Mom & Dad's bed.

7:30am Girls are up... they come running to our room. Did Santa come???

Lets go see...

7:31am Forced group shot before we see Santa's delivery

7:32am The Christmas magic began!

Christmas 2011

Cookie in Court's hand for breakfast.

Santa came!!!

Train table for Court.

Scooters, art stuff & play makeup for Tyler & Harper.

Sweet Harper made sure Court was happy at his train table before she went to check out her goods.

Tyler getting into her stocking.

Harper finding lots of special treats.

Court moved away from the train table long enough to find more trains and little cars in his stocking.

... then back to work playing with his trains!

Oh the magic of Christmas morning!!!!

Christmas Day to follow....

'Twas the night before Christmas

We had such a nice Christmas Eve. It was just the five of us plus Ebby & Poppy. Our dear friend Windsor had her baby girl Mary Austin just days before Christmas so instead of the usual Beaver family throwdown on Christmas Eve we had our own family dinner after church and kept it simple this year. The kids did great at church and Court loved the celebrate band and clapped after each song and the girls were mesmerized by baby Jesus in the manger up front. After church we went to Ebby & Poppy's house and enjoyed a wonderful meal and some cocktails then rushed home to bed so Santa could come....

Tyler, Court & Harper

Christmas 2011

Merry Christmas!

Ebby & Poppy +3

Harper

Tyler

Court kissing on Santa.

Getting his last minute good behavior while it still counts!

Reading the Night before Christmas

up next Santa....

Christmas Countdown!!!

Here we go... just about 24 hours until the kiddies will be nestled in their beds dreaming of sugarplums and waiting for ol' saint nick to leave some goodies for them. We are so excited!! We have been keeping busy with lots of Christmas fun this week.... a few highlights below.

Singing Bears show

Mesmerized by the singing bears.

Sweet Court clapped after each song.

Working with Daddy.

Daddy & Harper taking an important call!

Future CEO.

Then Ebby & Poppy took the kids to the CCC Party. Not many photos because they were chasing the sugar filled kids around.

Harper & Court with the magic elf!

Court has NEVER met a sweet he did not like!

Tyler & Poppy doing art.

Tyler's day is not complete without a solid 2+ hours of art a day!

Then up next was the Pilon kids dance party... brilliant idea & all 3 absolutely loved it. A DJ, some lights, a smoke machine and some cake and it was a huge success.

Getting their groove on!

Ebby dancing with the kids.

Katie, Harper & Tyler

Our little drummer boy.

Still high-steppin'

Playing Catch Up!

Tis the season for non stop action... hence the lack of blog posts! We have had the best time counting down to Christmas this year with fun family activities. We have bounced between playdates, birthday parties & cookie decorating parties. We have spent tons of time driving around in the car at dark listening to Christmas tunes and looking at all of the fun holiday lights. Its one of Court's favorite things to do and has even prompted a new word... Ho Ho for Santa.

The girls preschool Christmas play last week

They did such a good job & it was so cute seeing our little angels perform!

Court's best gal leighton turned 2, somehow this is the only picture we took from her fun gym party. Harper has the class monkey for the week then next week is Tyler. Monkey George has to go everywhere & be photographed... hmm, mommy pressure?!? Sure hope we can keep up with him for 2 more weeks!

Then Court moved onto buddy Ben's super cute train party.

He was in heaven!!!

This kid loves a choo choo.

All Aboard!

More cute pictures here on ben's mom's blog.

Fun that Court & Ben are in preschool together

and I went to preschool with his mom way back when...

Up next Carson's cookie decorating party!

Tyler was all about this party!!!

Harper loved it!

Court just chilled and took in some sugar!

Yummy, sugar-topped, precious 4 year old over-decorated cookies!

And this is the scene at the house these days...

Gray area is our old basement... everything else has been torn down, what?

Our "remodel" is now going to be a brand new everything house.

We have to get a whole new foundation due to a lot of technical not fun, time consuming stuff! Lets get the show on the road!!!

Cookies & Milk Party

Tyler, Harper & Court's 4th Annual Cookies & Milk party was so fun. We were pretty close to not having it due to living in our very weird rental but when the girls starting asking if the real Santa was coming back again for cookies at their house with their friends, I knew we had to keep the traditions going. So, the baking, decorating & planning began. Tyler & Harper were actually pretty big helpers this year and helped to plan some of the details.

The cookie table!

The girls helped with the reindeer cookies and helped to roll out the sugar cookie dough for the stars, candy canes & christmas tree cookies.

The Peppermint Hot Chocolate Reindeer favors...

Dad got suckered into doing 90% of these!

What a sweet hubby!!!

The toy drive

This is the first year we decided to do a toy drive and the idea actually came from the girls in a round about way. Recently they have been putting lots of their old toys in bags and saying they want to give them to other children since they do not play with them anymore. So, we searched around for a children's charity looking for toys for the holidays and found Hemby Children's hospital... more on this below.

The kids milk bar

So, we were ready! It was going to be as low stress as it can be to have 100+ people in your house. We were prepared and did not have a ton of last minute stuff to do. Then this happened...

Yep, that is our tree at 9am the day of the party.

Broken ornaments everywhere and the stress level began to creep up.

But we survived. Cleaned up the mess and had some assistance securing it to the wall so it would stay up for good this time.

Then Santa arrived...

Tyler & Harper with the "real" Santa.

They love Santa this year!

Court does NOT love Santa this year.

Santa & the kids

Watching Santa leave... he had to walk down the street to get in his sleigh.

Cookies & Milk Party 2011

We do not have any pictures of the chaos of the packed party... guess we were busy entertaining. But it was fun. Can't wait to do it all again next year.

The aftermath of the playroom!!!

The day after the party we all went to go donate all of the amazing toys our friends brought to the party. We had a box filled to the top of new toys for the kids at Hemby Children's hospital to enjoy and it was such a rewarding experience. The children there are sick and will be spending Christmas in the hospital and these toys will help bring them a little cheer. We wanted to make sure the kids could all go with us to understand where the toys were going...

Daddy had to carry the heavy box in...

Donating the toys.

We took a tour and got to see the special floor that the kids get to stay on and left feeling very blessed for 3 healthy children.

Guess we better rest up now for the 5th annual Cookies & Milk party...