Christmas spirit!

My favorite day of the year has arrived and we couldn't be more excited!! Our house smells like a mix of Chex Mix and cookie dough - strawberry pretzel salad has been made for our Christmas Eve celebration tonight with my extended family and breakfast casserole is soaking in the fridge for tomorrow morning, Christmas music is blaring, the Elf on the Shelf movie is on TV right now and we are READY!! I needed one more dose of Christmas shopping so I just got back from a last minute shopping spree to Target - despite the few Scrooges out there beeping their horns - it made me sooo excited! The girls are counting down the hours until Santa's big arrival and we are saying our final goodbyes to Snowflake until next year! I am loving the joy in the girls faces and voices as we track where Santa is right now (Russia) on the Elf on the Shelf's facebook page!! :) Hooray for Christmas!

This has been an especially fun Christmas season for us - the girls are at such fun ages and have thoroughly enjoyed every minute since Thanksgiving. The Saturday before last was one of my favorite days so far - it was a day filled with a morning birthday party for Ali and then a family lunch at the Varsity and then a family trip to go see Arthur Christmas. So fun to all be together! After that, we missed out on fun dinner plans with friends to stay home and bake/ice Christmas cookies and make Chex mix...it was the perfect day!

Since then, we have been busy with the Nutcracker, girls nights out, nights out to Christmas parties, a precious 4 year old Christmas play at school (where my precious 5 year old had the last line in the play!)...
Ballet and tumbling Christmas parties/present exchanges for both of the girls... (precious!)
A girls only trip to Callaway Gardens for an overnight getaway to see the Fantasy in Lights (wish I had a video of Rhodes' commentary throughout the jolly trolley - it was priceless!)...and no one got sick this year...extra bonus!
Spend the night parties with Santa Claus pancakes...
And, Santa Surprises at church and a special date with my and my current baby to a cute Gingerbread party!

Both of the girls especially loved Santa Surprises b/c Rhodes got to go upstairs to FUSE for the first time (from the nursery) - they loved getting to be together and were so giddy when I picked them up...makes a Mama very happy! :) After we picked them up, Ryan and I loaded up the girls and headed to Atlanta to the Center for Puppetry Arts to see Rudolph - it was a precious show! We headed back to get ready to have the Holles over and our favorite non-related babysitter, Ms. Joa - so Mama and Daddy could attend their last two parties of the week that night! After having at least one thing every single night that week since Monday, it was a nice grand finale to a fun, tiring week! :)

We have had lots of fun and the next two days are going to be filled with even more! Merry Christmas everyone! May your Christmas be filled with love, laughter and lots of joy! :)

The Nutcracker!

This Sunday, Ali and I had a special afternoon at the Nutcracker...her first Nutcracker at the Fox and hopefully a new tradition of ours. I remember how fun/special it was to venture (all the way! :)) out to Atlanta to the Fox when I was little and I was so excited to share this special tradition with her - I can't wait until Rhodes is a little bigger and I can enjoy the day with both of my girls! :)

We went to early church then the Holles came and picked us up. Ali was watching the clock, waiting for their arrival! We headed to a fun lunch right by the Fox with the girls and then headed to the show! We even had a fun special surprise of running into Grandmommy and Granddaddy at the show - neither of us realized the other was going to be there! Crazy!

The girls were great and loved the show - can't wait to hopefully go again next year!

Santa Claus...Santa Claus...Must have been ol' Santa Claus!

After a busy Santa filled week - the big guy should not have any trouble remembering what these two would like for Christmas! (a bicycle and surprises!)

After seeing Santa arrive in Marietta last Thursday, Ali and Rhodes got to go see him twice on Sunday...

At our annual Christmas brunch at the club....

And again that night at the Poston's annual Christmas party...

Then, last night (Thursday), we headed out again to Phipps to see the big guy!

And between all of our trips to see Santa - our Advent calendar event one day was to write Santa letters! I told the girls as we drove off last night - that now that we have seen the official Mr. Claus, their lists are secured and no more additions/changes can be made! :)

Last night, we also carried on our tradition of going to see Santa at Phipps, then to ride the Pink Pig across the street (there was no line in line - perfect!), then out to dinner for a fun family night!

