Christmas Celebration Day 7 - My Tennessee Christmas

Christmas morning was fabulous. I didn't expect to have a white Christmas because we were in Tennessee, but it ended up snowing all day on Christmas. The kids were super excited over the presents they got. And I do have to say they were definitely spoiled! The house was full of laughter, yummy food smells, talking, and wrapping paper. The Christmas dinner, turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, stuffing, green beans, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, ginger cake, chocolate ganache cake, and I'm sure I'm forgetting some of the amazing feast were just positively decadent.

Benny hanging out with his Uncle Sammy!

Lily's Christmas present spot.

Benny finally got excited over wrapping paper at my parent's house. I guess my Mom picks better and more interesting wrapping paper than me!

My little present. :)

That is one spoiled baby. Those were all his toys!

I love the silly faces. Sam's is my favorite!
Jimbo enjoying his sweet roll and coffee!
And there's Benny, trying to climb up the stairs for the hundredth time! He could climb all the way to the top! He would get really excited and climb up, look behind him and see how far he's gone (and almost lose his balance). I was deathly afraid of him falling down the stairs!
Sam with his new Mac that Erin gave him, and David playing on his iphone.
My Grandma came over a little before we had Christmas dinner. I was so excited to see her! I think she's just beautiful!

Lily couldn't decide if she liked my Grandma at first. Look at that face! I've never seen my Grandma crawl around on the floor before. But she followed the "Lily puppy" around and.....

.....ended up getting Lily to like her and got a hug out of the deal!

Here's the awesome wrapping paper fight that Lily and Jimmy had. Lily was having a blast!

My aunt and uncle, Rhonda and Mike also joined us on the festive occasion! I hadn't seen either of them in over 5 years! I was so happy to have them there!

I'm so excited to have a new family member, Erin. She's so sweet to Sam and they seem so great together. I know that both of them will be excellent parents because they were so good and extremely helpful with my kids!

This was one of my favorite parts of the day. Jimmy got a new guitar for Christmas, a Dobro. Mike, who is AMAZING on the guitar got it out and started singing some awesome honky tonk Tennessee music. Everyone joined in! Jimmy got out his Jew's harp and started to play.

Sam got out the electric bass.
And David got out his viola. It was one of those magical moments that you just want to remember. It's what family is all about. Sitting around together and making music together.

Brian and Rachel enjoying the spontaneous jam session.

There's my wonderful, spectacular, amazing, special, and beautiful Tennessee Christmas.
Happy Birthday Jesus!

Christmas Celebration Day 6 - Christmas Eve Service

Christmas Eve was the day that Sam and his new fiancee Erin showed up at the house. Everyone had arrived, and it was a packed, 11 people household. I couldn't ask for more. That evening was the Christmas Eve service at church. It was so great to see my parents working together. My dad was preaching, my mom doing to music. I know this had been a dream of theirs for a long time, and after so many years of waiting, they were finally working together in the same church, doing what they had been called to and had been trained in. My kids couldn't stay awake long enough to go to the service because it was at 9:00 pm. So my sweet little brother, David stayed at the house with them so Brian and I could have a break and enjoy the service together.
The service was simple and beautiful. They sang a few simple Christmas songs and my Dad talked about how uncomfortable Mary would've been, giving birth to Jesus in a barn. And of course the miracle of Christmas in everyone's hearts. Rachel did an absolutely beautiful interpretive dance to "Sweet Little Jesus Boy," that brought tears to my eyes.

This is the best picture I got of my mom at the piano playing.

We're all excited for Christmas in the morning! Sam and Erin look lovely and normal while Brian and I look deranged.

And that's Christmas Eve and Day 6 of the greatest Christmas ever!

Chistmas Celebration Day 5 - The aquarium in Gatlinburg

On Day 5 of the Christmas Celebration we drove to Gatlinburg, TN which reminded me a lot of Park City in Utah. It's a touristy town up in the mountains. I couldn't believe how beautiful it was on the drive there in spite of it being in the dead of winter. I couldn't get enough of the mountains, trees, and water. And the fact that there was no snow! I loved that. My parents took all of us to the Aquarium. I knew Brian would love this, since we have a 120 gallon fish tank at home. Also the kids were going to be super excited too!

