Christmas Part 2- Christmas Eve

This is us in the car pulling out of our neighborhood at 4:33am. Yes, we are crazy 

We hoped that the kids would fall back asleep as soon as we got in the car and would sleep until we stopped for breakfast around 8am. No luck, they were up until 6 and were hungry little boogers! They both had their first taste of egg mcmuffin because mcdonalds is the only thing open at 5am.

We turned them around to face forward so that they could watch dvds on the trip down. Cars and Finding Nemo were their (and daddy's) favorites. Jay actually researched how he could watch movies on the navigation screen in the front of the car while the car was in drive. 

I drove the first 1.5 hours of the trip before deciding it was time for a nap. Jay drove the next hour while I snoozed. I love driving and am normally good to go on late nights and early mornings but this trip was different due to lack of sleep the night before and pregnancy. I ended up driving the remainder of the way after breakfast and loved keeping up with traffic down 95. If I haven't mentioned it before, I LOVE to drive and fight Jay for the keys almost every time we are in the car together.

We arrived in New Port Richey Florida (just north of Tampa) around 3:00pm. We had time to chill for just a bit in the hotel before heading to Christmas Eve service at 5pm. I found a Methodist church down there and Jay, my sister Allie, and I took the kids. It was a family friendly service and my children's first time in big church. It was a disaster. We quickly moved to the quiet room to watch the service on TV but the kids were just not having it. We left early to meet the rest of our extended family for a pizza dinner, our Christmas Eve tradition. 

trying to keep this child entertained with selfies

melt downs....

I don't think I took any pictures of dinner but imagine a table of 19 people who haven't seen each other in a long time chatting away and drinking heavily. 

My aunt and uncle rented a house near my Grandpa and Susan's (his long-term girlfriend). Their house is too small to accommodate all of us. We all headed back there after dinner to hangout and play games. It was bittersweet. We knew this was probably the last Christmas we'd be spending with my Grandpa (my only living grandparent) but we were all in good spirits and made the best of the time we had together. Like I said before, we've always traveled on Christmas and these big family Christmases are just what I'm used to. We always eat pizza (usually at Pizza Hut) on Christmas eve and then hangout afterwards. We do all our gifts on Christmas morning.

Another of my aunts (My mom is one of 5 children) made these koozies for celebration. Art is my Grandpa. Note my koozie with the water bottle. No booze for this girl.

This girl LOVES to drink anything that the adults are drinking. She kept leaning over to get her mouth on the beer bottle. Of course, we did NOT let her have any!

My mom and Grandfather

There are 11 cousins on my mom's side and 9 of us are girls. We have a lot of fun when we get together!

After lots of drinks, games, and hanging out time, we retreated to the hotel to get some sleep before the big day.

Preparing to Travel for Christmas

We arrived home from Asheboro on Sunday afternoon. I had all of Monday to get things done for our Christmas vacay. I was stressed and overwhelmed. I spent much of Sunday evening in my mom's sewing room working on a reversible longall and jumper for the twins to wear at Disney. I poured some good hours into making these outfits that would make our Disney trip picture perfect... I never ended up getting them done and it was ok. My biggest regret was missing out on precious holiday time with my kids :(

I did have a great time however hanging out at my parents house with just my sisters. Sunday evening I wrangled my youngest sister, Bo into running a gazillion errands with me (including doing a craigslist deal for a brand new bob stroller in a fort mill parking lot) and we had fun just kicking off the holiday together. As a mom with a family of my own, sometimes its refreshing to slip back into the role of daughter and sister and just hangout like we used to when we all lived under one roof. We got back my parents house in time for takeout Thai food. My mom was at a Christmas party and both my sisters and me had a fabulous time chatting with my dad over dinner. After dinner we had some great conversations about civil rights, religion, and homosexuality. You can tell how much we had all matured. We surprisingly didn't fight at all (we are all very opinionated and have no problem stating (and defending) our viewpoint) and I'm so thankful to have sisters and deep conversations.

I got home sometime around 1am and was excited to take the kids to Santa the next morning. We arrived at Southpark bright and early to meet the big guy. Both babies HATED it. I loved the crying Santa pics! We took the kids back home and Jay watched them while I headed back over to my mom's to sew.

This one is blurry. I can't find the professional one that we paid for on my computer. I'll update later when I do!

I tried so hard to make these clothes for the kids but I am just not a seamstress. I can applique and monogram pretty well but sewing is just not my thing. After working all day (I even cancelled a trip uptown to see the singing bears because I was so deteremined) I decided to call it quits with the longall and jumper I was making around 10pm and just switched over to monogramming and appliqueing some blank t-shirts I had laying around. 

