Santa and Polar Express

On Tuesday night we went to the Robinson's House for a Christmas get together and guess who came to visit!

Everyone was so excited that Santa came to the party.  He listened to what everyone wanted for Christmas and even passed out small gifts to the kids. 

Abigail was more interested in getting her face painted and asked if Emily could get her gift for her from Santa because she wasn't going to get to too close : ) 

 Rachel snapped this photo for me of Santa BEHIND Abigail.  Abigail never knew he was there:

On Wednesday I drove to Auburn to work and went to eat Christmas lunch with everyone.  It was nice seeing everyone that day.  Joe was off work and stayed home to handle carpool duty and getting Emily from the bus:

That evening I met everyone at Polar Express at our favorite chicken place.  We ate dinner and then rode the Polar Express train:

 And got Hot Chocolate

 This year they also had free Santa pictures.  Abigail and Harper told us they wanted to just sit in front of Santa for the picture but he coordinating the photo session and picked them up to put them in his lap : )  They did great!

The last day of school before break was on Friday and both girls had Pajama Day at school!

On Saturday we took it easy at home.  Emily used her new American Girl craft to make her doll a shirt with a cat on it:

The count down to Christmas morning has begun!

Christmas with Family

This weekend we celebrated Christmas together with my family.  We met in Birmingham at Michelle's house.

 

We opened gifts together on Saturday night:

 

 

 

Roller Coaster made his rounds sitting in everyone's lap. 

 Joe was so pleased that Roller Coaster chose him to snuggle with: )

 

Christmas Programs and Dances

On Tuesday I volunteered at Emily's school to help in the Winter Wonderland store.  This is a chance for the kids to shop for Christmas gifts for their family and friends.  I had a fun time helping the kids pick out gifts.  On Wednesday Emily's class went to the store and she came straight home to her room to proudly wrap everyone's gifts and put them under the tree.

I also went to Abigail's Christmas program on Wednesday.  Abigail's class dressed up like cows and sang songs to baby Jesus:

 After the program we went to the gym to have birthday cake:

 Abigail with her teachers Mrs. Amy and Mrs. Marcy:

Tonight Joe and Emily went to the Daddy Daughter dance at school.  Joe took her to dinner to her favorite Chicken place and then the dance.  Emily wanted to wear her "sparkly" dress to the dance:

Abigail and I went Christmas shopping for her sister and then met Alexa and Harper for dinner:

December Happenings

December is such a busy month that I didn't sign the girls up for dance or gymnastics.  We spent time hanging out this week before all the Christmas activities started taking hold.  The girls have gotten into fights from time to time because Emily likes to play the leader and Abigail likes to do things just to get at her sister . . . so when they take little moments like this to read a book together I run and grab my camera to remember these moments:

We also had a couple of play dates with neighborhood friends.  Emily has been cracking me up with her clothes choices when it's December!  But I try to let her have a little freedom in her clothes choice department:

I spent several evenings wrapping Christmas presents.  When I finally finished and had most of my closet back to myself, I happily paid Emily $1 to straighten out all my shoes.  She and I speak the same love language when it comes to organizing things so she thought getting a $1 for something she loves to do was a win for her!

She happily organized all of my shoes and had them all neatly in rows for me in no time!

We were also informed today by Emily's teacher that she will not be giving any homework for the last 2 weeks before the break.  I can tell she is a mom too!  Thanks Mrs. Jackson!

Auburn Game and Decorating for Christmas!

We got back into town on Thursday night.  Joe dropped me off at Target and I went Black Friday shopping with Alexa and Scott.  I've always been too scared to go because of the crazies but Alexa assured me that going to this particular Target would be very organized.  I actually enjoyed myself and no one picked a fight with me : )  After the crazy died down we went to Wal-Mart to see if there was anything left for the picking.  I got several movies and gifts to the girls from Grandma.  It was a successful night indeed!  I even bought myself a $50 printer.

While Joe worked on Friday the girls and I decorated the Christmas tree.  I got them a new ornament to put on the tree:

Abigail got Pinkie Pie and Emily got Ariel.

The girls even put up a stocking for "Mr. Shug".  They found a Christmas dog in the decorations and decided that he would be Shug:

This picture was taken a couple of weeks later but I wanted to document our tree:

On Saturday we watched the Auburn-Alabama game.  This game will go down in the record books!  Auburn won with 1 second on the clock when Chris Davis returned a 100+ yards from a failed Alabama field goal!

The fans stormed the stadium after the game:

We had fun watching it at home.  Joe told the girls that if Auburn won he would run thru the cul de sac with no shirt on.  So after the win we told him to get running.  This is the best shot I could get in the dark:

On Sunday we decked out in Auburn head to toe for church:

I also ordered this shirt for Joe as a Christmas gift:

Sunday afternoon for the first time EVER, Joe put up Christmas lights. The girls were SUPER excited:

 I think they turned out rather nice.  I told the girls there were only 2 people in the whole wide world that their dad would put Christmas lights up for so they should feel super special: