» Christmas 2012 – the rehash!

What a blast we had this year for Christmas. It was such a fun year with the kiddos. Cailee really started to understand this whole Christmas thing and Connor is just into everything, so they kept us on our toes. If you can’t tell by the delay of this post, we were quite busy and I have simply been trying to recuperate the last few days.

The weekend prior to Christmas we were in Charlotte with my sister Stacy + some of the Herrman clan, on Christmas eve (Monday), we were in Greensboro with GG and Gdaddy Herrman and after our own Christmas morning at home, we spent Christmas afternoon with GG and Gdaddy Dewar + family. The kids did well with the travel and didn’t leave a trail of destruction in their wake – which is saying something these days.

Between what we got them and the rest of our family and friends spoiling them, the kids got far too much (I have been purging much of this week just to make room for the new loot). Cailee got an Innotab (her “ipad” or radio as she calls it), books, microphone, tinker toys, jewelry, games, a sleeping bag, and enough arts and crafts to keep her busy for a long time. Connor got a lawn mower, bike, tee ball, vacuum, puzzles, steering wheel, rc car, train, and cars. He still loves anything that moves, steers or has wheels.

Here are some of our 2012 Christmas, in no particular order.

Cailee is following in mommy’s footsteps and is really into her camera this year (a gift a few years back). We had to make the rounds in the neighborhood every night so she could take pictures of all the lights. We even had to put up a few more ourselves (besides the obligatory candles in the windows) because someone thought we should have more (which you can barely see from the road)
We taught Cailee that Christmas is Jesus birthday, yet Santa brings us some presents to help us celebrate. The elf on the shelf (which we hunted for every morning) tells Santa if Cailee has been naughty or nice and leaves a treat in the advent calendar everyday. We sang happy birthday and had balloons to honor Jesus birthday and I left Santa’s toys unwrapped (this was quite a dilemma for me). Clearly, we thoroughly confused her because the day after Christmas she was ready to find the elf and do this thing all over again
We got to Charlotte a little early (purposely) and took a short detour to a park, in an attempt to run the crazies out of the kids before we arrived for dinner. That plan seemed to work until the very end when Cailee, dressed in tutu, decided to try the fireman’s pole and instead of sliding, she just leaped to the ground from 6-7 feet up. Yep, that’s the scrape she got on her chin – although we were really lucky that’s all she ended up with.
Cailee went to her first Christmas eve service. She did really well, all things considering (that she has ants in her pants, and doesn’t like to be quiet). We brought princess dolls, the ipad mini, iphone cameras, Aunt Beth (thanks for entertaining) and more. She only climbed under the pew in front of us to retrieve her dolls twice, kept the ipad on mute, drank the coffee with her pink straw and didn’t burn the church down with her candle, so I consider that a success. The best part was when the minister was giving the message and said we had to make room for Jesus this Christmas. Cailee asked me to move over so that Jesus could come and sit between us. I was touched that she was actually listening to what he was saying, even if she took it quite literally.
We got the kids an electric mini cooper for Christmas (It might have been more for mom who still longs for the days of her little car). We didn’t know how to give it to them (realizing it might distract them from their other gifts), so we hid it in the corner of the room and just waited til they found it. Well, Cailee was engrossed in everything else, so she had no clue, but Connor snooped it out – he just walked over, opened the door and climbed in. Cailee’s response – “how did Santa fit that in his bag?”
I should have guessed that out of everything Connor’s favorite toys are the mini dyson vacuum and the lawn mower, the two noisiest toys he received (I did pick them out so I am totally to blame). We have pushed the lawn mower around the house and on every walk the last few days.
Connor was a bit of a terror this year when it came to Christmas ornaments. He pulled ornaments off our tree, GG’s tree, even the wreaths at the hair dresser. He loved some of the ornaments at GG Dewars as they looked like toys to him. You can see below in the pictures, he is running a tractor ornament up and down the driveway.
No one was sick! With all the bugs going around we were very fortunate to not catch anything – I think that’s a first for us.
We loved being able to see all our friends and family this year and especially loved having Aunt Bep stay with us. Beth, Cailee wakes up looking for you every morning. You’ll have to come back and visit soon.

I have a ton of pictures, but I was disappointed that many of them the lighting wasn’t great (especially those taken indoors) but this is really just my perfectionist side showing and I am going to swallow my pride and post them anyhow.

First up, our weekend in Charlotte…

Courtesy of Cailee, the “you’d better behave look” or “don’t drop my camera look”

Look at this angel (well, not really, the reason there are hardly any other pictures of Connor is because he was always gunning for the swimming pool or the stairs).

Christmas Eve… sadly, I wish I got more photos (the ones not shown are so blurry, you can’t make out the people).

Christmas morning – pre chaos

And then the fun begins

We took a “drive” in our pj’s

Cailee was too scared to drive the car down the driveway and it doesn’t roll (which worries me if I ever end up half way around the neighborhood and the battery dies) so good ol mom had to drive it down the hill – I am just under the weight limit – phew!)