Smiles for Santa?

Last week, Santa came to my work!  This worked out great, because we weren't really looking forward to going to the mall and standing in line for hours to see Santa.  One of our shareholders at work dressed up as Santa and I have to say, he was pretty impressive.

This was Karsten's first Santa visit, and I had a pretty good idea of how this was going to go.  Let's just say, she did not prove my suspicions wrong.

Karsten was less than thrilled with Santa.  She is pretty clingy to me, and didn't even want to look at Santa when I got close to him. I tried to ease her into it and when that didn't work, I just plopped her in his lap and walked off. Obviously that did not work.

Kate, of course, was so excited to see Santa and let him know that she REALLY wanted "Chase from Paw Patrol" for Christmas.

We stayed around for about 30 minutes while the kids ran around and played with each other. Karsten is in a running-everywhere phase so she would take off, and then she would realize that she was running toward Santa, so she'd quickly stop and then change directions.

She was much more excited about dinner later than night than the jolly 'ole man in the red suit.

Maybe next year...

Christmas Card 2015

For the past few years, I've linked up with Faith to share our Christmas cards, and I figured this year shouldn't be any different.

We had family pictures done back in late-October, and these were also Karsten's 1-year pictures. I'll share the rest of our family photos in a separate post later, but that's where these came from. :)  So without any further ado, here is our 2015 card...

And now a look back at some of our cards in previous years, starting with 2014...

And 2013...

Oh and who can forget the Great Christmas Card Debacle of 2012...

And that's it!  For our family, the month of December is a time to celebrate the joy and GIFT that is Jesus Christ.  While we definitely focus on his birth during December, all year long we try to remember that his birth, life, death, and resurrection are what the true gift of Christmas is. Through Him we are able to have life.

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Sunday Lovin'

It probably goes without saying, but these two girls wear a lot of red during the month of December... and especially on Sundays!  Here they are this morning, ready for church!

Crafty Husband

I'm on Pinterest and often find things that I'd love to do, but they're just a bit much for me.  I do not regularly use power tools. :)  So of course, a lot of the pallet projects are a bit out of my league, though I do love a lot of them!

However, about a week ago, Kevin saw a Christmas tree pallet that someone had done and shared on Facebook.  He definitely wouldn't have seen it on Pinterest since he does NOT have an account.  (Let's face it, Pinterest is probably a pretty female-dominated social media platform anyway!)  So, he saw a picture, said "I can do that" and decided to take this on as a Daddy/Daughter project with Kate.

So this is what they did last weekend...

For obvious reasons, Kate was left out of the cutting portion of this activity, but she sure loved the rest and took control of the lights...

Not sure why the picture below shows the wood grain. It looks like solid painted green in real life.  They did a great job! And now this thing is plugged in and lighting up our back yard.  Kate LOVES to pull into the driveway and see it sitting there.

And now that Kevin has taken on a Pinterest project on his own, and done such a great job at it, I may be making a list for him of things to do! :) 

Thanksgiving in Charleston Part 3

My aunt had an early Christmas gift for the little kids when we were all together over Thanksgiving - new Christmas pajamas!

It was so funny because when I got there, one of the first things I told my mom was that I needed to go get the girls some Christmas PJs, and when my cousin got there she said the same thing. What a perfect surprise!

One of the girl cousins....

Kate got to hold the littlest cousin, Miller.  I know it was just a year ago but it seems like forever ago that Karsten was that small!

And of course we got one of all of the cousins!

Great way to kick off the Christmas season. :) 

Thanksgiving in Charleston Part 2

Thursday was, for obvious reasons, the big family get together.  I have a big family so family get togethers are more than just your standard "big".  Our Thanksgiving lunch was held at my aunt's farm, and again the weather was pretty perfect, though it almost felt like summer! It was definitely not cold.

I'll let the pictures do the talking, but this is what our day looked like...

Here are my two little turkeys, enjoying the day. Gobble, gobble.

The picture below is not nearly everyone, but is just my mom's brothers and sisters and their families.   We were missing quite a few people. :)

Thanksgiving in Charleston Part 1

This year we spent Thanksgiving in Charleston with my mom's side of the family.  My parents and my aunt and uncle rented a house, across the street from the beach, for the entire week so we spent most of the week out of town.  The weather was about as good as you could ask for! 

One afternoon while Karsten was napping, Kate, my Aunt Cathy, Kristi and I walked down to Morris Island Lighthouse.  Well, we walked down as close as you could get to it!  It was very windy, but a pretty spot!