O Holy Night, Baa Baa and Tomorrow!

Addison being Addison.  

Luke and Addison in Luke's one "Christmas"  outfit.  Stephen would have a stroke if I put Luke in any southern smocked outfits with little stockings or reindeers on it.  His "Joy to the World" shirt is it and he wanted a picture with his baby sister in it.  Addison is wearing her "Ho Ho Ho dress" as she calls it since it looks like Santa Claus.  

Amelia and Luke about to see Annie the Musical.

We had a really fun time and the kids were singing along to all of the songs, not that you could hear them because my voice was probably drowning them out.  The actors were just lucky I didn't join them on stage.

First Presbyterian Church of Ocean Springs.  Amelia, with friends Mckenzie and Elizabeth, were in the choir.  

The choir did a great job all throughout the show.  

And starring, for the third consecutive year, Luke the sheep!  He had his baa, baa, down this year being the lead sheep and all :)

I love watching the sheep throughout the performance because you get a lot of this.  The sheep pretty much steal the show.  Look at adorable little Warren, he had enough Christmas cheer, he was ready for some cookies.

Amelia's 2nd Grade Christmas Musical

Amelia and Ms. Peresich, her wonderful music teacher, whom we love!

Amelia waving to Addison in the front row, who we actually had to chase down to stop her from running up to Amelia.  

She is just so stinkin' cute singing her little heart out.  Love it.

Amelia had a speaking part this year and she nailed it, loud and slow.  Good job Mimi!

Addison getting in the spirit of Christmas with her Rudolph outfit.

The girls showing off more Christmas outfits, they pretty much have to change twice a day to wear them all but both of them are happy to oblige.  

Christmas on the Water

One of my favorite Christmas traditions on the coast, Christmas on the Water, was last weekend.  Around 20-30 boats parade down the water decked out with 1000's of lights, music and often even Santa.  I think I love it as much as the kids.  Here we are headed out to our special viewing spot, we caught a really pretty sunset.  

Hot chocolate makes the night even more fun.  Love these four little buddies, Hayden, Amelia, Mckenzie and Luke.

I need to read my instruction manual on my camera so I can get some decent pictures of the boats.  But you get the idea, really pretty.

After the boats parade by, there is a big fireworks show.  Ooohhh, Ahhhhh.  What a fun, fun night.

They looked too cute not to take their picture. 

Happy 34th Birthday Stephen and Happy St. Nick day!

Happy 34th Birthday Stephen!

This is Stephen's birthday party, he did have adults there too:)  

Amelia and Luke got Daddy a helicopter for his birthday.  His mom got him a rifle hunting game for the Wii.  This is why I actually get excited about Stephen's birthday, he asks for fun stuff and gets that look in his eyes just like the kids, he can't wait to see what he got.

Happy Birthday to the best Daddy in the world.

Daddy shares his birthday with St. Nick day.  Amelia finding her stocking, very early before school started.  St. Nick surprised her and Luke with tickets to the musical Annie!  They are so excited to go see the show!

Amelia digging for more treasures.

Luke still sleepy eyed finding his stocking.  

Addison got the hang of St. Nick's Day this year.  Cookie Monster bib :)

"Look mommy, cookie"

Santa Claus is coming to town...

Christmas at Keesler is always a really fun event that the base puts together for military families.  Addison was SUPER excited to go on a hayride, she was jumping up and down shouting "A-ride, A-ride, yay!"  Maybe she remembered it from the pumpkin farm.  The whole park is decorated, there are hayrides, train rides, presents, hot chocolate and cookies, etc.  A fun night but it was COLD!  I mean really, even for my Wisconsin blood, it was only like 45 degrees out that night.  Brrrrrr.

A clown made the kids balloon animals.

Nothing says Christmas like a big pot belly pig.   There was a petting zoo with llamas and sheep and goats, etc.  I had a really cute picture of the llama that Addison kept kissing but I can't get it uploaded.  Just Luke and the weirdo pig.  

