Christmas...before it's to late!

I know its was weeks ago but I can't not do a blog post on it. So here it is Christmas 2012! We are blessed to have both of our families very close to us..I mean 1 mile away close. We spent Christmas Eve at my parents house, Early Christmas Morning at our house, Christmas Day with Hubs family. I'm so glad we all got to spend some quality time together and really enjoy our time away from work. And there was even snow on Christmas Eve!

 With my family we exchange names and there's a limit on what you can spend. This year Hubs got my brother in law Chris and what did he get him...beer. Yea $50 dollars worth of different micro brews. Seemed to be a hit!

 

 

My Auntie Ann came down from MA to spend the Holiday with us, it was just so awesome to have her here and I really hope its a new tradition. :)

 

I should probably make 2 blog posts out of this with all the pictures. Oh well. So Christmas morning was just as I imagined. Cole woke up at 6 am. Did Santa come did Santa come?!?! I mean really did he have to wake up so darn early for Santa already?! The smile on his face when he saw all the gifts was priceless. He tore through the gifts asking us to open each one right away and play with it. The balloons were a hit too. I mean HUGE hit. I probably went a bit overboard on gifts but it was my last Christmas with just him. How could I not go a little over the top?

 

After we opened our gifts we headed over to open gifts and spend time with Hubs family. It was so great to have Aunt Brooke home and Cole just loves his Grandma and Grandpa. We were so happy we got to have ALL of us there for that special day.

 

Christmas Balloons

Somewhere my kid got the idea that Santa should deliver presents Christmas morning as well as balloons. Folks if I had known how much a hit balloons were going to be I would have asked Santa to keep a few presents at the North Pole.

Every Christmas morning should have balloons!!!

 

Merry Christmas from The Shinaberry Family!

 

Cole and Santa

This year Cole was so excited to see Santa, we kept asking him what are you going to ask Santa for when you see him " trains, cars and tracks" he replied every time. As we waited in line and made our way up to see Santa we kept wondering would he be just as excited once he saw the big fella in person?! The second he laid eyes on him he ran over and said "I want trains, cars and tracks". Kid cracks me up! He then hopped up on his lap and told Santa he was a good boy and when Santa asked again what do you want he said "Balloons"?! I'm not sure where this one came from but it seems Santa will now be delivering presents and balloons Christmas morning. It's amazing how magical Cole makes Christmas, it makes me so giddy for Christmas morning! 2 more days!!!!

 Cole with Santa this year. 

Cole and Santa in 2011

 

Cole and Santa in 2010

   

Elf on the Shelf

This year I was almost giddy about doing Elf on the Shelf for Cole. I just knew he would really get it and enjoy finding the elf every morning. I went in search of fun ideas of how to introduce the Elf and came across some wonderful ideas on Pinterest. So I decided to make it an Elf breakfast and introduce our Elf Buddy to Cole. I explained that Buddy had brought snow covered donuts and hot chocolate with extra marshmallows for us to enjoy why we learned why Buddy was here and that he had come from the Northpole. Let's just say Cole was crazy excited...I'm mean all this sweet stuff for breakfast who wouldn't be!

 

Buddy also brought a gift from Santa ... a McQueen Ornament!

 

It's just another great tradition I'm excited to begin with Cole this Christmas season. One that's both fun for him and us. So now I just need to make sure Buddy is in a new place every morning. Sounds easy enough but I have already nearly forgotten twice in the first week. My expectations are low I will make it to Christmas.  

Our Christmas Tree

Every year right after Thanksgiving we head out to get our Christmas tree. We usually just go right down the street and grab a nice 8 foot Douglas Fir, but this year we switched it up. Last year by the time Christmas came our tree was pretty dried up, obviously pre-cut tree's have an expiration date and it had hit about a week before Christmas. fail. Of course we could just wait this year to get our tree to ensure it didn't happen again...but that wouldn't fly with Hubs. So this year we set our to cut down our Christmas tree, starting a new Shinaberry Christmas tradition.

So we headed over to the eastern shore to a cute little tree farm. I had found it online and after researching it we figured we found just the right place.

 

It really was an enjoyable ride over and we made our way out to the middle of nowhere and when we arrived we all were excited to pick out our tree.

 

After looking around we asked the tree farm owner where the Douglas Fir tree's were, and he explained to us that the Douglas Fir's were already cut down. Um mm what?!?! Yea so we drove 45 minutes to a Christmas tree farm to cut down our own tree and they were already cut down. He assured us they had just been cut down two days ago and that it would last through Christmas. All we could do was laugh. So we loaded our tree and figured all in all it was a fun experience even if we didn't get to cut down the tree ourselves. Though I would have really enjoyed watching Hubs put some work into cutting it down.  

Shrek on ICE!

Last weekend we went to the Gaylord Hotel at the National Harbor, they have been putting on Shrek on ICE for the past few years and we wanted to check it out. We tagged along with the Ervicks and the Geary families and the kids all seemed to really enjoy it. The blue parkas they provide everyone were really a hoot..they were a tad big on the boys but they didn't seem to mind. While I realized the ICE show meant it would be cold to keep the whole attraction (ice) cold I think I underestimated how cold it would be. 15 degrees is very cold, and this mama didn't even think to bring gloves! fail. Oh well it was fun to see and another great memory made with great friends.

 

The boys

 

Silly boys

 

 

Sweet Caroline

 

Inside the exhibit in there parkas

 

SHREK!

 

Big coat and little boy...ha ha