merry merry christmas!

Will was pretty excited about Christmas this year.  He had been wearing this Santa bucket around as a hat for a couple of weeks!

We had several Christmas celebrations, as we usually do, and Will thoroughly enjoyed each one!  We went to Matt's dad's house on Christmas Eve, but somehow I didn't end up taking any pictures.  We enjoyed a great meal and opened lots of presents.  Will's favorite thing from this evening was his new Spongebob boom box, which came with a Little People CD of kids' songs.  The first song on disc 1 is the alphabet song, which is Will's favorite, so he is constantly walking up to the boombox and asking for "numba one!!"

I have LOTS of pictures from Christmas day, and since I print the blog as our yearly scrapbook, I'm including a bunch of them.  Enjoy!!

First things first....Will enjoyed his second visit from Santa!!  He had been very skeptical all week about the scary guy in the red suit coming into his house, but I think that he was sold on the idea when he saw the presents on Christmas morning.

checking out his new tee ball/baseball set with daddy 

and some basketball!

Then the Hawkins side of the family came over, and the tree was filled up with presents again! 

Will & Aunt RyRy, checking out one of the gifts she got him

it was a puzzle, and he LOVES it

lots of fun presents to open!

Then we decided to take some pictures in front of the tree, but Will had already swiped some melts out of his stocking, so he was way too distracted to look at the camera.  You will notice that in most of the pictures from the rest of the day, he is holding some sort of snack food...

 

Time for real clothes!

Mimi and Duke came to join us for brunch!!

Will got in some bball practice while we cooked brunch.

And of course, some snacks...

After brunch, Will enjoyed a much needed nap while we all played with our new toys.  After naptime, we headed over to my parents house for our next celebration.  Such a fun day!

We started by reading the Christmas story

{a very abbreviated version for Will}

Will was ready to get down and open presents!

What's this?!

a new car!

he didn't get out of this for most of the afternoon!

Matt was excited too!

Will also had fun playing with this little Santa in a rocker that was on my parents' fireplace.  When you make a loud noise, Santa starts rocking and singing.  Never-ending fun for a toddler!

Clap!

 checking out his new coloring/sticker book

 and a new Thomas the Train toy from Aunt Christa and Uncle Steve!

I also have to include this video, which shows Will seeing his new trampoline from Nana assembled for the first time.  We put it together after he went to bed on Christmas night, so he was excited to see it the next day, and he knew exactly what to do!

 What a wonderful Christmas!  We are so blessed to have such a wonderful family. 

21 weeks!

Time for a baby update!  :)  We went to the doctor on Friday for my 21 week check, and so far, so good.  Although there is definitely entanglement {a nice way of saying a big knot} in their cords, both babies are growing perfectly and looking great, and the blood flow in both cords is good.  Whew!  It's certainly a day-by-day journey, and we feel very blessed to have made it this far.  

Here's a view of the babies from the outside at 21 weeks:

And from the inside!

{Baby A on the left side and Baby B on the right}

Also this weekend, Matt took me out for an early birthday celebration.  We went to dinner and then out to see A Christmas Carol at the Dallas Theater Center, which has become my birthday tradition over the past few years.  It was fabulous, and after the play we picked up some hot chocolate and drove around to look at Christmas lights.  Unfortunately, that's about when we got the call that Will had come down with his first stomach bug.  :(  So the rest of the night was NOT FUN, and we're still praying that we can all avoid catching the bug!  The good news is that Will has made a full recovery, and is back to his happy self today.

such fun!

How fun is this?  We had family pictures taken a few weeks ago with the Hawkins side of the family, and our photographer made us two AWESOME videos to share.  I LOVE them!  I was going to wait until we sent out Christmas cards to post these, since our pictures are all in here....but I hate waiting.  And this is one thing that I don't HAVE to wait for...so enjoy!!

This one is a little digital Christmas card from Will:

And this one is just a fun video of lots of our family pictures, plus some videos she sneakily took while we were shooting.  :)

These just make me smile!

life lately

So unfortunately we had a run in with the Grinch this week.  That's right.  The GRINCH.  We set up our {extra big} Christmas tree last weekend.  Here it is...minus the bow on top, because I hadn't made it yet:

And then on Monday, Will and I got home from a morning out to find this:

Uh...Oh...  Maybe this is partly my fault. I was the one who reeeeeally wanted the bigger tree when we found it for such a great price.  So we went ahead and used our tree stand from last year, which maybe was meant for about a 6 foot tree instead of 8.  Anyway, about 5 minutes after I took this picture and about 5 minutes before I was going to come address the leaning issue, it came CRASHING down.  :(  Ornaments shattered, water spilled, huge tree on the floor.  But with a new tree stand and a few new ornaments, the Christmas spirit won out after all.  Although we got THISCLOSE to throwing the whole tree out on the curb, it's back up!

{sorry...cameraphone took a prettier picture of the lights than the camera, but it's sorta blurry}

And after a few lovely days with a straight tree....today it's leaning a bit again, but we anchored it to the window {don't ask} and we'll address it this weekend.  We WILL keep this sucker up until Christmas!

Other fun stuff going on around here....Will did some painting this afternoon:

And then he totally cracked me up by putting Ernie under his shirt and telling me, "Ernie belly!"  Maybe because we've been talking about the babies in my belly?!  So funny!  I snapped a few pics on my phone:

And finally, we got a fun surprise in the mail!!  Nana got Will a subscription to National Geographic for Kids, and the first two magazines arrived today!  Will had a great time looking at all the pictures of animals and nature.  Thanks, Nana!!

Will LOVES Santa

See?

Oh, you don't believe it?  Well, take a look at the other pics in our gallery...

We visited Santa at the Galleria this morning.  Unlike last year, when Will was simply skeptical of Santa, this year {as expected} he was not a fan.  We went right after a sweet couple with a 2 week old, who slept the whole time.  They thought Will was cute {based on his pre-Santa disposition} and stuck around to see what to expect in a couple of years....and they may or may not be returning to see Santa in the future.  My favorite part was that Will cheerfully waved and said "Bye Santa!" when we left, and then jabbered about Santa the whole way home, as if they were besties.