from the corner of my couch: Christmas

We have had such a wonderful time celebrating Christmas and getting to spend time with family and friends.
We kicked off the holiday season with Emmie's dance studio in the Christmas Parade. Emmie LOVES doing this! The other kids and Paul stayed home and watched it on TV while I took Emmie. This year I let her walk by herself and I sat in the stands with some friends and watched which was nice.

We didn't realize we were going to lunch afterwards but after the parade Emmie, Evelyn and Emma informed us we were going to lunch at Olive Garden! We did have fun with the big girls!

I love these sweet friends so much!

Our local Chick-fil-A did a dinner with a craft, storytime and Santa Cow so we went to that. Ruthie and JP were not so sure about Santa Cow but overall we had a great time!

About a week before Christmas we headed up to Greenville to do Christmas at my parent's house with my brother and sister-in-law and my adorable neice who were visiting from Mississippi. We went to a train museum and saw Santa, the kids spent lots of time playing together, and we also opened some presents!

K was not so sure about that Santa guy!

JP played with this little train almost the entire time we were there!

These two were so cute together. Emmie loves younger children and so she "babysat" K while the adults were in the other room.

These two are going to be trouble together as they grow up! They are so funny!

Counsin pajamas!

Uncle Ben snuggles

Uncle Ben and Aunt Ruth are GREAT at coming up with unique presents (not some sarcasm here). This year they gave each child $25 in pennies which is bad enough but then they arranged the pennies in designs on a box and stuck them down with packing tape. For the record...$25 x 4 children is 10,000 pennies. Funny Ben and Ruth. Funny. (PS. I'm so glad they have a child now. Payback is going to be fun!)

On Emmie's birthday we had a special visitor come to our house. Emmie has been asking for an Elf for years and she finally got one. His name is Patrick and as much as I resisted getting one I did love how excited the kids would get every morning as they searched for Patrick.

JP had his Christmas program at preschool. He had been talking for weeks about how excited he was to be on "stage" and he did such a great job!

We had class Christmas parties at school. I was in charge of Ellie's party so we went to hers and then popped in to see Emmie and Ruthie. Poor JP was worn out and he slept through the entire party in the corner of Ellie's classroom!

On the 23rd we had Christmas with the Edwards crew at our house. I majorly failed in the picture taking department but I did snag a few! We opened presents, hung out, and ate dinner.

JP couldn't WAIT to paint this little car from GiGi and PaPa

Uncle Blake and Aunt Emily gave the kids each an Old Navy gift card and I took the kids to spend all their gift cards the other day. JP used his Old Navy gift card to get these slippers and they are awesome.

On Christmas Eve we FINALLY had time to make our Gingerbread Houses. The kids look forward to this every year.

Ellie and Emmie

JP and Ruthie

In the afternoon we went to church for the Christmas Eves service at church and met my parents there. It was the Lesson and Carols service which I always love! After the service we came home, ate pizza for dinner and settled in to watch The Star Movie and drink hot chocolate and eat all the Christmas goodies (Ellie's favorite part!).

After the movie they headed to bed and Santa came!

They were so excited when they woke up in the morning (and so was Franklin...he LOVES getting presents, probably more than any of the rest of us!)

This is the cat purse Ellie got. She absolutely loves it and has carried it everywhere!

After we checked out what Santa brought we had breakfast and then opened presents! I think everyone was quite pleased with all that they received!

The girls got tickets to see Wicked with me! They were so surprised. JP got a ticket to Disney on Ice and a day with Paul.

The Christmas that every pre-teen girl asked for a water bottle for Christmas. Emmie was so excited to get a hydroflask. She is obsessed with having all the VSCO girl things.

Finally a bike of his own!

A Christmas miracle...Franklin snuggling with Grandaddy!

The kids spent the afternoon playing with their new toys and my mom fixed us a delicious lunch! My parents headed back to Greenville after lunch.

Christmas night we had a fire pit with our neighbors. We do this often but normally after the kids are in bed. Since it was Christmas we let the kids stay up and roast some marshmallows. They had a great time!

Ellie and our neighbor Kurt

Ellie got this cup for Christmas. It is normally solid black and says "I solemnly swear I am up to no good". If you run it under hot water though a Marauder's Map appears. We discovered it also appears if you have your cup out at the fire pit! My friend Sarah made it...check out her page!

JP, as you saw in an earlier picture, got a new hat for Christmas. It came with matching gloves. Funny boy wore them to bed Christmas night!

On the day after Christmas, my dad called me first thing in the morning. He had left his wallet at our house so my parents were headed back to Columbia to get it. It was a gorgeous day and we didn't have any plans so we decided to meet them at the zoo! It was a perfect day for the zoo and we loved our "bonus" day with grandparents! We spent a few hours at the zoo and then had lunch at CFA before my parents headed back to Greenville.

Paul and I were kind enough to give Gran and Grandaddy our wristbands so that they could squeeze into the train while we watched. haha!

For those who saw my FB post about the big present for JP that he was so mad I wouldn't let him open before Christmas...this is what was inside: A Paw Patrol suitcase. He was so excited!

We are now recovering from the month of December and have had a lovely time of having no plans since Christmas! We have done some game playing, lay around, and we got to spend an evening with some sweet friends visiting from the west coast!