Santa! And More Christmas Fun!

We went and saw Santa at the Brookwood Mall. It's our annual tradition to eat Chick Fil A and go see the big guy! Harrison said that he just loves going to the mall! Haha, we really don't get out much! We love the purple couch pictures that ought to be gold plated as much as they cost! :) The boys SWEAR that this Santa is the real one and not just one of his helpers. Thankfully the boys did not have any surprises to spring on Santa at the last hour this year and everyone was all smiles!

 

 

I love how excited Hudson is in this picture!

We also baked cookies for Santa and then decorated them later with cousin Rooney!

We tried out the new trampoline park in Homewood. Our boys definitely give it two thumbs up! They were exhausted and so sweaty when we left!

The Carlos' got into town and we immediately go to work decorating the cookies!

 

Gotta love 2 year olds with sprinkles! We just let them all go to town and they had a blast. I made some icing and let them "paint" with it too.

And had a dance party in the kitchen with Aunt Carrie!

I've been busy baking! Pioneer Woman cinnamon and orange rolls for the win!!!

We also took some pictures with cousin Lilla. I just love all of these!!!

I couldn't decide which ones to post, so I just did them all!

We are ready to celebrate Christmas starting tonight at the Reed's!!! We have some excited boys.

My Sweet Big Boy

This is kind of a random post, but I wanted to make sure I got these pictures added to the blog! Hudson received the Character Award at school last week for displaying honor and respect to his friends. We are very proud of the big boy he is becoming! We are also very glad that he still received this when two days prior to him getting the award, he got in trouble at lunch for "fighting" with a friend over a seat! :)

 

He is a crazy boy for sure...he even made this lovely creation of ME out of legos and a train track. I had to explain to him that I do not use the restroom that way! Hahaha! He will probably be really mad at me later in life for taking a picture of him and putting it on the blog, but it was pretty darn hilarious. You can definitely tell he has a creative spirit!

We had a really bad scare these past 2 weeks when Hudson came home with an abnormal eye screening test from school. His vision was absolutely fine, but the screening said that there was something significant in his eye and we needed to see an ophthalmologist as soon as possible. I should have known better than to google what it meant, but I thought it would make me feel better. It only made me more worried! I sent the picture to our pediatrician who was able to get us in to see the ophthalmologist yesterday instead of the January appointment they gave me initially. That made me more nervous too because he thought it was serious! The past 2 weeks were so hard on me thinking that something was seriously wrong with him, but by the grace of God, we went yesterday and there was not a darn thing in his eye. He said he was perfectly normal and it was obviously just something on the surface of his eye the day the eye screening was done. We are so grateful it was nothing serious, and definitely counting our blessings. I have to say that walking through Children's Hospital just going to the eye doctor sends a shiver down my spine. There are so many that aren't as lucky and are going through so much. The Reed fam is celebrating HEALTH this Christmas season!!!

On a lighter note, Hudson is playing basketball and is doing so well! He scored 8 points last game and is such a great little defender. It's fun to watch!

Christmas Fun!

We've been super busy since Thankgiving. Christmas activities fill our schedule in December and while it seems exhausting at the time, we wouldn't change it for the world.

 

The weekend after Thanksgiving, my dear friend Meggan from way back in our college days (she was the first new friend I made at college and then we pledged the same sorority!!) came to visit for the weekend with her family. They were really here to do the Polar Express in Calera, but they spent a good bit of time with us too! We were so happy to see them!!

 

I think Harrison has a little crush on Avery!

 

 4 of the 5 kiddos...sweet baby Aiden was somewhere being loved on I'm sure!

Harrison and I went to church one Wednesday night and made a nativity set. It was so much fun to have this special one on one time with my little bud, and I thought the nativity turned out really sweet. We'll have it forever I'm sure! (I just wish I could have gotten Harrison to wear something other than an Auburn football jersey, but I'm quickly losing the battle on clothes.)

 We had breakfast with Santa at our church (and Harrison's school).

Harrison has a really sweet group of little friends! Santa's lap was FULL!!

 I had lunch with Hudson at school and then volunteered at Santa's workshop, where the kids packed up food and snacks for those kids who aren't as fortunate over the Christmas break. It's always a good time and something that I think is very important for our kids to understand!

We picked out our real Christmas tree! We have a large artificial one, but we started getting a real one last year in addition to it, and I fill it with all the Christmas cards we receive. The kids love picking out the tree even though they were really in short supply this year (not a lot of good ones!). I feel like I can actually appreciate and enjoy all the Christmas cards we receive when they are on display.

Carol took the boys and I to see The Nutcracker! Hudson was thrilled as you can see! Ha!

 This next one was after a little bribing. I really enjoyed the show, and I think both boys did as well, but Hudson was being too cool for school and said it was too girly. Oh well, they need a little culture in their lives!!! Thank you Migi for taking us!

 Hudson had a big school project right in the middle of all the madness where he had to pick out a book that he had to read to the class, pick out a "wow" word which he would have to explain to the class, and do a book report that consisted of completing 4 pages of questions. He also had to give the whole class a souvenir to take home with them. It was a bit much in my opinion, but Hudson actually liked doing it. It just wasn't something he could totally do by himself. I'm proud to say he got a 98% on the project, which is mostly based on how well he presented it all to the class, so he did great!

He read a book called The Gingerbread Pirates, and so we made little gingerbread ornaments for the class. It was actually really easy to do and we had a lot of fun! Definitely recommend for a good Christmas activity!

 Hudson decorated them with glitter pens and we put ribbon on them to hang from the tree. They smelled delicious too!

 Margaret had her annual gingerbread house and cookie decorating party and it was so much fun as always!

 We had my work Christmas party a couple of weeks ago! I'm not sure I could do what I do without this group of girls below. They make all the long hours and stress bearable!

 Then the next night, we had our Sunday school Christmas party. Again, not sure what we would do without this awesome group of people! We love them all!

 We went to the Alabama Theater with the Reed family (and extended fam too!) and saw A Christmas Story. The boys had never seen it and they loved it, however, I really wish they had played the edited version where they say "fudge" instead of the other word!!! Thankfully, I think we played it off really well and the kids have already forgotten about it.

 Harrison went to a Christmas themed birthday party and came home with a reindeer mouth! So cute!

We've had more fun this week since the kids have been off. That will be for another post though! Merry Christmas!!!