Twas the night before Christmas... & the actual day!

Family pic after mass. One perk of your kid wearing an eyepatch is if his eye is closed in a pic, it is not quite as obvious. How great is this pic, though? ALL 3 of us are in it! ( well, 4, I guess...)

Pillow fighting! We spent Christmas Eve day with Noni, Bop, Bham & Bristol family at lunch and mass and then went to the Glover's that night to see the Sextons & the Andersons!

It is a little fuzzy, but here is the yearly pic with Santa at GGs. He looks so BIG!

Brandon was quick to change after mass & I love how it looks like we coordinated in Christmas colors. We didn't, but let's pretend, shall we?

Cookies with JPa! ( BEST gift was the most recent positive scan, of course! Way to go, JPA!)

Aunt LoLo sure knows how to spoil Anderson! She found him such fun toys and how CUTE is this pic? He LOVES these Sonix cities that she got him-I think they are his favorite present!

Perk of being the mom: pass the toys off to Dad to put together!

Annual gag gift exchange at the Glovers! Toni "won" the fruitcake this year, in the first round! My camera battery died before that part, so I just got a pic of her posing with Curtis' gift!

Anderson was just a bit confused on whether this was actually Uncle Curtis or Santa. It was hilarious. 

Hanging out, waiting for gifts!

Christmas Eve time! We each picked out a cookie (Fire truck chocolate sucker from Anderson, elephant turd & pretzel) & made Santa's plate!

We put on our new jammies (new pjs on Christmas Eve is a must, of course) & read "Twas the Night Before Christmas". Despite the fact that it was after 10 & his eyes look closed, Anderson was definitely awake at this point. In fact, I did not think he was ever going to fall asleep that night! I have heard rumors of parents who have yearly traditions of watching movies or wrapping presents after their kids go to bed, and, yet again, I guess vacation parenting is nice. As it was, he was up until 11, I think, so we had to allow plenty of time for the big man to come down the chimney! 

And, SANTA visited during the night!! I LOVE, LOVE being Santa. How freaking awesome is parenting?? For every sleepless night (year, in our case), we get these awesome days/moments/memories that just make it all worth it. 

:) Thank you, FOUR HOURS OFF OF THE PATCH, for allowing us to have pics of his sweet face on Christmas for the first time in 3 years!

I love the distraction of the new trains WHILE opening the stocking!

He was SO good on Christmas morning & was not even upset about the fact that we had moved his chair! (progress from last year:) He said, "I thought I was just getting one toy!" and kept telling us how happy he was and was generally just perfect. I loved it. He kept pointing everything out and showing us what everything does. He loved his fire station (a doll house of sorts with a ton of pieces, fire truck AND A BELL-the favorite part), the train crane and the monster truck. Most of the wrapped presents were crafty things, new shoes and a few little toys.

Anderson helping Daddy with this stocking. I think he was very confused about the boring things that were in our stockings.

I can't wait until there is even more chaos of presents next year! 2 little boys swimming in paper and toys will just be too much!

Makes Santa's heart happy. Note to self: start removing tags next year... Also, don't throw away the fire station box where he can see it. We are still relatively new at this gig, so we are learning!

The girls were even given goodies, which means that whole, "Naughty" list must not really exist. Chloe also had a few more treats later in the day, as she found some extra candy to eat in our stockings while we were gone. Apparently, fun dip is her favorite. 

 I didn't get a pic, but Mom took him to the Dollar Store & had him pick out gifts for us, and he was SO excited to give me a vase to put flowers in at work and a candle. He got Brandon a flashlight & a candle. It was so sweet.  He kept saying, "Don't break the vase, Bobble!"

Then it was off to GG's! Posing with Pappaw!

Toni got Anderson this awesome cash register & it was cool enough for the uncles to play with, too!

A Polar Express train! Again, I passed the construction part of it on to Brandon, while I made a snack.

Back to Noni's on Christmas night for MORE food, family and fun!

The last present we opened that morning was from Georgie & it was a remote control helicopter! Georgie the ghost lived in our attic when we were growing up & used to always give a family gift. We knew it was from him because there was no tag & it was wrapped in different paper. Anderson loves Georgie and was pumped with the last present, even though he is a little too young for it. Noah & Kyler had received helicopters, too, so they were all flown outside that night! Brandon has become an expert at flying it by now and it is always zooming around the house! (Georgie got an amazing deal on this helicopter on Amazon in October-MAKE www.hip2save.com a bookmarked page because she posts all these amazing deals!)

