Happy Anniversary to Us!

Today is our 11-year wedding anniversary! Since we missed Christmas last week in TN (we know you've heard that story now a million times), we're headed today to see family for the weekend. Yep, nothing says romance like 8 hours in a car with a baby, Bo's dad, and the dog! Hahaha! Oh, well....after this many years together, we don't really get too worked up about this kind of stuff. Maybe we'll get to celebrate later, maybe not. Either way, we've had a blast all these years and are looking forward to many, many more to celebrate together....no matter what we're doing!

Christmas Morning

Even though we hated that we were missing the family in TN, we were so excited to get to wake up on Christmas morning at home this year. We were like little kids....we didn't sleep well because we were looking forward to getting up and letting Hampton see his presents. It was totally worth the wait! He was soooo excited! He kept standing in front of the chair where his gifts were, pointing & talking to the chair and looking back at us, then talking to the chair some more. It was too cute! It was a great start to a great day!

Santa ate almost all the cookies, and he even left a thank-you note for Hampton!

The gifts Santa left Hampton....apparently, he had been a very good boy this year!

Hamp's first reaction to seeing them.....priceless!

checking out his Mickey Mouse puzzle

Christmas Eve

We had such a great time on Christmas Eve! Paul & Jan came over to hang out with Hamp while we ran a few errands, which took longer than expected since we found a few amazing deals that we had to scoop up to save for later. We had lunch and hung out for awhile, then went to the early family service at church. Hampton did surprisingly well at church, although he did chime in and "sing" during several songs! We came home, had yummy soup, and got to enjoy our Christmas Eve traditions that we're passing along. We opened our new pajamas, checked out our annual ornaments, and Hampton got a goodie after finding the Christmas pickle (with a little help from us!). We also tracked Santa on NORAD and set out his cookies before heading to bed. It was such a great day filled with excitement and fun, and made us that much more excited about waking up on Christmas morning!

our 2010 ornaments

getting ready to head to church with Grannie

opening a goodie after finding the Christmas pickle

Christmas with Grandi & Grandaddy

We also celebrated Christmas with Tanner's parents early, since at the time everyone was headed to TN. It's so much easier this way than hauling everything up just to haul it back! So, we celebrated with Grandi & Granddaddy the weekend before Christmas. We had a great time hanging out, opening gifts, and eating what Tanner likes to call the Christmas trifecta......monkey bread, hashbrown casserole, and Bob's homemade biscuits and gravy. Mmmmm....carbs! We also had fun going out and looking at Christmas lights, even though Bo got teased about driving way too fast to see them!

checking out one of Hamp's fun gifts

getting ready to go look at the holiday lights

all decked out for Christmas

great holiday display

On The First Day of Christmas......

We have had several Christmas celebrations around here, so the next few days will be filled with a recap of the festivities. We started with celebrating as just the 3 of us. At the time, we thought we were going to TN for Christmas, and we wanted to have some special time with just us. Plus, we only give Hampton 3 gifts from us to symbolize the 3 gifts that the Wise Men brought Jesus. Since these gifts are bigger than Santa's trinkets, we decided to do these gifts early. We woke up early, read the Christmas story, and then went and explored the 3 gifts. Hampton has had a blast playing in his ball pit, with his slide, and with his wagon filled with blocks. It was a great morning, and a great way to kick off our holiday celebrations!

the ball pit and his castle slide

checking out his Little People blocks

oh, the joys of a ball pit!

ready, set....slide!

Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Yea, Lord we greet Thee

born this happy morning

Jesus, to Thee be all glory given

Word of the Father, now in flesh appearing


Oh come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from our family to yours! We hope you take time over the next few days to enjoy family, friends, and reflect on the true meaning of Christmas....Jesus's birth. And as we promised a long time ago, here's a peek at our Thanksgiving card. It's a little late, we know, but the sentiment is still as true. Merry Christmas, everyone!