I love my mom's face - loving on the Benny boo!

Silly Craziness

Happy happy excitement!

The sharks were amazing!

The tunnel of the aquarium was the best part - a tunnel of glass with fish and sharks all over!
Benny was incredibly grumpy there because of his 4 teeth coming in. Luckily I had my mom around to help our with the poor boy!
Yikes!

We loved the saw-fish. Lily looks amazed!

Mom and Dad being silly in the gift shop!

Checking out the sting rays!

Benny even got a kick out of it at the end!

My favorite were the sting rays! They are like underwater flowers. I couldn't get over how pretty they are!

That concludes day 5 of the Christmas extravaganza!

Chistmas Celebration Day 4 - Christmas Pageant

Christmas Celebration Day 4 was pretty fun. We spent the day at my parent's house recovering from our jetlag. I got to see the church that my Dad is the pastor of. I thought it was pretty awesome to see his name on the sign. The church was having a children's Christmas pageant that night. My mom had my kids being sheep in the play. Rachel was their shepherd. It was pretty cute.

Baaa goes Benny

My sister with all the sheep at the pageant.

Sweet Lily, she was having the worst time feeling afraid of doing this. But she warmed up to the idea since she was hanging out with her auntie.

This is at the dinner afterwards. Benny just hanging out with his Grammy.

There's Day 4!

Christmas Celebration Day 3 - Flying to Tennessee

Day 3 of our awesome Christmas celebration, we got up bright and early (3 am to be exact) to catch our 6:30 am flight to Knoxville, Tennessee to see my family. My brother Jimmy decided in October that he had some extra money and thought it would be great if he could fly our whole family out for the holidays. I was ecstatic at his generosity especially since I hadn't seen some of my family in 5 years and a lot of them hadn't even met Benny yet. Our entire family, Mom, Dad, Sam and his fiancee, Erin, Jimmy, David, and Rachel were all going to be together for Christmas. Plus I was going to be able to see my Grandma, Aunt Rhonda and Uncle Mike, Uncle Brad, Aunt Tammie, and my cousin Corion. All of us being together was the best Christmas present I could ever get.
So 6:30 a.m. we got on our American Airlines flight, and our first stop was in Dallas, TX for our 2 hour layover.

Here's Lily looking out the window for takeoff. This was her first plane ride. She was so cute and wouldn't stop talking and asking questions.

Here's the Dallas airport. We thought this was such a cool airport. It had a train you would ride from terminal to terminal.

My 3 sweeties watching the "plane show" outside.

We made it to Knoxville in the heavy fog and we were so excited to see everyone. I know that Rachel and I just screamed and hugged each other so tight when we got to see each other. We were just so happy to see everyone! Here's Benny getting super excited over the piano at my mom's house.

We always get Rachel and Lily's names mixed up when they're together. They are just so much alike I think. I just love them both. I know Lily never stopped playing with Rachel the entire visit.

That's Christmas Day 3!

Christmas Celebration Day 2 - Christmas morning at home

Christmas celebration Day 2. My brother, Jimmy bought us plane tickets to Tennessee so everyone could be together for Christmas this year. So I decided we should celebrate Christmas early so we wouldn't have to pack presents in our suitcases. It's always a lot of fun to see Christmas through the eyes of a child. It was Benny's first Christmas which made it even more special.

Lily got what she wanted from Santa. A guitar!
And horse toys!

You know how everyone says that babies always like the wrapping paper more than the toy. That's exactly what I expected from Benny. Surprisingly, it was the opposite. He was trying to get the paper out of the way so he could get to his present.

Benny's new ball popper. What fun!

It was interesting to have 2 kids this year for Christmas. Lily was just as excited over her toys as she was over Benny's. I think she ended up playing with his toys more than hers at first.