Christmas 2013

We had such a fun Christmas. And remembering the previous year of me being horribly sick in bed made it even better. :) I was happy to get a decent brother shot right before bed on Christmas Eve.

And then when I looked at my camera and saw this one...I had received the best Christmas gift. So sweet!

 I still LOVE nighttime pictures of Christmas trees.

And finally everyone got to bed. And thankfully everyone cooperated with the 7:00 a.m. rule even on Christmas morning.

We try to reign in the whole Christmas present thing. Our kids still get plenty, but they are still so young and really aren't asking for much. So we're trying to keep it as simple as possible...for as long as possible.

Tate's big request was the Minecraft Lego set. He was just a tad excited. :)

And Will was hilarious, as predicted. He still just didn't totally get the whole Santa, Christmas morning, present thing. He really didn't have a crazy amount of presents, but it still took us DAYS to finish opening them. He would open one present and just want to play with that. No need to open anymore in his mind!

Seriously after he saw the tractor Santa brought him, it took forever to get him to open any other presents. :) He was pretty excited!

 

Tate almost lost HIS MIND when Will didn't want to open any presents. Tate was very willing to help. :)

The bongos were super fun!

 And anything Star Wars makes this kid pretty thrilled.

Will again didn't really care about opening the "BIG present." It was way more fun hanging on Daddy. I love this picture!

 Finally he figured out the fun part of presents. :)

 Love these two!

Later in the day, we headed over to MoMere & Poppy's house for Round 2. One of the best parts of any holiday over there is getting run all over the golf course. Best place for the Stomp Rocket!

And there was cause for celebration because of more Legos

Will had a great time as well. but he was also perfectly happy doing this. :)

Cousins!

And the men on the Strzinek side of the family were looking quite dapper thanks to Tate's gifts from the Christmas Market at church.

Our attempt at a family picture.

Love this one. Will may have inherited his Daddy's musical ear. He loves the piano.

The original #strzbros!

Next up in Christmas celebration was Round 3 with the Enright side of our family. We rotate between the three homes, and this year was at our house. It felt a little bittersweet as my parents had recently announced that they were moving to Oregon. This was our last big family get-together before they moved and possibly our last Christmas together for awhile. So it was quite the Christmas gift and miracle that this picture my Dad insisted on doing with the timer actually turned out SO good!

Brad scored pretty good in the adult gift exchange. This picture cracks me up.

 Kit!!!!

 I'm a sucker for anything handmade and LOVED my new Christmas plate.

 The two big kids had to complete a word puzzle to figure out their big present. :)

And after presents, we had some true Enright craziness and fun with some "Minute To Win It" games Guys vs Girls.

 My parents were quite the troopers.

It was hilarious!!! I think in the end, the guys technically won. But the girls put up a good fight. Lots of fun!

Lots of family time all around and lots of fun celebrating!

Fa la la la la cray cray

Oh the craziness that is December. So much celebrating going on. BUt also so much fun. A fun new tradition has been going with lots of families from church to do some caroling at a local retirement center.

And next up was our church's Breakfast With Santa event. We even got there at the same time Santa was running in. :)

This event resulted in a parenting fail and a friendship win. The Santa concept has never really clicked with Will (it is rather bizarre when you think about it), so we talked up meeting Santa and asking for a present. Will said he would ask for a toy tractor. So the morning of BWS, I tell Will that he finally gets to see Santa. His response, "And I get my tractor!"  Yikes. The whole future tense did not compute...time for some expectation management.

The boys had a great time listening to stories from Mrs. Claus, making reindeer food and crafts, decorating cookies, and meeting the big guy himself. And we loved having longtime friends, the A-Team there as well. :)

On the friendship win...Wade wasn't able to come with us, so when I got into the Santa room with just me and the boys and saw the huge line, I wanted to cry. Yes it is hard for most 3 year olds to wait patiently in line. But unfortunately Will takes that to a whole different level. It just doesn't happen. My sweet friend, Ali, figured out what was going on and went and stood in line for us for probably almost 30 minutes, while I walked around with the boys. The result was this:

Pretty sure I cried when I saw these pictures. Couldn't believe how good they turned out. Seriously I told Ali she was my Christmas miracle. No way this would've happened if we had to attempt that line. For her, I'm sure it was no big deal. For me, it was HUGE.

Then it was time for fun class parties up at school!

 Will LOVED the throw a snowball on the tree game. :)

 And some good 'ol Jingle Bells

 Tate's party was a blur of craziness, food, games, and fun.

And one of our favorite family traditions at Christmas time is the night the boys put on Christmas PJs, we get some hot chocolate from Starbucks, and go look at lights. According to all of my Facebook friends, the boys will never forgive me for the PJ choice this year. I think they look adorable. :)

And for much of the time we were looking at lights, we had our own Christmas concert live.


Such a fun season for everyone!