Christmas Season 2018

We had a wonderful Christmas Season!  We got a little bit of snow in early December!  The boys enjoyed getting 2 snow days off school for it!

Our lights looked so pretty snow covered!

The boys enjoyed playing in it outside for hours.  It was so nice to just see them being kids and having fun!

Simon's Christmas Concert

Yay for Mall Christmas decorations!

We got our lights up right after Thanksgiving

Pictures never do justice for lights lol. What looks like red in the front are small candy canes and on the right are giant bulbs.

Simon marched in the Fredericksburg Christmas Parade!  It was cold but Dad saved us by getting us nice warm mochas!

Just Tim and I for picking out the tree this year.  We found a great local farm to get one from and will go back to them for years to come!

All decorated!  We actually thought it was bigger than it ended up once we got it in.  Next year we will go up in size!

Some holiday decorating

This cat and his fireplace!  Tucker loves loves loves the fire.  He will walk over to it and pat at the screen to get us to turn it on.  He will lay in front for hours!  It really is adorable.  We have all kinds of funny pictures of him in front of it.

Paige's Visit

We got to see Paige for a week in mid-December.  She and her friend Josh were able to come up for a week.  She couldn't stay for actual Christmas because of her work schedule she had to be back before the holiday break for the local schools there.  She is a manager at the local movie theater. They needed her back by the 21st.  She had her last final on Dec. 13 and then came up here the 14th-21st.  It was so awesome having her here.  Six months was how long we had to go without seeing her. Booo.
She starts back to college on Jan. 14.  She had a great first semester and got all A's and made the Dean's List.

On the way home from the airport we stopped and ate lunch at National Harbor.

I love this girl!  Day one and she organized my pantry and fridge!

We went and got our hair done!

We went to the Quantico Marine Corp Museum.  Paige had been there before on her trip she won to D.C. so she was our tour guide!

Doing some holiday baking!

Christmas Time at the White House!

Josh had never been to D.C. so we did the touristy stuff for a couple of days.

National Christmas Tree.  I have to admit I expected it to be bigger.

Came across this guy who looks prepared for winter! Hahaha

Paige needed a new military I.D. so we went to Tim's office for a visit.

Paige brought custom handmade Harry Potter Wands for her brothers.  So sweet!

Yay a current family picture!

Love our 3 kids so much and absolutely loved having them all under the same roof again!

Family picture

Just like that, the week was over and back on a plane they went.  Can not wait till our next visit.  Hopefully, she can come back up this summer for another visit.

More Christmas Stuff

We got the sweetest note left in our mailbox on Christmas Eve from one of our neighbors.  I still haven't figured out which ones they are.  It made my day.  On a morning where I was missing Paige to get this and know that there is family (and specifically the child that wrote this note) had been enjoying our lights made my day!  I love love love Christmas lights and have ever since I was a little kid!  I find them just as magical now and I did then.  I hope this child always love them just as much too!

These are the decorations at the MGM at National Harbor.

They were awesome and massive!

Our traditional Christmas Eve dinner.  Sandwiches on Hawaiian rolls!  I was pleased to find out Paige made herself some on Christmas Eve and took them to work with her!  AWE!!!

Opening the family box with new lounge pants, mugs, hot chocolate, popcorn, and the movie ELF!

ELF time!  Best Christmas movie!!

Tucker enjoying the fire.  This cat cracks us up!

Leaving cookies and milk for Santa

 Christmas Day

Cinnamon Roll Time!!

opening gifts!

He always has good expressions when opening gifts!

Christmas Dinner!

Yes, a rather strange Christmas dinner!  We let the boys pick it out.  Ended up with Chicken and Waffles, bacon and yes that is spaghetti with syrup, ELF style!

Happy New Year!  New Years Eve!

Hope this finds you all doing well and having a great start to 2019!