Christmas Reel

Can it be, has December 25th already come and gone? Trash bags full of toddler torn wrapping paper and recycling bins brimming with toy boxes-it's true, Christmas has come!

 

This year we enjoyed every ounce of the holiday with our boys. We began the season with shoeboxes participating in Operation Christmas Child, baked our fair share of holiday sweets, decorated sugar cookies with friends, enjoyed a fun fellowship dinner and Christmas service with our church family, and were spoiled by a wonderful visit from Grandma.

Christmas Eve brought first sips of hot chocolate, a special viewing of "The Polar Express" and our traditional birthday cake for Jesus. At 2 and a half, Evan was super fun this year and a ball of Christmas cheer.

We spent Christmas morning at our house, where Evan opened his favorite gift-his mater monster trucks! We bought the boys this circus tent from Ikea as a joint present and that was a huge hit. Evan loves to play in it and was especially cute hoarding all his presents in there lol. But, even the tent was not enough to contain his excitement...as you can see below, my camera can barely capture it!

 

After opening gifts at our house with Grandma, Grandpa Tim and aunt Paige, we headed over to the great grands in Wilson for lunch. Of course, I left my camera at home but blog assured, it was a great time with Chris' family. :-)

Next, we headed onto Goldsboro for Christmas with Gigi and Poppy! Three grandbabies in Christmas pajamas and an Ipad surprise made for an amazing Christmas. Not to mention how excited I still am over my new sewing machine-thank you Mrs. Claus aka mama!

(Yes, my dad's got the paci's in his mouth!)

 

One of the best parts of Christmas this year for me was seeing and spending time with family. We were able to get together with awesome aunts and uncles we don't usually see much, had a great time with Grandma in town and also were able to share Christmas with my sister and baby Jake this year. We are truly blessed!

  

Time to go relax in some cozy Christmas pj's!

Evan-isms

"Nock-a-lers....I see you!"

Here we are in the middle of December, and I just wanted to take a quick moment in the midst of all the hollidazzle to jot down some fun "Evan-isms" lest we forget how darn cute 2 and half can be.

First of all, Evan is really getting into superhero's and all things rescue related. Most notably, firetrucks and policemen. Chief Evan is all about saving and rescuing, and is likely to be heard yelling "rescue meee!!!!" from the top of the stairs at any given hour of the day.

Thanks to mommy and Team Umi-Zoomi, he is all about counting these days, and often says "Count (with) me!" to just about everything. Also, he's turning into quite the manners man and often says "please, thank you and your welcome" unprompted.

His favorite things are cars and chicken nuggets. Below are a few pics from Wilson's annual Whirlygig festival last month-a visit from the Chic Fil A cow and a real live car were the highlights of his day.

Because we're potty training and not above bribing/rewarding successful potty times, gummy bears are his new favorite candy. "Yaayyyyyyy....gummmyyy bearssss!!!"

Like the "Cars" character Lightning Mcqueeen, Evan's favorite color was always red. Now, I've noticed he's gotten to the age where things like favorite colors change every day(more like every hour). It's pretty adorable-until it comes to food-and then it's pretty frustrating!

Other cute Evan-isms...
"Ooospie Daisy"
"Ohh myy!"
"Don't worry" (As in, if the batteries in his chuck truck are dead..."don't worry, I fix it")
"Slippy slidey"
"to the rescue!"(On that note, he can imitate just about any specific siren sound)
Where he used to say "Ready, set, goooo" he now says "Gentlemen, start you egines!"

Favorite songs-Michael Buble's "Jingle Bells" and Mark Broussard's "Emily."
He calls his brother "B bear" just like us, and has also assigned the family animal names. Evan is the rabbit(except at gymnastics, when he turns into a monkey while hanging on the rings.), daddy's a horse and mommy is the mouse. Not sure how I got stuck with that one!

There are many other fun things he says but for now, I'm glad to have taken a second to write these down. Kids really do say the darndest things.

First day, December

I'm linking to one of my favorite blog stops this week for "first days." Basically, here's a look at what the Scott family was up to on the first day of December.

To start, a lazy Saturday morning filled with Team Umi Zoomi cartoons, playing cars, and a tiny two year old tandrum(not pictured).

I usually grocery shop on Friday mornings, but as our busy week would have it, we took a family trip on Saturday instead! First to Harris Teeter and then to Food Lion...since this is my maiden journey with "first days" I wasn't as vigilant to keep my camera with me-if I remember January I will document better! Evan is pretty adorable pushing his "customer in training" cart. Of course, as luck would have it we forgot his shoes and so he was cart bound-just imagine the picture here.  Note to self, you really can't leave shoes at home when your kiddo is 2 and a half. ;-)

Earlier in the morning Chris kindly informed me that the microwave was in desperate need of a deep cleaning. To be fair, it was pretty gross. So, cleaned it was!

 I had not one but two sweet baby showers on my calendar for this weekend. Here's my super cute shopping buddy at Target-did the red cart give us away?

The first day of December also brought the Wilson Christmas parade. This is our third year going and Evan was especially into the candy this year. It was 65 degrees today, I'm not sure December got the memo...

And last but not least here are two random snapshots from the day-cream cheese iced cupcakes and the start of operation Christmas present wrapping.

Happy first day of December!