This has been such a wonderful holiday season! We have been so blessed to be able to spend lots of time with our family, and Noah loves every minute of the craziness!
It has become a family tradition to celebrate "Schmithmas" every year on the Sunday before Christmas. So we all pitched in on the food and fun and headed to the Phares household for our annual tradition! We aren't your typical family...Our fun day included everything from a visit with Santa Clause and decorating sunglasses (you'll see in a moment), to a beer tasting contest for the men! It is always a great day, and this year was no different (except maybe that we have such an amazingly active child to share the excitement with)!
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| Noah wasn't a fan of Santa...We appreciated his visit, though! |
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| Our annual family picture...It just wouldn't be us if we didn't do something goofy! |
Because of my new position, the next week consisted of a 3 and half day work week, and I got to be with my family the entire holiday weekend! There are definitely trade-offs to working 5 days a week and being on call pretty much 24/7! So I was very grateful to get to spend this time with my family - even Ben had a vacation from his clerkship rotation! We had another visit from Santa that was filled with lots of songs and a few more presents!
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| This was as close as Noah was willing to get to Santa. He loved the songs, though! |
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| Bryce and Ty were so excited to have Santa visit :) |
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| Reese is hanging out with the fake singing Santa, which was really the preference for most of the little ones! |
On Christmas Eve, we went with Nana & Papaw Schmith and the Phares family to Christmas Eve Mass at OLMC. We actually went to the service being held in the gym, which was quite perfect with 5 little monkeys! After Mass, Noah went with Nana and Papaw over to the Uncle Tim and Aunt Renee's house for some play time and to celebrate Uncle Tim's birthday! Ben and I got to go to dinner at Kazaan with the Havens side of the family, which is a tradition that we love and have only missed one year! We knew it would be too much for Noah to handle, so we were very appreciative that Nana and Papaw wanted to watch him. I'm betting that next year he might really enjoy the fire on the table and the time with his cousins!
Christmas day was busy, but we all loved it! The entire season takes on a whole new meaning when there are children involved. The holiday is completely about them and how much they enjoy it, and seeing them happy is what makes is such a wonderful time for the rest of us! We spent a quiet morning at home together, and I guess Noah wasn't aware how important the day was, because we had to wake him up at 8! After presents and a failed attempt at a morning nap, we headed to Ben's grandparents house for their annual Christmas brunch with the whole Kirkhoff family. Around 12:30 we headed to my parents' house where Noah slept for a few hours and we spent the rest of the afternoon.
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| Noah is checking out his new table with Daddy. We think Santa must be planning to bring him the train set next Christmas, when he's 2! |
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| Kiss face on Christmas! |
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| He loved opening his presents - mostly because he got to rip up the paper. |
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| He knew what this was before opening, and without wasting any time started playing with it... |
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| We did finally get him to open it though :) |
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| "Sorry ladies, this seat is taken." |
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| He LOVES his dump truck :) |
Merry Christmas, everyone!!
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