Christmas with the Family

We started off our Christmas celebration with Mom and Smith coming to town.  The family came to our house on Christmas Eve, and we decorated sugar cookies. 

We had dozens of cookies to decorate, and most of us, usually, just decorate them very quickly.  Smith has always been the one who takes his cookie decorating very seriously.  He will only decorate a couple of cookies, but those cookies will be works of art!  This year, we had Neely with us, and she surprised us with her cookie decorating skills and gave Smith a run for his money.

Afterwards, we all went to our church's Christmas Eve service.  Then we came home and got ready for Santa to visit.

Sims was definitely spoiled with all the gifts that he was given this year.  Santa brought him a kitchen and many kitchen accessories.

Currently, Sims has a nicer kitchen than we do.  Give us a couple of months though!

As you can see, he also received a raccoon figurine (along with other North American animals), a Carolina Hurricanes sweater and a doll stroller, which he promptly used to take "Jennifer" for a ride.  Have I mentioned that he renamed his Grinch doll Jennifer.  He loves Jennifer, and she is one Christmas toy that did not get put up with the rest of the Christmas decorations. 

I was also very spoiled and even received a kitchen sink.

Of course, this is the one we will start using in less than 2 weeks, when our kitchen will be gutted.  We will be forced to clean dishes in the bath tub with our new kitchen sink.

We spent the rest of Christmas Day at Alex and Neely's hanging out with my family and overeating.

Then we headed to Charlotte to be with Jason's family for a few days.

While we were there, we went to the Discovery Place,

helped Tina make some big decisions on coats by recreating her daily experience of riding the Tube in London,

and tried out different moustaches. 

You know, the usual.

We had a great Christmas, and we got back in time to do nothing for New Year's Eve, which was exactly what we wanted.  I hope you all had wonderful holidays, too!

Santa at the Art Museum

The week before Christmas we met some good friends at the art museum for their Christmas family event.  We all had a lot of fun just being together and watching the kiddos play.  Santa was there, and Sims and Violet got to visit with him.  Since this was Sims' second time to see Santa this year, he just walked straight up to him with no fear at all.

Sims' lack of fear encouraged Violet to visit with Santa, too.  We were all happy to get a picture of them with such happy, silly smiles.

As we were leaving Santa, Sims ran back to give Santa a hug.  Sorry this picture is fuzzy.  It's the best I could do in such a quick moment.

The Santa at the art museum is really great, and I would keep coming back year after year just to see him.

Christmas Pageant

We had a wonderful Christmas and holiday season.  It was so fantastic that I have been too busy to post any updates for a while.  I am in the process of fixing that.  I will be in overdrive this week to catch everyone up on our last few weeks of 2011.

A couple of weeks before Christmas, Sims was a lamb in our church's Christmas pageant.  We were happy that he was allowed to be in the pageant at 2 and a half years old, when most of the kids start at age 3.  We felt that he was ready, and he definitely seemed to be.  I'm sure it helped that he had his good buddy Amelia as a lamb with him.  He pretty much just followed whatever Amelia did.

Sims is in the front row in the center.

One of Sims' older friends, Mary Katherine, was an angel, and Sims still talks about Mary Katherine being an angel.  Many times when he seems a drawing of an angel in a book, he calls it Mary Katherine.

During rehearsal, Sims and Amelia made themselves comfortable in the church aisle.  Amelia laid down in the aisle, and her shadow had to follow her!


They had so much fun together!

Holiday Express

I can't believe that it's almost Christmas, and I haven't posted anything about all of our holiday activities!  We have been very busy and had a nice Christmas season so far.  Our first event for the season was the Holiday Express at Pullen Park.  Pullen Park is all shiny and brand new after being closed for a year and a half for renovations.  We were really excited to see what the new and improved park was like. 

The new park is beautiful! We rode the train and the carousel twice.  We did some crafts, listened to Christmas music and ate dinner and some goodies.

I loved that the carousel wasn't all horses.  There were all kinds of animals.  We got to ride these on our last ride.

Luckily, it didn't give Sims any ideas at home with our cats!  I was also glad that Sims didn't notice that one of the cats had a bird in his mouth.  I'm not sure if he's ready for that.  He definitely loves birds.

One of the highlights of the night was seeing Santa.  Sims was so great with him.  He didn't talk to Santa, but he, at least, nodded when asked if he had been a good boy this year.



This wasn't Sims' only visit to Santa this year, and I will share some pictures of that later.  I think Pullen Park's Holiday Express may be an annual event for us.  We all really enjoyed it, despite the cold temperatures.  That just made the hot cider taste even better!

Fallen Leaves

As much as Jason and I dread cleaning up the leaves in the fall, Sims sure enjoys every moment of it.

I remember loving to play in a huge pile of leaves, when I was little, too.  Of course, I wasn't the one having to do all the work.  Watching Sims play does make the whole project seem a lot more bearable though.

Thanksgiving in Shelby

We were in Shelby for Thanksgiving Day, and we had a huge dinner with all of my mom's family.  We don't get to see them often, so it is always a treat to be with them and have Sims get to know them. 

The day after Thanksgiving we went to the city park and rode the beautiful carousel and train.

That morning, Smith and Sims went for a walk down the street.  They talked with some of the neighbors, and Sims came back saying, "I have new neighbors."  It was too cute!

Ready for their walk

Thanksgiving in Charlotte

We had a wonderful and relaxing Thanksgiving.  We celebrated on Wednesday in Charlotte with Jason's family, then we went to Shelby on Thursday to celebrate with my family.  It sounds really busy, but it was actually really laid-back.

While we were in Charlotte, we visited the Charlotte Nature Museum, which was lots of fun.  It is a small museum, but is was perfect for an afternoon visit before our big Thanksgiving dinner.  We started our visit with a puppet show about a bear who decides that he wants to celebrate Christmas, so his friends wake him up from hibernating in time to celebrate.  Santa even visits the animals in the forest, which was a big hit with the kids, as you might imagine.



This was Sims' first puppet show, and he seemed to enjoy it.  When Santa came out, all of the kids exploded with excitement.  Even though Sims can be quite stoic when he encounters new experiences, he definitely showed a little excitement at seeing Santa.  He's finally getting the whole Santa thing, I think.

Looking at the turtles

Pretty much the entire time at the museum, I'm sure that Sims looked up to see me with the camera to my face and Jason with the video camera.  I guess this will be his view of us at every event for many years to come.


Outside the museum, we found what we could only assume was a fairy house with pumpkins all around it.  Sims loved to pretend-eat the pumpkins.


Then we headed back home for Thanksgiving dinner.  We were sad that some of the family couldn't make it, since our nephew wasn't feeling well.  They definitely missed a delicious meal!