Santa visited our house and left a few surprises for the kiddos~
Ava was just as happy as could be. She and I had a little quite time early Christmas morning. She gave me the most wonderful gift - a full night of sleep, a smile and a coo.
While Wyatt is still a little too young to anticipate Santa's arrival, he certainly got the idea when he came down that morning!
Marnier, Grady and Poppop arrived later in the morning. We had such a nice morning. Started it off with our traditional mimosas with ham and cheese croissants. Followed by a marathon present opening session. This was also Ava's first time meeting her 3Pop!
Trying to catch up here, the blog got away from me with all the holiday stuff going on.
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Another crazy holiday season... We started off with a trip to PA. This was Ava's first major trip and she was stellar! Lil' Peanut slept from Chester to Deb & Al's house, it was almost too easy!
I'm so glad we got to spend a few days up North. Wyatt got to play with all his cousins and grab some love from the grandparents, aunts and uncles. Ava got to meet all of the extended family for the first time.
The schedule was packed with holiday events. Saturday was a family Christmas party. Jenny got the gift of the year from Chipper, a new Nikon camera! Needless to say I had so much fun playing with her new toy I now realize I don't have one picture of the family party of my own :(
Sunday was a trip to Hershey Park. Wyatt LOVED the amusement park. I think he's going to be a little roller coaster man! While we were there Ava got to spend a little 'getting to know you' time with Mimi the Great and Baba.
This video is of Wyatt's first amusement park ride and he and his cousins having a ball on some of the other attractions. What great memories we made that day!
Monday morning (Christmas Eve) we finished exchanging gifts and enjoyed breakfast before heading home. The trip home was almost as easy as the trip up, except for the sloppy weather. We saw Santa and Mrs. Clause driving south on 95 in a red SUV with SANTA CL on the license plate! I'm not sure who got more excited, me or Wyatt!
We made it home just in time for dinner, a quick change of clothes and off to church we went. I've never missed a Christmas Eve service (except for the year it was canceled by an ice storm) and I wasn't about to start now. After the kids had been cooped up for a 5 hour car ride I should have known that an 8pm service wasn't the best idea... We made it until the peace, which is about when the kiddos lost theirs. We made a b-line for the door and home we went. I least we tried and Wyatt sang Happy Birthday to Jesus.
Wyatt dressed up for church
We tried hard to get a cute sibling picture of these two in their matching pjs, this was as good as it got. This pretty much says it all...
Tonight we FINALLY got to go look at the cabinets, counter tops and hardware for the new house! For weeks now I've been convinced I wanted white cabinets with gray counter tops. All this was in my minds eye for weeks. Seems pretty standard, right? Wrong! FYI-White is an upgrade, boo! So we looked into some other choices and found a beautiful mocha color stain. It's almost black. Pair that with white/gray counter tops and stainless steal knobs... We love it! We looked at granite, but ended up going with laminate counters because they don't have a nice white granite. Evidently that's not a natural tone, better for our pocket book anyway. Hoping this looks as good in person as it does in my head. Its very hard to envision a kitchen design when your sample is 1 x 2 inches.
This is the color of the cabinets we chose, but not the style.
This is the bevel we get.
The hardware we chose is the half circle on the drawers and the round knob on the doors.
We drove out to the new house today and oh man! A lot has changed. We've now got siding up on the whole house and dry wall in all the rooms. It is really starting to look like a home. We've still got a ton of choices to make, but I'm hopeful that we're on the right track! Starting to get really nervous, it looks like the house will be done on time (Jan. 30th), but we still haven't had anyone look at our current house yet! Say a prayer for us that our house either sells or rents! I'm very hopeful that after the holidays things will be looking up and Exton Lane will have a new tenant!
We decided to go to Boulevard Flowers this year for a 1 stop "Christmas Must Have" trip.
Step 1: Find the perfect tree! We're putting it up tomorrow, so only time will tell if we made a good choice.
Step 2: Get pictures with Santa Claus. He was an old co-worker of John's and he played the roll perfectly! Real beard and all :-) I even got to take the pictures! Wyatt told Santa he wanted trucks for Christmas... I think the elves can deliver on that! I'm so proud of both kiddos, no crying at all from either of them. Good job Ava and Wyatt.
This year our family started the Elf on the Shelf tradition. The day after Thanksgiving there was a knock at the door. When we opened it up two presents sat before us. One addressed to Ava & Wyatt and the other to Chris, Cameron & Callie. Chris and Cameron got so excited, ripped it open and yelled with excitement that their elf, Frosty Pancake, had returned from the North Pole.
Somewhere in the midst of all this excitement Wyatt disappeared. Granma found him sitting at the dinning room table eating an entire piece of chocolate cake his Uncle Chris left sitting there while he had to step away for a phone call. That's our Lil'man, never missing an opportunity! So that's where this video begins...
Bob Icecream's first morning where he broke out of the box.
