Christmas with Grandparents

On Christmas day, after lunch, we headed south so celebrate with our families.  We went to the Colliers first for some snacks and present opening.  It was a great time!

Stocking time

Ethan is excited about his new outfit :)

So is Nora! 

Atley and Mama

Ethan and Grandma Karen with the Lego box he really wanted!

Opening more presents

Grandma Karen and Atley

We spent Sunday afternoon out at the Colliers and before we left we took a family picture.

The Collier Family.  I'm blessed to be a part of this great family!

Friday (Dec 26th), after my brother and his family got into town, we exchanged gifts with that part of our family.

Paige, Shannon and Nora

Abby, watching Nora excitedly open her "stocking" from Grandma Terri and Pop

Happy Ethan!

Alex, Abby, Shannon and Jim

My handsome hubby!

Mama-Nora selfie

Uncle Jim and Atley

After my Uncle Bruce and family and Grandpa got into town on Saturday, we had another little gift exchange and the 1st annual Blair family ping pong tournament!!

Waiting patiently!

Socializing and enjoying family time

Abby and Alex made up the bracket and paired up the teams for our ping pong tournament.  Everyone played and everyone (as far as I know) had a great time! Check out some action shots!

Jim and Tyler (they beat Abby and I in the first round...boo!)

Nice form, Abby!

Bruce Sr and Bruce Jr

We needed more warm-up time ;).

The Champions...Mom and Jared!

Alex and Bruce Jr. 

I love these 2!  Grandpa Bob and my Dad

4 generations playing some ping pong!

On Sunday after church, we took a Blair family picture outside.  We are missing my sister, Sarah and her family, but everyone else made the photo!

L-R,: Paige, Tyler, Jim, Josiah, Shannon, Alex, Abby, David, Terri, Grandpa Bob, Jeanne R,  Bruce Sr., Jeanne B, Taylor, Bruce Jr., Shea, Ethan, Jared, Atley, Becky, Nora

Christmas Morning

We had Christmas morning at home with our family of 5.  It was so nice!  The kids woke up around 7 and we all (except Atley, she was still asleep) went out to the living room together to see what Santa had left.  Then we had Christmas breakfast.  For as long as I can remember, we had sausage twirls and sticky buns on Christmas morning, so I've carried on the tradition!

Checking out some fun stuff 

Happy kids!

Atley Jane on her first Christmas with her first baby!

Nora, modeling her new hat and dancing with Minnie

Eating our traditional Christmas breakfast!

Sausage twirls and sticky buns

Christmas Eve

I'm trying to get caught up!  We attended the Christmas eve services at our church and it was very nice.  Christmas Eve church is one of my favorite things to do during the Christmas season.  All 5 of us sat together in 'big church' and enjoyed a great service.
I took a few pictures before we headed to church.

I love these 3, so so much!!

Beautiful Nora

Handsome Ethan

Loving on each other {a rare occurrence some days ;)}

The 5 of us!  (plus the elf)

We received some indoor snowballs, so naturally we had to have a snowball fight after we changed into pjs.

Ethan in action!

A little scary...

Nora had a blast too!

And right before bed, we got things all ready for Santa and his reindeer.  Ethan had gotten some reindeer food from school, so we had to sprinkle it in the yard.  And of course, Santa needed his milk and cookies out and ready!  We also read the Christmas story from Luke and enjoyed a very nice Christmas eve as a family!

Sprinkling the reindeer food

All done...and very excited!!

My little Santas :)

Milk and cookies are out!

Finishing the night with the Christmas Story from Ethan's Bible

2014 Decor and Gingerbread Houses

I finally got around to taking some pictures of our Christmas decorations this year.  I like to have something to look back at to see what I've done in the past.  Here's what Christmas (decorations) looks like at our house!

On the first day of Ethan's break, I had planned to make gingerbread (with graham crackers) houses with the kids.  It was a hit!  They loved it and did a great job.  They each had their own little house, icing bag and bowl of candy.  Nora might have eaten more of her candy than made it on her house...but she had fun!

Serious candy placer

And the serious icing piper

Ethan and his finished product!

Nora and hers!

I found the idea and "how to" here.

Church and Christmas Lights

We went to church tonight and had some pretty sharply dressed kids, so I snapped a few pictures before changing into pj's for the night.

We have some goofy kids!

Love them!!

All 3!
(Atley had a blow-out and had to be changed immediately upon arrival home)

Sweet N!  She got a haircut today :)!

Ethan begged to wear a tie tonight.  Who could resist this handsome kid!

Our good friends, the Talty's, have a "Polar Express" tradition where they surprise their kids after putting them to bed with treats and a drive around town to look at Christmas lights.  We decided take a page from their book and after we got the kids all ready for bed, we told them to get in the car so we could go see some lights!  They were excited!

Chima Ethan!  (He went to a Chima bday party today and came home with a mask)

She's excited!

All ready to go!

There is a house in town that has quite the show!  They have their lights synced up with music, so when you drive by you turn your car radio to a certain station and watch the lights dance along with the music.  It was very cool!  We all enjoyed it!!

Very colorful!!
(I didn't take this picture.  I took it from their Facebook page.)

Golf

Ethan has been going to golf class for the last 6 weeks at the DISC (Decatur Indoor Sports Center).  He's done these classes before, but this year I really feel like they are actually teaching him something.  He's had fun and it's been fun to watch him.

Working in the simulator

Indoor driving range!

Putting to finish his virtual hole

Here's are a few clips from his golf class this year.

Tummy Time

Atley is growing and changing so fast!  We've been trying to get some tummy time in each day (although, we fail some days).  She likes it for a while, but I can tell she's getting stronger!

Such a big girl!

So strong and looking around.

And...she's over it!