A little more cousin time!

Christmas take 1

Perhaps you were hoping that I would do multiple Christmas posts? Well, then, your wish is granted.

Seriously, though, there is no way to shove all of this on one post without losing interest (I am talking about my own interest, of course), so here goes TAKE 1: Christmas with the Bishops/Hughes/Glover/Salvaggio family. 

Do not underestimate my mom's planning/creative gene, even when there are 12 (sort of 14) of us. We used to always get matching pjs at Christmas because that has become increasingly more difficult as we are all pretty much adults. So, these were our family pic outfits for this year!

We didn't realize it was automatically set to take 10, so we have about 18 of these, too. 

The grandkids! (until next year...)

We have stolen the English cracker/crown tradition from the Kerseys:)

Yes, why yes we fit in this space with ALL of our presents. I don't think anything was lost, but I am also not entirely sure what everyone got. We really tried to play the "One at at time" game. But, then there were Lily & Anderson...

Not at Noni's, but it is Christmas related.We technically missed one week of Advent mass, but we still lit all 4 candles by the end. Anderson  has no idea why we had an Advent wreath, but the kid loves some fire, so we were set.

LOTS of wrestling with Uncle Zack & the cousins. I love just sort of showing up & then locating my kid when it is time to leave, knowing someone, somewhere is taking care of him.

We started a new tradition this year-"Minute to Win It" games! Lily & Anderson went first & very successfully pulled all of the tissues out of a box in about 12 seconds. 

Brandon dominated some ping pong pushing game.

Christmas tree drawing on our heads. (Um...Aunt Manda, where is your green shirt??)

My mom, who seriously loves some games, rocked the dice game.

At one point, in the middle of the chaos, wrapping paper, multiple conversations, we noticed a deep conversation taking place between these 2. Lily invited him to Disney World to see all of the princesses & Anderson said he would see the boy princesses. Then, they told each other they love each other. Was precious.

Love the difference :)

I didn't get many presents shots, but Mom got him a fireman outfit and made him a hose out of pipe & a nozzle. He is SO official.

Nicole is 30 weeks (I think) and I am 19 weeks. Mom got us matching outfits because how many people are lucky enough to a.)be a twin AND b.) be pregnant at the same time as her??

Cousins:)

They're blue!

Ahem.  

I do recall a certain Bobble TOTALLY CALLING THIS ONE!!! 

Never underestimate the power of a Bobble to know the true nature of her boy, even in utero. 

we. are. thrilled. 

All looked good, which was the best part of course. I kept interrupting her to ask about body parts, making her double check things, etc. It is just worrisome. Because HE is literally camped out in my hip bone, I have to go for another ultrasound next week to get a better head measurement. Anderson was also camped out in a hip (the opposite side) and we called him the Groundhog for awhile. I, apparently, have cozy hips. We took A to the visit and he was SO good. He loved seeing the baby and hearing the heartbeat. He kept repeating the tech, saying, "the baby's feet", etc. as if he could really see those things. 

 Because I am a weirdo (or, perfectly normal and just choose to delay exciting news), I did not want to find out the gender in the hospital with goo all over my stomach and some woman I don't know sort of imposing on the family moment. (Instead, I choose to share the moment with the Internet, but whatever) So, my perfect, trooper of a husband indulged me & filled a box with balloons to let us know the news! You may have see this on Pinterest, but it usually involves professional photography in a field, so we went the lower maintenance route. I was pumped.

 Anderson decided today that it was a girl. Seriously, he has never made a choice before today, while we were at the hospital. As we opened the box, he said, "I thought it was a girl." with a sad voice. I said, "Don't you want a brother to play trucks and dinosaurs with you?" and he said, "I want a brother, I just thought it was a girl." He just wanted to be right. Hilarious.

 I cannot believe I am lucky enough to have 2 of these. It's like finding out we won the lottery AGAIN!

I cannot wait until I have MY BOYS in my arms to love and chase and make truck noises with and hold their hands and embarrass them and dance with them at their weddings and love them to pieces!