Happy New Year! I can't believe 2015 is over and we are already 4 days into 2016. It feels like the year just flew by - lots of highs, several lows, and a whole lot of regular every day life in between. I'm excited to see what 2016 will bring, but first, let's talk Christmas! It was a great week leading up to Christmas with lots of time spent with family.
First up - on Tuesday I finally got to drive my new minivan! We got all the license stuff taken care of and got it detailed and fresh for our family. There are a few things I want to get looked over by Christian Brothers, but I'll probably make an appointment for next week when the boys are back to school. On the top of that list is the radio and AUX cable ... music is important, man!
Tuesday was also SuSu's birthday and I was in charge of making the cake. It's a Smith family tradition - yellow butter cake and a homemade fudge frosting. It is so, so good...especially with ice cream!
Delicious!!
We went over to Justin and Courtney's house to celebrate and these two lovebugs cuddled in the glider. These two love each other so much!
SuSu with her Texas grandbabies!
Singing "Happy Birthday" to SuSu.
We love SuSu so much - and loved celebrating with her!
On Christmas Eve Courtney came over with Kylee and Kinsley and we had lots of fun playing together! The kids ate cake pops, made gingerbread houses, and did a little Christmas tree craft. We hung out together until it was time to go to the Christmas Eve service at our church.
The trees...so beautiful! ;)
The kids did pretty darn good at the Christmas Eve service at church considering there's a lot of talking and time they need to be quiet. They had fun and this was our best family pic from church that day...haha!
Then we headed home and ate a simple dinner and set out cookies and milk for Santa and the kids went to bed around 7pm. I hadn't wrapped any presents yet even though my goal this year was to have them all wrapped by December 1. FAIL. So we stayed up wrapping and getting things ready for Christmas morning.
Santa brought Conner a TMNT van with all the turtles. He loved it!
Conner opening his stocking ... I really didn't take many pictures on Christmas morning ... I was too busy enjoying the moments. Although I saw an idea for next year to capture moments throughout the morning in the background that I'd love to try. Set your camera up on a tripod the night before with all the right settings and then set it up to take pictures on intervals. You can capture the scene of all the members of the family and not have to fuss too much over getting specific moments. That's something I'd love to practice this year to prepare for next year.
Hudson got a blue truck he can drive from Santa and he loves it!
After we enjoyed some good family time in the morning we headed over to Justin and Courtney's house for our Smith family Christmas brunch. The kids played outside on their new swingset Santa brought and we ate quiche, french toast casserole, sausages and cheese. It was delicious and we ate too much (as usual) and headed home for naps and an afternoon and evening at home.
The next morning we headed out to MiMi and PawPaw's for our Wright family Christmas! Conner was excited to bring his TMNT along. He couldn't wait to show them to MiMi, PawPaw, and Uncle Brady!
We fed the kids breakfast and then opened presents together as a family. Then we ate a late breakfast of french toast casserole and lil smokies. Yum, yum.
Then after breakfast Jason and I ran a quick errand to Toys R Us while the boys played with MiMi and PawPaw. We lived and learned from Santa that it's best not to wait until Christmas Eve to get everything ready for Christmas morning. He's just such a wise fellow. ;) Anyway, never have I been more thankful that Conner's birthday is a few days after Christmas so we had an extra stash of toys to choose from, as well as time to replenish for his birthday celebration. We took it all in stride and vow to do things differently in 2016. Wrap those presents at the beginning of December!
While we were out shopping I found myself perusing the baby girl clothes (I mean, who wouldn't?) and these rose pj's were just too cute to pass up! My first real baby girl purchase for my sweet little Lorelai Rose. I'm pretty positive there's going to be an underlying "rose" theme in the baby girl things I buy.
We came back to my parents house and cooked traditional Thanksgiving food for our afternoon meal and hung out for the rest of the afternoon. It was a great day with my family!
On Sunday we ended up skipping church because of the bad weather, but watched online. Then Jason headed out to the farm with his brother and dad to unlock the gate for his brother and family arriving from Florida that evening. So, the boys and I hung out at home and played with their new play-doh stuff from Christmas. Hudson played with one of the play-doh trucks we already had and kept saying it had a tail. "Look Mommy! A tail!!"
Then I made some homemade rolls to go along with all our Christmas leftovers ... and they were SO GOOD. We always save these rolls for special occasions, but they were so easy to throw together that I might be making them more often. They are also way less expensive than store-bought.
Monday was Conner's 4th birthday and we celebrated all day long!
It started out with breakfast at Chick-fil-A. Yum, yum, yum.
Then we headed to the mall for a special surprise gift for Conner. I'd been wanting to get him a Toothless stuffed animal for a while, and since his birthday party theme was How to Train Your Dragon, I thought this was the perfect time. The Build-A-Bear Toothless was really sturdy and also a special experience so that's what we did. I was nervous that he'd end up picking a different stuffed animal and it not be as special ... but I should have known better. As soon as we rounded the corner to the entrance of the store, we saw the 30-40 different animals all lined up on the wall and Conner instantly yelled, "Mommy, it's TOOTHLESS!!" How he picked out Toothless from all those other animals is amazing to me and made me feel really good about our special surprise.
Here he is getting Toothless "stuffed" and talking to the lady about his birthday.
