A Holly Jolly Christmas, Part Two

We spent Christmas Eve with members of the Berryhill clan and my mom's family. I love love love spending time with my sweet family. We're so blessed to live near so many wonderful family members who love on and spoil our boy rotten!

We ate way too much food, played some fun games, and chatted the night away!

Brayden saying "cheese!"

On Christmas morning, we woke up way too early and opened all of the gifts. Santa outdid himself this year.

After taking naps and cleaning up, we headed over to the Bellon's house for more Christmas fun. We're so lucky to live near BOTH of our parents.

All in all, it was a very successful Christmas. It was great getting to spend time with our wonderful family members and reflect on the true meaning of the season. Hope everyone else had a wonderful holiday season as well!

A Holly Jolly Christmas, Part One

Blogger is being ridiculous about loading pictures (and then putting them in the right order once they're uploaded), so I'm going to have to split the Christmas posts in two. Which is probably for the best, since there was no shortage of Christmas activities this year!

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A few weekends ago, we attempted to take some pictures of the cousins on my mom's side of the family for our grandparents. Cold air + two toddlers + two teenage boys + the rest of us = recipe for disaster. Luckily we got a few good shots and were able to print some pictures.

How cute are these babies?! I'm so thankful that Brayden has a built in playmate and that they love and adore one another (for the most part!).

The best group shot we could get. Brayden looks drugged and Mackenly is checking out my horrible hair straightening job. :)

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The weekend before Christmas, we got together with my mom's side of the family (all of her aunts, uncles, cousins, and their children). I love getting to catch up with family! Poor Brayden didn't feel so hot that night, but he was a trooper.

My sweet Maw Maw reading Bray & Mack their Christmas book.

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Stay tuned for Part Two!

O Christmas Tree

I am way behind on blogging (as per usual). I skipped a post about Thanksgiving, but we'll have to forget and forgive about that. :) Since we've been in full-swing Christmas mode since the day after Christmas, I thought I'd do a post about our tree.

This is our third Christmas to spend together. Our first Christmas, we hadn't quite been married a year and Brayden was a wee tiny baby. We lived in an apartment about the size of shoe box (seriously...you could vacuum the whole house and never have to re-plug the vacuum). It was a cozy little place, but it left very little room for Christmas decor. Still, I couldn't imagine December without a tree, so we got one. A sweet little three footer that only had one ornament on it. At least it was easy to put up and take down! :)

Last Christmas, we had moved to Lake Charles a few months prior and were still living with Jason's gracious parents. There was a tree up at their house of course, but it didn't belong to us.

And now we're at this year. We're very blessed to be finally owning our lovely abode...complete with a great big ol' living room. The first thing I said when I saw the living room is, "Wow, we'll be able to have a Christmas tree!" I get slightly giddy around Christmas time, so all of the decor went up the Saturday after Christmas. We still don't have much, but I love the tree's glow and the warm holiday fuzzies it brings to the house.

The tree and our make-shift mantle. (complete with the LSU/Arkansas game on the TV screen...there's no need to discuss the outcome of said game.)

Ahhh, I love Christmas. :)