All Things Christmas!

Warning...this is a long post!! it's way overdue of all our Christmas fun from last week!!
It started out on the 22nd going to see Santa at a house in tanglewood (the roddams if you are from vestavia and know them) and it was SO fun! They have dancing elves, snowmen, etc and you drive through to see santa! He even gives stuffed animals to the kiddos at the end! precious!! The elves give him a heads up about the names of the children so by the time you come by, Santa is talking to them and knows them by name. Precious!!! These first pictures are when we got home...Wells slept with his reindeer for the week!

Next up was Christmas Eve night at my Mom and Dad's house. We went to a children's Christmas service at 4, then went to their house to do gifts with the cousins. So fun! Max (my nephew) was thrilled with his T-Rex and Iron Man gifts!!

Here is Wells riding his BIG FOUR-WHEELER from mom and dad. He LOVES it and rides all over the house all hours of the day. He is getting good at steering!

Claire got her own princess ride-on toy. She loves it when her brother isn't stealing it. I'm thinking she is not going to be the princess type since she squeals when football comes on the tv and she pushes trucks all over the house! My girl!

This collage is Christmas morning!! Claire's big gift from Santa was her new chair! She always wanted Wells' so santa brought her a chair too! They got a kitchen to share and Wells got a laptop (leap frog laptop...not a real one, don't worry!) They also got placemats, and some other fun things! Santa is a little more practical at our house!! :) Chris laughed that there were bandaids and glasses cleaner in Claire's stocking! Hey, needs vs. wants, right?!

The next collage is from brunch at Robyn's Christmas morning. We always go over to her house to let the cousins play and match on Christmas morning! They share their santa stories and go crazy with new toys! The only way we could get pictures of all four together was to put on a Cedarmont Kids music video (and if you've never heard of these you need them! precious and the kids could watch them 100 times over...or at least we have...they are found at Lifeway Christian store). You can see them doing the motions to "wheels on the bus" in some of the pics...even claire does them! It's hilarious!!!

Next up, was Christmas night at Chris' parents house with his mom's side of the family. We always have a blast. Uncle Kyle gave wells these awesome cowboy boots. He loves his uncle kyle and is in love with these boots! They are REALLY nice boots! He hasn't mastered walking in them yet though.

Yaz and Papa gave him all sorts of goodies, but his favorite was the Llama that he named Captain. He has a slight obsession with llamas. It all started with the "Llama, llama red pajama" book series and it carried on to "captain" the Llama at the Birmingham Zoo. Captain knows Wells since we go once a week! Thank you Yaz for our zoo pass!!! So now he sleeps with his own llama.

Claire got two different dolls and LOVES them. She says "baby" to any doll she sees and hugs/kisses all of them. These are twin dolls that hug each other. That is papa holding her.

Here is Wells with Dance Star Mickey. This is a HIT in our house. Claire and Wells push him all day and they dance right along with him. He sits on our fire place and truly gets played with most of the day!

Here is Claire with her doll that bounces up and down and giggles. Perfect for Claire! Claire giggles often! (does that remind you of anyone?!)

And of course, how could I show you all these pictures without some WHITE Christmas photos!! This is at my parents house on Christmas day. It didn't stick at our house until the 26th, but 5 miles up the hill, here is my parents' house! That cool swing set/house was just built for all the grandkids! They are pumped!!! What a fun Christmas gift for us all! I'm afraid mom and dad won't be able to get rid of all the grandkids now!

Here is our house on the 26th. Claire was still asleep and we didn't get her out in it anyways b/c of ear infections. Wells played for about 10 minutes and that was it! He said it was "too cold!"

They decided to sit in their chairs to watch the snow outside instead!

Claire was in total awe of the snow!

Then our Christmas festivities ended last night when we went to Zoolight Safari at the Birmingham Zoo. It is always so much fun! There are TONS and TONS of lights throughout the zoo. The train becomes the "holiday express" and that is the highlight for the kids. We went with Robyn (my sister), Charles and the kids. What a freezing, but fun night! Oh, and of course the petting zoo was open and we got to see Captain, our precious Llama friend....who spits!

This was an amazing Christmas! We thank God for all the many joys of this Christmas season and we are so thankful that Wells looked forward to reading about Baby Jesus every night and he loved the advent wreath! We pray each year the kids will really "get" Christmas a little bit more. We hope you had a joyful Christmas as well!