Both of the girls had their Christmas parties this week at school and Ali had her Christmas choir party (as well as two performances this week - more to come on that!) - so lots of celebrating and enjoying Christmas around here! December is already flying by and I wish it would slow down - nothing beats the happiness and the love at Christmastime!

This morning, Ali had her 5 year old check up and the girls are now off at Grandmommy and Granddaddy's so Ryan and I can have a tacky sweater night out with great friends! I always get sad when I know the girls are spending the night out, but we had a fun morning before heading out the door, eating Rudolph pancakes! (Thanks pinterest - my children have a much more fun/creative life thanks to ideas from other people! :))

Merry Merry!

Disney World 2011!

On Thanksgiving morning, we woke up and told the girls we were officially heading to Disney World! They were so excited and ready to go! We had a few fun stops to make before we actually made it there - to enjoy our Thanksgiving day first before kicking off Christmas season!

First, we started with our Thanksgiving tradition of the Gobble Jog...Ryan ran the 10K and the girls and I did the 1K with my parents (and Ryan)

Waiting for daddy to make it to the finish line...
Rhodes crossing the finish line... I was so proud of the girls - and Rhodes ran almost the entire way!After the Gobble Jog - we ran home, showered, packed the car and headed down to Great-Grandmommy and Great-Granddaddy's to have a fun and delicious Thanksgiving lunch with family! The girls were in Heaven eating and playing football and tag outside...I think they even forgot where we were heading next!!

After lunch, we hopped back in the car and 7 hours later, we were in Orlando...and SO excited!!

We woke up on Friday morning and were on our way!

On the boat heading the the Magic Kingdom!

We are HERE!!We got there right when it opened and hit all of our favorites first!








We took a naptime break for Rhodes and headed to our hotel and to the Minute Clinic to see what was wrong with her eyes (see pictures above - felt like parents of the year!) - poor little princess had pink eyes! After spending a few hours at the CVS Minute Clinic - we gave her her medicine (awful!) and headed back to the park!

Christmas decorations were everywhere!We rode all of our favorite rides and had such a fun (and exhausting!) day! Headed off to our hotel once Rhodes passed out in the stroller and got some rest only to start all over the next day!

Day 2 - Hollywood Studios!!

Our favorite ride - Toy Story Mania!


Like I mentioned in a previous post -these girls love to dance! If there is a dance party going on, we have to stop and dance!


We headed back for nap breaks (and to watch the second half of the UGA/Tech game - go Dawgs!) and then back out to dinner at Chef Mickey's! A favorite for the girls!

Then, back to Hollywood Studios to see the Osborne Family Dancing Lights - they were awesome! Ryan and I both were amazed and it was probably one of the coolest things we have seen at Disney World!Then to watch Fantasmic - the girls loved it, but it was a little scary too!
I planned for Sunday to be our "rest" day - but we got to Downtown Disney before anything was even open. We were some of the only people there!

Then to Beaches N Cream for a yummy lunch and sundaes/milkshakes!

All of the hotels we visited had decorations made of Gingerbread - so neat!We got back to the Magic Kingdom at 4:00 for Mickey's Very Merry Christmas party! Such a treat! The 80 degree weather made it kind of hard to really believe it was Christmas, but the parade, the shows, the music and the decorations were so special - loved being in Disney World at Christmastime! :)

Ali found Cinderella's horse!

Rhodes said hers was Cinderella's too!

No line for the tea cups - thanks to the party!
And our very favorite ride - Dumbo! (Or as Rhodes calls it - Bongo!)
Some fun decorations...

Front row watching the parade!

The castle looked so neat all lit up!
And this is what three fun-filled days at Disney World will do to you!! It was such a fun trip and I already can't wait to go back (even though I promised Ryan it will be at least 2 more years!) No better place to get in the Christmas spirit and have fun with our little family!!