TEAM PFanny: Gearing up for the Holidays!

Every year we have several Christmas traditions that we like to do as a family. Some are simple activities like riding around and looking at Christmas lights in our jammies, others involve tickets to various shows. Either way, family bonding and memories are being made year after year!

Reading Christmas stories with Daddy.

We attended the Christmas social at preschool. Granny came with us this time. Will visited with Santa, Parker painted ornaments and they both enjoyed cupcakes.

Uncle Marshall and I took Will and Parker to see Disney on Ice - Frozen show. They received tickets, shirts and a Sven stuffed animal as their big brother presents when the twins were born.

Decorating and checking out all the ornaments on the tree. This year, we added a kids' tree and they are quite proud to add their own ornaments to it. Several were made at preschool, some were made with MiMi and others were given to them. Next year, I think we will need to upgrade to a larger tree to show off all 4 kids' ornaments!

We did lots of cookie baking! Allowing the kids to decorate however they wanted was a highlight. The more the icing and sprinkles the better!

One of the most popular and favorite holiday event was our small group Christmas party. Santa and Mrs. Claus dropped by again this year. The big guy delivered presents to each child. The children's faces were full of excitement and all the adults enjoyed watching the magic take place. So glad we have this group to celebrate with! They have truly become some of our best friends :)

Our favorite Santa also came to our neighborhood for breakfast one Saturday.

Stumbled upon some of friends at the Raleigh Christmas parade and watched it with them. We had great seats on the church lawn.

We all went to see our little shepherd perform at his preschool's Christmas performance. He sang his little heart out and did a fantastic job!

After the show, he eagerly wanted to show off his new brother and sister to all of his friends.

Elfie came back again this year! We started the morning off with an Elf on the Shelf breakfast.

Mimi brought over her candy cottage and the little chefs decorated. Just as much sugar was consumed as was used to decorate :)

We loved our Christmas jammies!

We were asked to provide "Baby Jesus" for our church's Christmas Eve service. (Each year a family with the most recent newborn is asked. In our case, we had two!) That also led to both Adam and I participating as Mary and Joseph. Connor did a great job with his role. He slept through the entire thing. (Aunt Momo was in the nearby hallway and it was her job to hand me the quietest baby as the narrator was introducing the birth of Jesus.)

This little shepherd was a little too shy to participate when all the kids were asked to come forward dressed as shepherds, kings or angels. He stayed on the 2nd row with the family and waited until after the performance to join us on stage.

Merry Christmas!

Afterwards, we went back to Granny's and Grandpa's to open presents and have dinner.

Santa came!

We had Mimi, B and Aunt MoMo over for breakfast on Christmas morning. The kids enjoyed the day in their jammies playing with their new toys until it was time to head over to Mimi's and B's house for dinner.