So, right after this, she asked him to pick out a heart, so he did. This is him holding his heart. Then she told him to rub the heart, blow on the heart, close his eyes and make a wish on his heart, jump up and down 4 times for his heart to start beating, etc., etc., etc. I wish I had gotten a picture of his face in response to that. It was hysterical. He frowned and said, "I
do not want to do that." And if you know Conner at all ... you know this is typical Conner. We are working on his response to things like this (to be more kind...to just participate if his teacher or someone trustworthy asks, etc.), but every time it happens I have to stifle a laugh because it cracks me up. This phase is HARD ... but so, SO FUN!!
Putting his red heart inside Toothless.
Conner with his very own Toothless!! Happy,
happy birthday, sweet boy!
Then we decided both boys needed a haircut. And actually, you know that frown I was just talking about? Well, here it is in all it's glory... He wasn't a fan of his hair sticking up. ::Sigh::
And then, there's Hudson...I think this lady thought he was older because she was really kind of harsh with his "behavior" while in the chair. He was just being a typical 2 year old. Whatever.
Then we headed home and Hudson took a nap while Jason and I decorated for Conner's birthday party at our house later that evening and Conner played with new Christmas toys. At 3pm we headed to Jump Street to play with his cousins. He had the best time and all the kids played really, really well together! I took zero pictures because I was too busy having fun watching them play and talking with the adults. My parents and Chris and Kylee came to Jump Street, too, along with Jason's brothers and wives, so it was fun to talk to everyone.
Then at 4:30pm we headed back to our house for Conner's party. I made a delectable meal of hot dogs, mac 'n' cheese, salad, fruit and chips and salsa. Conner loved it so that's all that mattered to me. He was my special boy for an entire day and I loved every second of it!
Then we had cake - Target cupcake cakes have never steered me wrong and this was no exception! I had gone to Target a couple weeks ago and asked if they had any How to Train Your Dragon cake toppers and the lady said no, but she'd check the catalog. She ended up ordering the toppers especially for me and told me in the future if there's a topper I wanted that wasn't in the look book to just ask and they can order them. The cupcakes taste delicious and are very reasonably priced! Conner was super excited to have a Toothless toy to play with after the party on the top of his cake!
His sweet face as we sang "Happy Birthday" to him.
Blowing out his candle...
Then it was time for presents and things got a little crazy. It was me and all 6 kids swarming the presents. The fire was on ... so I was burning up! But it was fun to see Conner get excited about all his gifts and play with his cousins.
Our family photo from the party - I told Jason this is the one thing I want for every birthday in our family ... a family picture.
Then on Tuesday we headed over to SuSu and Big B's house for our Smith family Christmas! This was Christmas #3 for us and it did not disappoint! We had some delicious food ... opened presents ... and had a lot of fun together as a family.
Then we headed home for naps and then Conner had his 4-year well check appointment at 4pm. While we waited for the doctor to come in, he passed the time like this...He is getting to be such a BIG BOY!!
Here are his stats: he weighs 40 pounds (85%), is 44.25" (99%) tall, and he rocked the shots like a champ!
After the doctor appointment we headed out to the farm for a big Smith family dinner. Jason and his dad and brothers spent pretty much the whole time outside by the fire while all of us ladies and kids stayed warm inside. The kids played, we talked and then we all ate a delicious dinner! The guys went back outside for round 2 and it was a late night for the kids, but worth it. We aren't all together but once a year ... we gotta make the most of it!
Justin, Barry (Big B), Jason, and Josh
- the Smith men!
We got a picture of all the cousins/grandbabies! It's tough to get 6 kids (4 and under) to smile and look at the camera all at the same time. I think this picture is a really great one, considering... ;)
Then on Wednesday we finally had a day with absolutely no plans, we didn't go anywhere or do hardly anything except hang out together at home and take down the majority of our Christmas decorations and pick up/put away our some of our Christmas loot. I snagged this shot of Hudson during the tear down and I just love it.
I don't know what our Christmas will look like next year with a 4 (almost 5 year old), a 3 year old, and a 9 month old, but I do know that I am very much looking forward to it. Every year since Conner was born I feel like we figure out how we want our holidays to go a little more each year. Some things I learned this year that I plan to consider next year are this:
(1) wrap all of the Christmas presents by December 1 - that was my goal this year that I failed hardcore on ... I wrapped every single present on Christmas Eve after the kids went to bed. FAIL.
(2) plan a time to go see the Trains at Northpark and Vitruvian Park - we didn't do either of these this year and I really wish we had.
(3) schedule at least one (if not two) days where we do nothing
On Thursday, New Year's Eve, we headed outside to try out Conner's bike he got for his birthday and he did GREAT! It's amazing to me how many steps there are to show a kid how to ride a bike ... pedaling, steering, braking, going downhill, going uphill, balancing, etc. Once you know how it's so easy, but explaining each step is a little overwhelming. We just focused on pedaling and steering and are saving the rest for another day. One step at a time, man.
Then just after lunch my parents came over to hang out for New Year's Eve. We made typical New Year's Day food ... so ham, black-eyed peas, cheesy potatoes, fruit salad, and rolls. It was absolutely delicious! We put the kids to bed at 7pm and then started playing games. We played Phase 10 for a while then decided to take a break from the games and play a guessing game with 12 assorted chocolates from Trader Joe's. We did the same thing last year and none of us got any better! It's a lot harder than it looks. But they were delicious, which is all that really matters. ;) After that we decided to try out a new game of ours, Ticket to Ride. It was so fun and took us right up to 11:50pm. We wished each other a "Happy New Year" and called it a night.
We had a great 2015 and look forward to what 2016 has in store!
Happy New Year, friends!!
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