While I spent the afternoon, evening, and night sewing, Jay tried his best to get the laundry done and pack for Florida. I have always traveled for Christmas and am SO used to the chaos that ensues while getting ready for a big road trip. I'm used to parents that set up the DVD player, arm us with loads of new movies, prep snacks for the ride, and pack the minivan like level 20 of tetris, making sure that all medications, phone chargers, and all the little random things are included on the packing list. Jay is not. Bless his heart. He tried hard. I got home around 11pm and we packed until midnight. I made lists upon lists to ensure that we were out of the house by 4:30am. We thought it was all good around midnight until we realized we needed to move the carseats to the 3rd row and that installing them forward facing was way different than rear facing. Thank God for youtube and Britax instructional videos. We finally went to sleep exhausted at 1am only to have our alarms go off 3 hours later....

Christmas Part 1

School got out on Friday, December 20th and we packed up the kids and dogs and headed to Asheboro that evening. Poor Jay was soooo sick on Friday that we almost postponed going. He had a terrible stomach bug and couldn't be more than 15 minutes from a restroom. It made the drive super fun! We arrived in Asheboro around 8pm and immediately went to sleep. I had been exhausted from staying up late working on Christmas and Disney and we both needed the 12 hours of sleep we got.

We woke up to Christmas morning! Joining another family has taught me some of the ways that other celebrate Christmas. I can appreciate how Jay's family celebrates but it still feels so foreign to me! As a little kid, Jay would wake up and go downstairs to see what Santa brought. All of his gifts were artfully arranged in front of the fireplace. He opened them with just his mom and dad. After opening gifts, he would head out to play with his cousins (they lived two doors down) and neighbors. Later that night, they would all head over to his Grandparent's house to exchange gifts with the family. When we are in Asheboro we follow this same plan. I think this is our last year of doing this though. Santa has been fabulous to our kids and made several stops during Christmas week but next year he told us that he's only stopping by one place on one night :)

The favorite gift of the morning was definitely the plastic play food. I think they were getting a little upset that they couldn't really eat it though! They also received snowman pjs, an art easel, animal sweaters and matching toboggans, books, trucks, patagonia vests, and a play iphone. Spoiled little babies! Mommy and Daddy were pretty spoiled too! Mommy got a new rain coat and some fun new kitchen gadgets and Daddy got some new shoes and outerwear.

pre- christmas morning breakfast

We had a new truck obsession in our house.  Holden can be in the middle of a crying fit and all we have to say is "Let's play John Deer" and he breaks out a huge smile and goes running for his trucks!

Emma Cate was in a MOOD! She wasn't really interested in presents this year. We had to hold her down to get pictures of her opening them!

love Holden's little baby/toddler hands

new vest from Gran and Poppy

He did this totally on his own... Holden is definitely my kissing child!

This girl was either super happy and funny or whining and crying. So is life as a girl, right?

new cat toboggan to match the sweater she got.

We headed over to Jay's aunt Terri's house for nap time. Jay set up the pack n plays and enjoyed watching football with his aunt, uncle, and cousin Christopher. Christopher's wife Candace and I escaped for a few hours to get mani/pedis!

We headed to Great Grandmother's house after our afternoon naps. This crazy girl climbed in the front seat while we were unloading at Grandmother's. Things get a bit crazy when we travel to visit Jay's family because they always celebrate late at night and we end up sleeping at his Grandmother's house so that we are able to put the kids to bed at a normal hour. This makes for a lot of packing up and moving our things during the trip.

I love the vintage style of Grandmother's house. There are some awesome furniture finds in there. We are getting an antique settee from her house to use in Shep's room.

New jammies from Santa! Of course, the box is always more fun than the toy that came in it!

These kids went nuts over the riding toy that Grandmother bought them.

 

a little panoramic of the living room/gift opening set up.

We were so thankful that Jay's family was really accommodating to us and went to early church for a change. When you have two babies on a schedule, 11am church followed by 12:30 lunch eats into nap time and makes for some really cranky kids at the lunch table. We attended the 8:30 service and had a little playtime afterwards before heading to Magnolia for lunch.

this kid can put down some bananas just like his daddy

our attempt at the fireplace pic

christmas pic with Gran

obsessed with the vent blowing air and making her dress puffy!

We headed home around two and the Christmas anxiety really started creeping in! I had big plans for Monday (Christmas Eve Eve). I had to pack for Florida Family Christmas and Disney World, wrap all of our family presents, make and monogram outfits for Disney, visit Santa, visit the singing bears, and enjoy our one "down time" day of break! Thankfully my mom and sisters called on our way back and asked if we would come over with the kids so they could make cookies. Jay and I were able to drop them off and unpack/start laundry for our next big adventure. Having family in town is SUCH a huge blessing and I don't know what I'd do without them!

This what the weather our entire drive back from Asheboro. YUCK!

My mom still has an exersaucer up in her playroom/basement and Holden decided that it needed to be played in!