Merry Christmas!

Celebrating Christmas this year was B-U-S-Y, but wonderful!  

We started off by leaving as soon as Jason got off on Thursday and headed to TN.  That night we had dinner and presents at Nana Portia and Pa Mike's.

Jayden and Chase were SO excited with their new xbox games.

Kobe had asked for these boots for months... and he was a happy guy when he got them.

Jessie sporting her new North Face jacket... and looking adorable as always :)

Nana hanging out with her little buddy, Sophie Grace

Jason got a very special gift... most guys would never want an old bowl, but this one is VERY special to him.
His grandmother made his favorite banana pudding in this same bowl ever since he was little and then she gave it to his mom who has done the same thing for him.
So now his mom said she wanted to make sure she gave it to him so he'd always have it...
you can see he was quite happy with it!

7 grand~kiddos

a great picture of all the kids with Pa Mike and Nana

... and all that was just Thursday night!

On Friday we had another big celebration at Pa Jerry and Nana Char's house.

Jason and Casey

Presents galore!

Brooklyn and Sydney... such cute little cousins!

Saturday morning- Christmas Eve- we woke up, packed up, and headed back to GA.

These two woke up happy and thankfully traveled perfectly...
they slept the whole time both ways!

Christmas Eve night the Pastricks came over for our annual holiday prime rib feast... delicious! 

Nanni and Papa joined us and then we got things ready for Santa Claus to come!!

I really didn't expect Brooklyn to "get it" completely this year, but was I wrong!

She was so excited about Santa Claus coming...

we left food for Rudolph and the reindeer
(and had to make her go back inside and quit looking in the sky for them)

we made cookies and left them on the fireplace with a glass of milk...
Brooklyn kept looking up the chimney and saying "Santa, where are you?!"
So while we were putting the cookies out,
Papa snuck outside and knocked on the house...
Brooklyn jumped in her daddy's arms so fast and yelled "I hear him!!!"

Christmas morning was so sweet and so fun watching Brooklyn get so excited with her new toys ~ which was really not even that much, but I guess to a 2-year old it looked pretty impressive :)

After opening presents, we went to my Nana's house for breakfast.  I look forward to that each year... she makes it so special. 

The ONLY picture I have from Nana's house... happy, little Sophie with Papa.

And normally, we would head to my Grandma's house for dinner, but unfortunately she was admitted to the hospital the night before, so we missed getting to do that.  And I felt so bad for my Grandma, I know that she would have never gone to the hospital on Christmas unless she was really sick... I know it broke her heart to not be able to have her house filled with her family on Christmas day; but I'm glad she took care of herself and she's doing better now :)

And since we couldn't squeeze it all into one day, we had a small dinner with Nanni and Papa the day after Christmas.  (And I don't have a single picture from that day!)  But it was SO enjoyable.  Such a nice way to wrap up a busy weekend of celebrating!

In the middle of all the new toys and big boxes and excitement, I want so badly to teach our girls that Christmas is about JESUS above all... and the blessing of being surrounded with such a loving family.