A lot of Christmas, all in one post

I just loved everything about the Christmas Season this year (unlike the Grinch, who hated the Christmas Season.) There was something about thus chubster in the fleece footies crawling everywhere and family driving from Alabama and FaceTime and Curtis winning the Fruitcake & Anderson liking the $5 toy above all else (a semi truck) and a plague* hitting a chunk of family that just made me happy. 

*The plague did not make me happy, but it did a little bit because we avoided it over Christmas. 

This post is all over the place and I am not moving the pics around, so just stroll through and use your imagination to place things. 

Here's the timeline:

-Christmas Eve Eve/Eve morning: AL fam came in town and we ate & opened presents & played Ninja Turtles & watched old movies (Brandon put the VHS on DVD to surprise my mom)

-Christmas Eve evening: Gag gift & eating fun with the Anderson bunch (The Sexons, Andersons & Glovers) at GG's 

-Christmas Morning: hanging out with 2 awesome boys and a haul from Santa

-Christmas Afternoon: Back to GG's for yummy lunch* and MORE presents!

*Super thankful that other people cooked multiple meals for us & all I had to contribute were rolls and a  frozen cake

-the 26th: FaceTime with the Hughes' family as we opened gifts

-the 27th: Christmas tacos (ha ha) at Noni's house (we had to wait a few days because of the plague)

We are some lucky folks around here. 

In one of the greates twists on my life, Anderson had zero interest in our Elf this year. He was very skeptical about the Elf because A)nobody can get to the North Pole over nights-it is in Antartica b) toys cannot come alive and c) the Elf does not eve have fingers. He also told me that "Rudolph is not even real; he is just a song." I am concerned because if he is questioning the Elf how am I ever going to convince him of the magic of Hogwarts??*

*this is seriously my greatest concern. Santa is whatever, but Harry is my LIFE.

We rocked the 80's. These tapes were hilarious to watch.

Aunt Manda is totally preparing me for life when my 2 boys are teenagers.

A LOT of this. Super thankful for trooper nephews.

That time when we were all ready for Mass & didn't make it because some good friends stopped by right as it was time to leave.

Lucky Bobble.

Snuggle time with JPA!

The annual Santa pic...Anderson is so tall.

GG go this awesome "Snowball fight in a box" game and it was definitely a hit of the night.

The closest thing I have to a group pic because I forget every single time.

The fruitcake! Round I...hilarious. 

The Anderson bunch. 

Truly the best gift. I kept sining, "All I want for Christmas is Max"

All.4.TMNT.weapon.sets. Hilarious.  Aunt Manda said, "I thought he needed them all." Of course.

The nephews bought Anderson this suit as a joke, but I think he looks pretty cute!

Bop got Anderson this train at the Kroger toy sale because he has wanted it for 3 years. 

Aunt Donna got him the best gift ever because now I don't have to be tackled every minute of the day.

Aunt Lo Lo with the Mr. (She gave each boy about 10 gifts, too. We are SUPER thankful she always has a watchful eye out for things these boys like/need)

Hang on. What happened? How are they SO big??

Anderson's stash. His favorite was the Semi truck, the one thing he asked for was the helmets, we are trying to make him like the bike & I follow a few coupon/deal blogs around Christmas, so all of it was probably less than one shirt that he is going to want 12 years from now.

I love nothing more than being Santa.

Santa visited Max, too! ( of course Max was on the Nice list)

They look like walkers because I can't fix the eyes, but they were stoked about their goodies.

First day without the patch in over 3 years!

Also, they did have matching pjs on but Anderson gets super hot at night, so we changed him into these in the middle of the night...inside out dinosaur jammies.

They loved putting together the Legos. 

Bobble. It's true.

Too much. Clutching the Semi.

Car from Noni!

In a funny story called, "That can never happen", I tried to put together the race track from Noni & Bop. I made it to step 3 of 39. 

Their faces.

It's a rough go, but hopefully he will get the hang of it.

Such excitement. 

Eyes for his GG. (probably because they are the same eyes)

All pics of Knoxville! How great is this?

Uncle Curtis is too talented. 

The Christmas frames. (I forgot to order one last year and all they had left was 2008 so I am going to have to turn it into "2008 +4. I wait until after Christmas because then they are on clearance for $6, but I totally dropped the ball last year. It will still have the same effect, I think)

This is as  close as I get to being crafty. 

Really cool race track from GG

Playing with the new toys!