Christmas Celebrations

Our holiday break started with TWO snow days! We spent our snow days baking and preparing for lots of traveling! It was so relaxing.




Tate even helped Mommy with the cookies!

 

On Saturday, we headed to Des Moines for the BIG Taylor family Christmas! We stayed in a hotel with the whole gang. What a fun group! We swam, played games, and ate lots of food. Jean Ann came up with some crazy games and everyone loved them. Just like I told Grandma Janis, I am so thankful to be part of such a great family. They are very special people.

Our little Taylor Fam!

All the grandkids and great grandkids!

Tate, Daddy, Katie, and Brittlyn

The games involved golfing...

kazoos...

bubble blowing....and More! :)

After a great time with the Taylor's, we came home on Sunday to have our own little Christmas. We opened our gifts...just the three of us! It was just what we needed before traveling again.

 

 

Play Dough!

 

On Monday (Christmas Eve), we got up and headed for Emmetsburg to my parents! My brother was already there. Poor Uncle Marc had the flu, and we didn't get to see much of him. We went to mass that evening and had our annual meal of steak and crab legs!! Yum! We opened gifts and had so much fun playing with all our new toys! Tate was spoiled of course. Blair and I also got some nice gifts! :)

 

One of Buddy's favorite gifts-- A drill

 

Tate with Papa and Grandma before church

 

On Christmas day, we woke up to Santa's gifts! WOW! Tate got a new drum set and a basketball hoop! What a lucky boy! He loved both items and played with them all day.

Thankfully, Marc was better and Uncle David and Aunt Denise and Uncle Charles and my cousin Quinton came for a yummy ham dinner. We had fun visiting..and eating! :)

 

Then....Christmas night took a turn...THE FLU...it hit us! I got sick at 11:00 p.m. and was sick all through the night. At 3:00 a.m. Tater woke up sick too. It was a miserable few hours, but luckily Tate was better by the morning. Poor Blair! He hasn't gotten sick, but he got to take care of us! We even woke up my parents too! It was a rough night. My poor mom had lots of laundry to do!!

 

So, besides the short lived flu we had a fabulous Christmas! We are so blessed with amazing families! Thank you to everyone!!

Tomorrow we head to Creston to our final Christmas. We will enjoy time at Papa and Grandma Taylor's and open gifts!



 

 

 

SANTA!

Just like last year, we had a visit from Santa. Tate didn't know what to think about him, but then soon warmed up. The Santa tradition is very special to me! The very same "Santa" visited Marc and me when we were little. Honestly, I have so many memories! So, we LOVE you Santa!

We are getting so excited for Christmas around here. Tate continues to remind us about the true meaning of Christmas, and brings so much joy to us.

Christmas #1

We celebrated our first Christmas this weekend with Jean Ann's side of the family in St. Joe, Missouri. We had a nice time visiting and enjoyed a great fried chicken lunch. We even had a little baby shower for Ashlei. She's expecting a baby girl in March! The kids had a lot of fun, and of course received some very nice gifts! Thank you everyone!

The kiddos and Aunt Maagie!

 

Aunt Susan and Ashlei gave Tate a motorcycle, or as he calls it a tatamo. haha! He's hardly put it down since he opened it!

 

And a helicopter from Jim and Diana and cars and an adorable pillow from Aunt Maagie!

 

Ash got lots of pink! :)

 

Two minutes in the car! Tired boy!

 

 

 

Thank you everyone for a fun visit! 

Best time of the year!

Last night we captured a couple of cute pictures of Taterbean in his Christmas pjs from Grandma Jean Ann. I just had to post them to share how stinkin cute he looked!

 

And this one cracks me up...of course his pants are too big, so he walked around hiking them up all evening! haha! 

Christmas Tree

Today we spent some time putting up our Christmas tree! Tate loved it! He was pretty animated-taking breaks to read books, wrapping up all the ornaments in tissue paper, and referring to the bulbs as 'apples' and 'balls'! ha!
He's so funny.

I love this time of the year and the weather was beautiful today. Tate and I played outside for a long time this morning while Blair worked on homework. 
Yesterday, after having lunch with Ryan, Janelle, and the kids, we did a little shopping with my parents. They came down to Des Moines to celebrate my mom's birthday and to get some Christmas shopping done. Tate even got to swim with Papa and Grandma at the hotel!