Christmas 2014!

What a wonderful Christmas we had here at the Harris house! Vince was on shift Christmas day so we celebrated on Christmas Eve...but it all started for us on the night of the 23rd! We started a new tradition this year, a Christmas Eve present! When I was a kid we used to invite family over for Christmas Eve and open all of their gifts, then Christmas morning was for our Santa's presents. It always made Christmas Eve so exciting so we decided to do something similar this year for our boys. I pictured it in my last post but our Christmas Eve gift was Star Wars themed and the boys LOVED it! We got all the best movie snacks, some Star Wars toys to play with during the non-battle scenes and all six Star Wars movies to watch!

In their matching pj's out of their Christmas Eve present! They are so dang cute!

Yummy movie snacks!

He was so excited he could barely contain himself!

Lining up his Star Wars action figures.

All my boys :)

It.Was.Awesome.

Vince has never seen the Star Wars movies (apparently he spent the first 28 years of his life living under a rock) but he really liked them which is good since we have four more to go until we've watched them all!

The one good thing I realized about celebrating Christmas on the 24th is everything is still OPEN! I woke up early to cook the kids breakfast then after we had our fill we turned up the Christmas music and went to town unwrapping all the gifts! We spent the next hour putting everything together and letting the kids play then it was onto Atlanta!

Did you know that on the 24th of December the High Museum of Atlanta has free admission?!?! Score. 

We ran a few errands which included Ikea for lunch and to the Green Egg "mother ship" store for charcoal and somehow walked out with a new medium size green egg (I'm still not completely sure how this happen) and then to the museum!!!

Nash was all over the place. Like, I thank the Lord he didn't end up costing us thousands with the way he kept trying to TOUCH EVERYTHING! I think I had at least three mini heart attacks...but Mas loved it, especially the really old pieces.

Posing in front of honest Abe!

Nash just before he tried to lift the painting off the wall...mini heart attack number one.

Nash's face in this picture is priceless.

Abstract family photo

Mas doing a little painting!

Nash painting!

After all our running around in Atlanta we headed to our Christmas Eve services at church, the music and gospel were great but the best part was at communion. Vince had taken Nash to the bathroom right before it started so when we began Mas asked me if he could go up with me to get communion. I told him he could but that he needed to talk to his Daddy when he got back so that he understood exactly what he was participating in. By the time Vince got back we had come back to our seats, Vince explained how important this moment was and then they said the sinner's pray. It was the best gift Mas could have given us! Mas took his very first communion and his respond to it all was "Why didn't you tell me all this earlier?" Followed by "The blood wine juice was the best"...he is such a goofball. But we are so very proud of him, we could not ask for anything more as his parents then him to grow up following the ways of Christ. 

It was a blessed Christmas indeed!

Ohio Christmas!

What a world wind weekend it was, filled with good food, lots of gifts and laughter with family! We’re back from our super quick trip up to Ohio and what a great time we had, the boys got to see a little bit of snow and we all got to take a ride to the North Pole on the Polar Express. It was the cutest thing ever to see Mas and Nash get to spend time with their cousin Wesley (Dubs as we call him) who we sadly do not get to see as much as we would like! The three of them sat shoulder to shoulder for the train ride and seeing their faces light up when we “arrived” at the North Pole, seeing all the lights was just so sweet! Mason was such a good cousin, playing with Dubs and loving on him too. Nash…well let’s just say Dubs and Nash may have had a few wrestling matches between them…but what can you do! They still played well together, I think it was just momentary lapses in mood base on limited to no naps being had.

The boys made out like bandits!

So.Many.Gifts.

We had to check a completely separate bag to get them all home!

We’re now preparing for our smaller, much calmer Christmas at home, doing some fun activities Christmas Eve and then Saturday I’m taking the boys to see the Marvel’s Live Superhero show here in Atlanta!

In other completely awesome news, my parents are officially moving closer to us!!! They received an offer on their house down in West Palm which is set to close the end of January and have a contract on a house in High Springs, North Florida which is about 15 miles from Gainesville. This will put them only about 3 ½ hours from us!!! I see many weekend trips to grandma and grandpa’s house in the boys future! We are all so excited!

Also, Vince and I have finally made the decision to “go big or go home” for our fifth wedding anniversary in 2016. Ireland, Germany and Prague…here we come!!! Vince has already been to Ireland but I’ve always wanted to go. If anyone has ever been to Germany or Prague and has any tips, advice or any other things we should know, please share!

And now…some pictures from our trip!

 

These three handsome boys!

 

Waiting for the tain to get moving!

 

Nash with his Papio! These two are so cute together.

 

I love that my sister-in-law got them all matching pajamas!

 

Nash telling Santa how naughty his brother was this year ;)

 

All three of them FINALLY passed out!

 

Playing in the little bit of snow we received.

 

Grandma and Grandpa teaching Nash how to get into the cake...

 

Early Christmas at the great-grandparents & Auntie's house!

 

Early Christmas at grandma and grandpa's house!

 

Playing with my sweet nephew Dubs ;)

 

Nash...having a mini meltdown that I finally cut him off from the never-ending supply of candy and chocolate donuts at the great-grandparents house. At this moment, his world was ending...LOL!

 

Look at what a stud he is! My heart, he is turning into such a handsome thing!

 

Nash was so excited to visit grandpa Vince at the fire station!

