Friday, December 28, 2012

Christmas Break

Christmas break is probably my favorite time of the whole year.  I love having Tony home.  This Christmas break was so relaxing and we enjoyed family time at home. 

Here are our Christmas break highlights:

Playing at the Park

We had pretty warm weather leading up to Christmas.  We started Christmas break off with going to the park. 
throwing rocks in the water
Joey loves family pictures ;)


Making Treats
Charlie helped me make homemade caramels--something I've never done, but wanted to do.  They have always been a favorite of mine.  We took them to friends on Christmas Eve.

stirring caramel

Just hanging around
The majority of our time was spent with the boys wrestling.  I usually just laugh and watch, but when they need a damsel in distress to save, I'm in. 
daddy & the boys video
Daddy makes a really good monster.  They like to "wake him up" and have him chase them.
love bath hair

 
 
Going out to lunch
Thanks Grandma & Papa Gibson for the gift card!



Playing with new toys

They both got a new bath boat


 Going to the movies!

This was our first time at the movies as a family.  We saw Monsters, Inc.  We got a big tub of popcorn and the boys were in total heaven.  We lasted through the whole thing!  It's so weird that we have two kids, both old enough to go to a movie. 
 I kinda freaked the boys out with the flash...oops!

The boys loved having daddy home.  In fact, Joey now wakes up saying, "daaaadeee, daaadee!"  I lost the spot as favorite.  

It has been a great Christmas break.  I love my 3 boys.  

Christmas Day


I felt like a little kid on Christmas morning.  I woke up once at 3, 4, 5 & 6AM.  A little after 6, Tony rolled over and whispered to see if I was awake.  I guess both of us couldn't sleep!  With really little kids, they still sleep like normal so we decided to get out of bed and wait for them to wake up.

They woke up within minutes of each other.  Charlie and I went to get Joey and he was telling me all about how Santa had come and he heard Christmas bells!  A Christmas miracle, I guess :)
Santa followed a Gibson Tradition and wrapped all of his presents in special paper this year.  All of our family presents were in red, but the Santa presents were in blue.  

snacking on pop tarts

Santa put pop tarts in the boys stockings and it's a good thing!  Joey was starving and for the first 10 minutes he only cared about eating his pop tarts.

 little chocolate santas--whoo hoo!

Santa remembered and brought Charlie handcuffs.  Charlie was over the moon excited!  He really only asked for two things this year--handcuffs and Bucky the pirate ship.  After he opened those two things he was completely content.  It was fun showing him that we had more presents besides the two things he asked for.  

finally getting his "handcubs"
  locking mom up!
Charlie getting his handcuffs video


Santa brought Joey the Fisher Price Barn and a big bag of Mega Blocks
Santa brought lots of new movies
 locking dad up!
Santa put lightsabers in the stockings and they were a big hit

Joey and his new ambulance video

Charlie made daddy a present at his Joy School Christmas party--a popsicle stick Christmas tree ornament.  He was so proud to see his dad open it :)



Charlie & Joey giving mommy gifts


 Charlie and his bucky
notice how there's no wrapping paper in sight?  Yes, Tony throws it away immediately after opening a present...who does that?! jk love ;) kinda
playing in their new teepee!

 Tony makes me a gift every year and this year he included Charlie.  Together they made me this sign!  I started crying when I opened it because I knew how long they had worked on it.  During the week Tony would spend a little bit of time out in the shed and then on the weekends he and Charlie would take a couple hours working.  I could hear lots of hammering so I have been trying to guess, for weeks, what they were working on.  I absolutely love it. 


After we opened presents and had played for a bit, we went to the Gonzalez's home for brunch.  There were 6 families there together.  We had tons of great food!  The kids played together while the adults played games.  It was a ton of fun.  The majority of us live far away from family so it was nice to get together and be each other's family for Christmas day.  I love our sweet friends.

 heading to brunch

We had the rest of the day to play with toys once we got home.  This Christmas was magical.

 playing in the teepee
Dr. Charlie Gibson

This was our first year having a child who believes in Santa.  It was the best year ever.

I'm grateful for the Christmas season.  Of course the excitement of Santa and presents is awesome, but I'm thankful for the time to reflect on our Savior and the events around His birth.  I'm grateful for our Savior.  On Christmas Eve, Tony and I watched some Mormon Messages about Christ's birth.  I was telling him how emotional I was knowing that our children had a Savior.  I don't want them to experience pain--physical or emotional.  I wish I could go through all of that for them, but Christ has.  Because of Him, everything in their life can be made right. 
Loving Charlie & Joey has brought me closer to the Savior.  

Merry Christmas!!!

Christmas Eve

Is there anything better than Christmas Eve?!  On Christmas Eve we did some fun things and a few of our family traditions.

That morning we took some homemade caramels to friends and when we got back we made graham cracker gingerbread houses.  This is one of my favorite family traditions.  Charlie and I made a house together and so did Joey & Tony.  Well, Joey "helped" until we stopped letting him eat the M&M's.  He wasn't interested after that :)

Charlie crushing candy canes for our roof
 Daddy & a chocolate mouthed Joey--I think we had just told him no more m&m's :)
 Me & a chocolate toothed Charlie
 our finished houses

Once Joey was napping, Charlie and I made cookies for Santa Claus!  Charlie helped measure and even scooped out the cookies and arranged them on the baking sheet.  



Making sure Santa will approve!

That night we did our favorite Christmas tradition!  The boys opened new pajamas and a Disney movie from Nana and Papa Messer.  This year we got The Incredibles!  Charlie has been Dash ever since.  We brought dinner out into the family room and ate while we watched the movie.

New Christmas pajamas

We always have a dinner of different appetizers on Christmas Eve.  It's always fun to try a bunch of different little things.  The boys were so absorbed in the movie we had to keep reminding them to eat.

  


Joey was the funniest this year.  He was so excited about everything that night.  He gasped at everything in the movie and screamed with excitement when we put on his pajamas.  It was so surprising that he was the most excited. 


The last half hour of the movie Joey ran laps around the family room and Charlie was jumping off the couch, fighting pretend bad guys and running "super fast."  Boys and super heroes!  


After the movie was over, we brought out all of the Christmas presents and the boys put them under the tree.  We decided to not fight the battle of opening presents early, so they were hidden until tonight.  After the presents were out, it was time to make a plate for Santa.  Charlie put out cookies and carrots for the reindeer.  Joey was sampling the plate as soon as soon as it hit the table. 


Charlie and I read The Night Before Christmas and then it was bedtime and the wait for Christmas morning began.

Christmas Eve is the most exciting night of the year!



Christmas Season Activities

This Christmas Season was so much fun.  It's always such a bummer once it's over.  Luckily we have a trip to see the Messers planned and our Gibson grandparents are coming out here in a month!  We have fun stuff to look forward to.

Here are some of our favorite Christmassy things we did this month...

Played "find the army guy" in the Christmas tree

Went to the square to look at lights



Counted down to Christmas with our advent calendar


Daddy put up the Christmas lights


Played with nativities & had little lessons on the Savior's birth


Joey loved plugging in the tree, although he wasn't supposed to...


Bentonville Christmas parade...


Decorated cookies for Charlie's friends...



Took cookies to our neighbors...

Daddy helped Charlie write a letter to Santa Claus...

 "Dear Santa, I want a Shark, monster truck, bucky the pirate ship & handcuffs"

Saw Santa Claus!


Tony and I went on a Christmas date and did some shopping...


admired the tree and watched lots of Christmas movies!


The activities leading up to Christmas make the season so magical!