A Christmas Spectacular Weekend!

Last weekend Lane and I went to DFW so I could help host my college roommate, Riley's baby shower.  Since it fell in mid-December, Lane and I decided to make it a fun Christmas-y weekend!  We arrived at Mums' house after I picked up Lane from school, and he was quite impressed with all of her Christmas decor.  He especially loved her snow village.  She didn't put it out last year, so this was the first year he had seen it!

Harvey met us in Mansfield and immediately needed a snack!  Lane found him munching on some nuts with the nutcrackers!

 

Friday morning we woke up and drove to Dallas with Gran to see the train exhibit at NorthPark Mall.  We timed it perfectly and got there just as they opened.  It wasn't crowded at all and we were able to take our time looking at all the trains before it got busy.  You will definitely be able to tell from the pictures that Lane LOVED it!  

 

Lane's favorite train was a fire train that kept coming by.  For some reason he thought it would be funny to say "There goes that stinkin' fire train again!" Every single time it came by.  It definitely became the quote of the trip!  

A nice lady offered to take a picture of the 3 of us.  Nice, Lane.  Real nice.

 

He was a happy guy!

  

After the trains we headed to lunch, stopping off to give a donation.  Lane loves giving money to the bell ringers!

 

We had lunch at Mermaids, where I ordered Lane plain pasta off the kids menu with marinara on the side.  His picky eating drives me nuts, but the kid INHALED his pasta without even dipping it in any of the sauce!  He literally ate the whole bowl of penne and polished off his fruit as well.  If we could just get the kid to eat some meat we would be in business!

 

 

We had such a fun time with Gran!  Hopefully we can make this a Christmas tradition!

On Saturday I went to Fort Worth to help host Riley's baby shower.  Her friend Brooke had it at her beautiful home, and I think the two of us pulled off a pretty good shower!  Riley is due with a little boy at the end of January.  We had fun celebrating Carson Brooks!

Saturday night, the holiday fun continued.  We went with my mom, Kori, and Evin to the Mansfield Christmas Spectacular at the Performing Arts Center.  It was a free show put on by our church and included other churches from the community as well.  There was a choir and musical dancers/actors that sang lots of fun Christmas songs.  Lane enjoyed most of the upbeat songs, but got a little wiggly when the slower, traditional songs were performed.

He also loved riding the shuttle bus! 

 

 

Our two Christmas cuties after the show!

Another great group picture face from Lane.  Aye, aye, aye!

 

We stayed up late that night decorating a gingerbread house!  Lane was pretty into it this year and did a good job with the decor!

Powdered sugar faces!

 

Before we left and headed back to Austin, Lane read the whole entire 12 Days of Christmas book to Evin.  He has a couple of Christmas CD's and one includes the 12 Days of Christmas.  We have listened to the CD's so many times in the car that he has almost every song memorized, including all 12 parts to the 12 Days of Christmas.  I got it on film, but the video was like 8 min long, so I didn't post it!  Kori caught this cute moment between L and E.

I just love this time of year!

She has a name!

Kyle and I celebrated our anniversary on December 2nd.  He had ordered me an anniversary gift before Thanksgiving and it took a while to be delivered.  It finally came and it is one of his most thoughtful gifts he's ever given me!  We were celebrating 7 years of marriage, and the traditional gift for 7th anniversaries is "copper."  When I opened the present I found a pretty copper necklace with 2 charms on it.  One with an 'L' and one with an 'E."  Kyle and I had been going back and forth on names for our baby girl and couldn't agree on anything.  My top choice was Ellis and his was Landry.  When I saw the 'E' I looked up at him with a grin and saw that he was smiling too.  He finally agreed on Ellis after months of trying to sway his opinion!  It made the gift that much sweeter! 

 

So, without further ado.....our baby girl will be named:

We realize it is definitely not a traditional little girl name, but both of us can already envision our cute little daughter and the name Ellis just seems to fit.  I had it on my boy list for a while, and transferred it to the girl side once we found out we were having a daughter.  The middle name Paige has always been one of my favorites.  It is my sister Kori's middle name, and it just seemed to fit perfectly as a middle name with most of our first name choices.  Lane had been campaigning for the name Ellis, and told Kyle "Mommy and I won!"  It's nice to be able to call her something other than "the baby," and we can't wait to put a face with a name in April!