Daddy showed up after work and joined us for the tree lighting and the big man himself!

Luke with Santa talking away.  They had like a 20 minute conversation, I swear.  So Luke sits down and says, "Santa I want a real live bunny in a cage."  What??????  I have not heard a peep of this ever, so I am not really processing it and I have the camera and video camera and am smiling like an idiot at Santa when he apparently looks to me to get my reaction on the bunny situation, well I'm just smiling like an idiot so I hear Santa say to Luke, "Well, I guess that is okay then."  NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!  I don't know how I am going to fix this one.  I am a rookie on the Santa thing and I think I blew the secret signal.

Amelia's big moment, I am listening intently because she never has a Christmas list.  But she just told Santa she didn't know what she wanted for Christmas.  Hmm, this is going to be a tricky Christmas for Mimi.

While waiting her turn Addison was clapping and saying, "Ho, Ho, Ho"  well, we decided not to traumatize her and stick her on Santa's lap but we thought she'd be okay on Amelia's lap.  Look at her face, um, hello, save me here.  

It went right to this in a split second.   Poor Addison.

Okay new day, new Christmas experience.  Addison is ready to try again.

Writing letters to Santa with a helpful elf.  This is our Ocean Springs tree lighting festivities.  The great thing was, we joined in all of the fun activities but then didn't have to wait in line for Santa since we did the whole Santa lap thing the previous night.  Amelia and Luke waited for Santa to pull up on the firetruck and then greeted him with a hug before he went to talk with all the children so they got their Santa fix for the night.

Luke mailing his letter, once again stating he wanted a live bunny in a cage.  I tried to reason with Luke telling him Santa didn't bring live animals and we wouldn't be here on Christmas morning but he insisted Santa's magic could keep the bunny safe until we got home.  Sigh, this is going to be a tough one.

More hot chocolate and cookies.  Can someone please remind Momma to put on some lipstick or something, geesh.

Addison sharing her cookie with mommy.

Merry Christmas!

More Christmas traditions

We always have a fire on the first really cool night and sit by the fire and have hot chocolate and gingerbread cookies.  Well this year we decided to have egg nog, yummy.  Luke liked it too apparently, I love this picture.

I love this shot too because they both have egg nog mustaches.

Snugglin' by the fire.  I think Luke was trying not to blink or maybe he had a little too much sugar cookie flavored eggnog and cookies.  

Every Christmas Stephen and I get really emotional remembering the Christmas he was deployed.  We are so thankful we are all together.

I loved this picture.  Addison Kate was reading Twas the Night Before Christmas to Daddy.  She had so much emotion about the story, it was so cute.  I managed to get it on video too and I know it's one we will treasure.  

O Tannebaum, O Tannebaum

It's that time of year, time to decorate the trees.  Even Addison got into the fun this year.  I love decorating the trees with the whole family because the kids get so excited about unwrapping each ornament.  They get giddy with which one is going to be next.  We also get to walk down memory lane as we remember why we got each ornament.  It's just such a fun time of year to enjoy with your little ones.

Addison's method of hanging ornaments were as follows, climb the step ladder, chuck the ornament as hard as you can toward the middle of the tree and then clap for youself and say, "Yay, Addi!"  We managed to give her very soft, unbreakable ornaments so she could join in the fun too.

Mimikins finding a good spot.

Luke posing cute.  Star Wars jammie top and dinosaur jammie bottoms, what not normal tree decorating attire at your house? (Actually Luke went to pick the tree out in his jammies too, it was 11:30 am).  We got our tree from the same guy we always buy them from.  They drive down each year from Northern Wisconsin and we get the best deals for a Frasier fir.  $45 for a 9 foot tree, it's crazy.  We used to pay at least $80 every year when we lived in the midwest!  I don't get it but I love it.  

The kids tree, all of our ornaments from Stephen and I growing up as well as all of the kids homemade ones.  

The pretty tree.  All the fancy, schmancy ornaments.  

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas!