Christmas 2018

In the days leading up to Christmas, we squeezed in a few of our favorite annual traditions as a family--caroling in our neighborhood {with old friends from Keesler who are stationed at Lackland now!}, making salt dough ornaments, and decorating gingerbread houses! We also watched Home Alone for the first time as a family--all three of the kids loved it!!!

 

 

On Christmas Eve, we rode bikes at a nearby trail in the morning--hooray for Texas winters! We had an early dinner that evening before attending the Christmas Eve service at our church. Then we came home to open a couple early presents from the Griffins and get ready for Santa!!

Christmas morning was absolutely magical! The girls were so excited, and Brady was mostly confused. ;)  One of my favorite memories of the day is how uninterested in opening new gifts Brady was. As soon as he realized Santa had put Hershey Kisses in everyone's stocking, all he wanted to do was collect each and every one of the Kisses from all of the stockings--not to eat them, just to line them up. ;)  Once we finally convinced him to unpack his stocking, he found a huge set of animals from Santa and then he switched his focus from lining up Kisses to lining up animals. Needless to say, Brady didn't get around to opening all of his presents until well after lunch. ;)  The biggest surprise of our Christmas morning was Santa leaving us a trampoline in our backyard!

 

{one of my favorite pics of the day--Shelby engrossed in her new book while Derek & Hadley played with Brady and his new tool set} 

It was a wonderful first Christmas in our new home! So hard to believe that the rest of our kids' childhood Christmas memories might be made in this house! We hope you had a wonderful Christmas and are enjoying a restful, slow-paced week between Christmas and New Year's Day!