An Angelic Performance

Lane's preschool put on a Christmas program on Sunday, December 8, 2013.  It was during their church service and all of the 3 and 4 year olds performed.  Lane's class dressed up as angels, and judging from the last few school programs he has been in, this costume was a questionable one!  He surprised us all and actually smiled, sang, stood up, and did (mostly) as he should!  He did get a little silly with his buddy behind him, and kept turning around laughing, but it was a great improvement from  last year when he just sat on the stair and refused to sing or smile.  He looked pretty cute in his wings and halo!

 

They sang about 8 songs total.  Lane's favorites to sing were "Away in a Manger,"  "Oh Come Let us Adore Him," "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and "Do You Know Why?'

He kept putting his hands in his pockets!

Forgot the hand movement memo!

This was the weekend of the huge ice storm that hit DFW.  Mums had already planned to come for a long weekend so she could see the performance, so she went ahead and came Thursday night.  It's a good thing, because DFW was hit hard with 3-4 inches of ice and pretty much the whole area shut down.  Austin had no ice, just cold weather, so once she was in town she was safe!  Poor Gran ended up being stuck in Arlington and wasn't able to come.  We missed her!

Posing by the tree after his performance

The temps in Austin were really low, so we did minimal shopping and running around.  We cooked at home a few nights and went out to eat once or twice.  Lane bundled up in his bear slippers and hat and decided to scare Mums one morning.

We spent a lot of time in our jammies and Lane enjoyed getting out his interactive Christmas ornaments and books that Gran has given us from Hallmark in the past years. 

We also read lots of books.

 Scout stayed close to the fire most of the weekend and guarded her bone from Finley.  She will seriously lay with her bone like this for hours!

Lane joined her while watching cartoons.

The ice in DFW finally began to melt and Mums made it home safe and sound on Monday.  We had a fun weekend!

"Christmas tiiiiime.....is here"

The day we got back from San Angelo after Thanksgiving, we went to the local tree tent to pick out our tree.  I always get excited about this and am pretty picky when it comes to choosing one!  Lane was excited too, and actually helped make the final choice this year.  

This is the one!

Paying for the tree on Daddy's shoulders

Lane kept telling the men that bundle up the tree, "This one's ours!"

 

Taking her home!

That week, we decorated the tree.  The lights nearly gave me a fit, but as soon as they were up and functional, we got to decorating.  Lane was really into it this year and wanted to help out a lot.  He was so proud each time he put an ornament on.

  

Our beautiful tree!  Complete with our new angel tree topper I found at Cracker Barrel.

 

I also finished decorating the rest of the house that week.  I am loving this chalkboard tray that I re-finished.  It used to be a serving platter that belonged to Kyle's grandmother.  When I got it, it was black with fruit painted all over it, and I spray painted it brown and painted on the chalkboard.  I change it out seasonally with a different drawing, design, or phrase.  I think it is a neat item that I will always treasure, since it came from Ginks and I made it my own!

Scout has totally enjoyed laying by the fire this winter!  This is the last year we will have just 3 stockings hung!

Every year, Gran gives Lane some ornaments that represent his likes, interests, and activities since the last Christmas.  This year he got a knight ornament, a baseball bat, an airplane that says "Laguna Beach," and some other yearly Hallmark ones that she always buys.  We ended up needing a bigger tree for him to hold all of his ornaments!  He proudly picked out rainbow lights for his tree and we put it up in his playroom.  His stuffed Christmas friends gathered around the bottom.  I love how it turned out!

 

 Every year since we've been married I have bought a new decorative Christmas tree to display.  After 7 years, the trees were beginning to accumulate since my mom and Claire often bought me some too.  This year I decided to add a different decoration to the collection.  I had seen this canvas on Pinterest and decided to try to recreate it.  It is evidently a Pottery Barn knockoff and wasn't too tricky to make!  I sketched it using a grid and a print-off from the computer.  Then I colored in the sections with a red paint pen.  The whole project only cost about $20 and I know it will be a special decoration for years to come!

The beginning of December also included the arrival of Harvey the Elf!  He came to our house on December 1st and was found in the media room with a letter and a Playmobil Christmas set complete with Santa and an elf.  Lane was beyond excited and has enjoyed finding Harvey each morning after he returns from the North Pole.

 

Harvey has been pretty silly so far!  He made funny faces on our family picture:

 

Zip lined from the stairs to the Christmas tree on a candy cane:

(Can you spot him?)

And ended up needing some urgent care after Daddy and Lane actually sent him down the zip line and he fell off.  :-/

Lane is just the perfect age for Christmas this year!  He knows the story of baby Jesus, is absolutely loving all the Christmas music we listen to in the car, reads Christmas books constantly, watches a Christmas movie nearly every day, and is beyond excited to open presents!  Celebrating Christmas is so special with a little one of your own!