Yes, it's been a while. What can I say...I sorta take a break in the winter months from blogging...not a good habit to get into b/c then I'm always stressed about getting caught up again! But, never the less, here is our Christmas post :)

We are so grateful and so blessed to have so much family so close ! (how about that for some "so" in one sentence!) but it definitely means that we have to spread our Christmas celebrations out a bit so the children are not completely inundated with presents all in one day!

We had a great time up in Greensboro with Poppi and DeeDee, and Uncle Brandon and Aunt Angel. Mom made an awesome dinner, like always!, and then we had a sweet time of sharing gifts with each other.

We had some time with Grandpa and Nanny during the afternoon on Christmas Eve. Since the plan was for Braxton to receive a big Chuggington train set, he received several "pieces" of the set throughout the gift exchanges, so it was fun to watch it all come together!

We had to take some "family photos" in our Christmas outfits after we got home from the awesome Christmas Eve service at church! It was so fun to have the kids in the service with us, singing along to all the songs and being a part of the spirit of the season!

Christmas morning couldn't come fast enough for these two!! Though, I must say, we are SO grateful that our children sleep (for the most part!) til 8:00am!

Nana and Aunt Kelly and Shauny came over Christmas morning for brunch and more present sharing!

And Christmas night, the door was still open for more!! Memama, Uncle Clarke, Uncle Watts, Carson and Cooper joined us for a night Christmas dinner.

Layton's first Christmas was a big hit for the little guy....tuckered out at the dinner table.

3rd Annual Christmas Party!

Well, our annual Christmas party proved to be just as entertaining as each year past!! It actually seems to keep getting better and better...I think mainly due to the craziness that always ensues with the Gift Exchange game we play. Ah, the memories :) From last year when our dear friend Bert decided to steal a picture from our house and use that as his gift to enter the game to this year when Shawn and I wrapped up some live goldfish in a bag of water with a fish bowl as one of our gifts. The laughs never stopped! Especially when Bert and Holly were the ones who would open that bag of goldfish and would end up at the end of the night with 3 dead fish, 2 live fish and a beautiful beta fish we also included in the gift as a "backup" if the goldfish died. If it wasn't funny enough, the pranksters came out and Bert and James decided it would be funny to leave the dead goldfish in our master bathtub. Oh, let the pranks begin!! Can't wait til next year! It's always so much work but it's oh so worth it after all is said and done!