 

My Christmas present this year from my love and the boys, been looking at this for a while now and am so happty with how they came out!

 

 

MERRY CHRISTMAS !!!!

 

 



Be sure to drink your Ovaltine!

Christmas is less than 15 days away! I swear this holiday gets so much more exciting once you have children. I love all the different opportunities we have as parents to start new traditions, continue old ones and really just being able to be a big kid again with your kids! We’ve been busy wrapping presents, counting down the days with our elf “Rez” and counting up our advent tree calendar! It is so awesome that Nash can really start to get into it this year as well, he was mesmerized by the Christmas lights Mr. Griswold put up for us and laughed his ass off when the squirrel jumped from the tree and chased the family. He even laughed when Randy started eating his meatloaf squealing like a pig!  I am of course referring to Christmas Vacation and A Christmas Story which thank God BOTH boys love! There has also been a lot of Home Alone 1 & 2 as well as Planes, Trains & Automobiles on consist repeat at our house, but tis the season!

Our holidays are kicking into gear early with a trip to Ohio the weekend before Christmas to celebrate with Vince’s family! That same week I also have a quick trip to Nashville for business which combined with packing and preparing my desk for my days away from the office should make for a very stressful week! I’m excited to get away though and hoping to see a little snow while we’re up there as well!

We’ve also finally finished all of our Christmas shopping, it was a little challenging this year with the boys but we ended up getting Mas the telescope and a basketball hoop for the driveway along with some other smaller gifts. He also got my year old Kindle Fire since I upgraded to the Kindle Voyager and Nash got Mas’s old iPad passed down to him. Nash also got a bunch of small gifts, which consisted of ninjas and fire fighters. For both boys we got them the “big” gift of the outdoor theater for the back deck so that we can watch our movies outside by the fire! I think they will both be happy with this year’s assortment of presents.

I ordered my own Christmas gift this year since it required my ring size and I wanted to make sure it was engraved just the way I wanted it. As for Vince, he of course says he doesn’t want anything and honestly he kind of has everything that currently peaks his interest…I mean he has every accessory available for the Green Egg Grill and everything he could possible need at the moment to brew his beer. I do think in the near future we may build a nice Kegerator for him but he doesn’t feel like he needs it just yet so I am stumped on what to get him…I’m keeping an eye out online for any last minute ideas and/or deals but at this point I've got nothing!

I also managed to get the Christmas gifts made for Mason’s teacher and Nash’s sitters this past weekend! It was a Pinterest project and I am very happy with how they came out! I also added some hot dark chocolate mix, marshmallows, Hershey’s kisses and candy canes to complete the gift! I know it would be a MILLION times easier to just buy a gift but for some reason I just think it means more to make them…or make as much of them as possible.

Well it’s time to tackle this crazy busy week ahead of me so that we can get our asses up north to hopefully celebrate an early white Christmas with family!

 

Teacher's Christmas gifts!

 

The boys trying to figure out which Christmas movie to watch next!

Our elf Rez is in full swing Christmas countdown mode!

 

We also went to the Black Keys concert last week and Nash (of course) LOVE it!

The Christmas Eve present is ready! We'll let them open this on Christmas Eve and they spend the evening munching on the goodies, playing with the toys and watching the movies!

 

 

Thanksgiving 2014!

Oh.my.God.

Is it really December?!?! Where has this year gone! Apparently it has blew pass me and I am actually okay with that, I am honesty ready for 2015. I have a feeling that it is going to be a great year for our family and I am excited for it to just get here.

Our Thanksgiving was pretty low key (which was perfectly fine with me), it started out with a nice big cup of coffee while sitting in the living room, the kids rolling around on the floor watching cartoons and me just watching them (those little silent moments in life that are wonderful, sometimes it's nice to just stop and watch).

After about two and a half episodes of...I actually have no idea what kind of cartoon they were watching...it was a little trippy though. It was onto cooking! And by "cooking" I mean green bean casserole, regular green beans and an eclair cake dessert. Since green bean casseroles are probably one of the easiest items to make I don't even consider it "cooking" and my dessert didn't require any baking at all so it was a pretty stress-free Thanksgiving in my kitchen! I was done by 10 am.

It was a pretty lazy day around our house, I was able to get some cleaning done and some laundry moved around, our Thanksgiving dinner was not until 6 which was nice (I always think it's odd to eat dinner at noon on Thanksgiving... I mean I get the whole "grazing" thing for the rest of the day but then it doesn't even feel like dinner). We went over to our good friend's home to have dinner with their family and let the kids wear each other out (double win).

Thanksgiving Day Family Picture

We were suppose to be heading down to Orlando the Saturday after Thanksgiving but unfortunately the family who offered us the free pack admission tickets was unable to come through on their end so we cancelled the trip and decided to redecorate our master bedroom instead (and when I say "we" I really mean "me" since my husband does not paint. But just so he doesn't lose any street cred he did help hang some shelves and the new drapes). It was also still a win for Mason, because he was invited by his best friend and their family to Six Flags for the day and he had a blast.

It was also time to break out our elf! Slight name change over last year, Mason no longer wanted to call him General but instead Rez...so Rez made his first appearance and I am so excited this year that Nash can particapate in the fun too!

Next up on our busy schedule is countless holiday parties...a Black Keys concert...quick trip up to Ohio and CHRISTMAS!

Oh...and our 4th Wedding Anniversary!