Christmas Traditions

We celebrated Christmas 2013 with some established traditions:  Christmas Eve with Nana and D, presents, making calzones as a family.  Some of the traditions we love are newer, like a family worship time and listening to the Christmas story read by one of our family members (this year, Avery read it).  Amelia started a tradition of singing Happy Birthday to Jesus and sharing His birthday cupcakes, and this year, since Trey was in Europe, facetiming with him during the festivities rounded out our activities.  Our favorite "newer" tradition is having Mimi, Gran, and Nanny join us for the laughter, excitement, and love.  

Christmas Day gave us time with Nonnie, Great Nonnie and the whole family.  Having everyone over to our house was so exciting for the kids and they loved bonding with uncles and aunts over gifts.  Having everyone in our home is certainly something we hope becomes a tradition as well.

Watching Christmas unfold in the eyes of our girls brings its own sort of magic, and we are blessed beyond measure by their delight in the season.

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Busy BUMP!

Written by Avery

Every year Nana takes me to buy presents for the whole family. But this year I got to go home with her even though she had a party to get ready for.  She said I could help bake, wrap and fill candy baskets.  When I was wrapping presents, I had come to the bump!  The busy bump was a problem that made my work stop... like a bump.  The problem was that Daddy's tools were hard to wrap.

Avery's ways of how to work over the bump...

*not do the wrapping... No!

*ignore the bump... Okay...

*wrap the tools in newspaper first and then wrapping paper... Perfect!

I finished the "bump" and I got to bake and that was really better than wrapping.

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Buddy the Elf

Written by Kate with commentary by Mama in parentheses.

Nana and DD took me to see the movie Elf.  (Amanda, Amelia, Mama, and Avery all went as well.)  

It had lots of songs and Buddy was fatter than he was supposed to be.  (It was a musical at Sarofim Hall.  She was right about the elf, though.)

 First we go-ed to gymnastics and I got to move up to a green, and then I go-ed to get my haircut, then I swimmed in Macy's hot tub.  Then I go-ed to see the movie Elf.  (These activities happened many days before the musical but were obviously an important part of the experience of watching Elf).

We go-ed to The Aquarium.  It's a place with fish and it's cool.  Then we went to see the movie Elf.

My favorite part of the whole day was the very end of the movie.  (At the end of the show, Buddy the Elf said, "The problem is that people don't have Christmas spirit anymore."  Loudly, Kate agreed, "That is the problem!  People just don't believe!"  Then Buddy said, "Christmas is not just about Santa.  It's about ..."  We didn't hear the end of what he said because Kate piped up and said, "Christmas isn't just about Santa!  It's about Jesus!"  Luckily, the women in front of us had a sense of humor and enjoyed her comments.  After the comment about Jesus, the woman in front of us turned around and smiled and told Kate, "That's right!"  Every audience member should have the privilege of watching a musical with a 5-year-old).

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Holiday Season

By Avery:

I love Christmas because I get to see my family and give them presents.

Some things I like to do are making presents, going to the Kid`s Crazy Christmas Show , and decorating the Christmas tree .

I made a very special ornament for Mommy.

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Thanksgiving

At Thanksgiving, these things were important (a list generated by Kate):

-eating turkey
-playing house at Mimi and Gran's house
-taking pictures at the librarian's old school
-making gingerbread cookies!
-eating them
-jumping inside the leaves piles
-taking a picture with Nanny
-playing family at Nanny's house

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