Christmas 2011

We had such a wonderful Christmas this year. For the first time since we have been married, John and I didn't have to travel anywhere. We stayed in our own home the entire holiday. We loved having all our family visit and we are so thankful to have enough room to enjoy their company!

Christmas Eve:

Mimi and Papa met us at church for the family Christmas Eve service. It was a great service and everyone behaved. Afterwards, we went to eat at Taco Mac. We then rushed home to get our luminaries out. Our entire street sets out luminaries along the street on Christmas Eve. It was a beautiful site to see! We set out cookies and milk for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. Everyone went to bed excited about what they would find in the morning.

Christmas Day:

The kids were super excited, but stayed in their room, as instructed, until 7:00. Half way down the stairs, Ben spotted his train table and started yelling "choo choo!" We had a hard time getting him to open any other presents after the trains! The girls enjoyed their gifts as well. Aunt Shelley, Uncle Steven and Haley joined us for Christmas as well. Haley enjoyed her 1st Christmas, but probably would have liked it more if Ben had left her toys alone! After gifts were opened, we got dressed and headed to church for a great Christmas Day service. We were happy to have Shelley, Steven and Haley join us.

Day After Christmas:

For our next celebration, we headed over to Gram and Grandy's house. Aunt Erica, Uncle Steven and cousin Clara made the trip down from Virginia to spend a week in Atlanta. We loved having Clara here (and her parents!) Clara has a little obsession with Riley and it is so cute to see them together. We had a yummy dinner and opened presents with the Hamricks.

Brunch with the American Girls:

Aunt Erica gave the girls American Girl gift cards for Christmas, so the next day we headed to North Point and had afternoon tea at the American Girl Bistro. It was so cute and quite delicious. The girls enjoyed picking out new outfits for their dolls and Riley especially enjoyed all the sweet treats we had to eat! Aunt Erica got American Girl overload!

Christmas with the Orr's:

Wednesday night, we had 19 people over to our house for dinner. It was hectic, but so wonderful to be able to have that number of people in our house comfortably. We had yummy lasagna, lots of dessert, and then we opened gifts...again! The kids are pros now!