Christmas Unwrapped

Ok so I know this post is way overdue and I am behind on putting a post up about our Christmas season. I read some blogs of people that seem to blog every week or even every few days and I say, "How do they do it and how can I do it?" But I guess I shouldn't compare myself because that just frustrates me and every person's journey is different. Right now my journey is full of homeschool, field trips, boys wrestling, struggling to find time to keep my house clean, playing with dolls, teaching 4 year-olds at church, struggling to find time to do Bible study, coloring, running, and lots, lots more chaos the ensues when you have three children aged 7 and younger. So even though it is January 10, this is the best I can do but I still feel it was important to remember our Christmas season. It was filled with special family time and traditions. I just can't believe how fast it came and went!

Our Christmas wasn't full of a lot of Christmas parties and dinners to keep us busy, but we had plenty of other activities. And we had lots of sweet moments with the kids that make us realize just how blessed we are to have each other. Its funny, but I really never thought I would have three children, especially when we first got married, but God changed our hearts because He knew that was exactly what was best for our family. And certain moments when I see them together or interacting in such a close way, it really makes my heart so full of the knowledge that we need to trust more often in the fact that God really does know whats best for us. 

So the photo below is not really anything to do with Christmas, but we took it during the season and it is just so cute because Kailey has recently learned how to climb the boys' bunk beds. So her favorite thing to do is race up there and try to lay with them for a minute before she gets pulled out to go to her bed. I just know when she moves to a toddler bed we will find her in her brothers bed in the middle of the night. Haha!!

One of our favorite special Christmas traditions is to bake special treats, and this year we baked...and baked...and baked. We really got into making sugar cookies, rice krispie treats, chocolate chip and snickerdoodle cookies. This year, we added a new recipe for chocolate/chocolate chip cookies that turned out fabulous! I was so excited because homemade chocolate chip cookies have really never turned out so great, but these cookies were awesome! Maybe it was because Reece helped me make the cookies. 

Here is Kailey and Reece mixing up the dough for the sugar cookies. She always likes to help do the mixer since I won't let her do it by herself yet. I guess I have visions of the kitchen turning white!

One of our biggest blessings this year was that Daddy actually had a lot of vacation days this year at Christmas, and was even off Christmas Eve and Christmas. So he was able to be home with us and participate in a lot of our holiday traditions. Here he is helping cut out the cookies shapes for our sugar cookies.

Kailey was able to cut out the cookies too!

Big brother shows them how its done.

 

I think decorating is Jadon's favorite part. He really got into his artistic side for the cookies this year. Kailey just supervised and then was the taste tester. (We found her licking the icing off the cookies a couple of different times.)

Here is our finished product. Can you tell which ones the kids helped decorate??

After the cookies it was time to make the Rice Krispie Treats. This year we challenged ourselves and made some that looked like ornament balls, and some that looked like Rudolph. Here is Chef Reece ready to melt some marshmallows.

Do you notice the supervisor Reece has here?

Now Jadon gets in on the action.

They love making the Rice Krispie treats. I think it is because they love watching the marshmallows melt. After we made our big batch we shaped the Christmas ornaments into balls and added decorations that included Skittles and Reese's Pieces. For the Reindeer we added pretzels to make antlers and gum drops and icing for the nose and eyes. Mostly the gum drops were for Rudolph's nose, but the boys wanted to put gumdrops for the eyes too, which made for kind of big eyes, but oh well. Here is a photo of the finished Reindeer. They looked cute, but the antlers fell off pretty easy.

Jadon puts the finishing touches on the ornaments.

Here is a short video of the cooking fun.

In addition to all of our baking, we also spent some time painting ornaments to give for Christmas gifts. We had each of them do their own painting and then asked them who they wanted to give their ornament to as a gift.Then we put a photo of the child who made the ornament inside each picture frame.

Kailey enjoyed making her ornament, as long as she didn't get any paint on her. But she managed to only get paint on her a few times, which I had to wipe off immediately.

Reece on the other hand was quite the opposite of Kailey. As you can see, he managed to get black paint on him very quickly.

Jadon was very serious with his ornament. He wanted the paint to be just right. He chose his special cousin Seth to get his ornament. 

We also got to attend Reece's Preschool program around the first of December. He practiced singing songs for several months and he was so excited about it. You can tell in this photo.

  

They had lots of gestures they had to learn. 

Daddy was working that night, but was able to get a few hours off to make it just as his program was starting.

Since our nephew Seth turned 12 in December, we had fun one night going out to Sundance Square in Ft. Worth to celebrate. I really love Sundance Square at Christmas because of all the lights and decorations they have out. Even though that night it was cold and rainy on and off, the boys didn't seem to mind it.

Another fun activity we did before Christmas was to take all the kids to see The Polar Express at the Imax at the Ft. Worth Museum of Science. It was a really cool experience to see the movie there. Even Kailey, who usually gets restless during movies, was mesmerized the entire time. And the fun thing is we had the kids wear their jammies too!!

Shopping for Christmas this year was a little different since it was the first time both the boys decided to buy Christmas presents for the whole family, at least the ones who would be with us on Christmas. They were so sweet and actually saved up their allowance money to buy the gifts. They really put thought into each of the gifts too, and even wrapped most of the presents, although Daddy did have to help Reece a little bit.

Jadon was getting pretty good at wrapping the presents by himself.

Even though things were pretty busy, we actually tried to keep a simple perspective this year and focus on our family, and spending time giving back. It really was great this year too, because Jadon is finally old enough to make a difference. So Jadon and I served at our church a couple of times with a program called Operation Joy, which is our version of the Angel Tree. We helped sort and make sure gifts had everything in it they should. Then on another day we helped families pick up their gifts and wrap them for them, (yes Jadon was even helping to wrap) as well as carry out Christmas gifts for their kids.

We also helped in the food pantry, which is something we do every month now. Here Jadon is checking expiration dates before stocking the shelves from the donations to the pantry. The funny thing is now he checks expiration dates when he's at the store with me, which can actually be pretty helpful!

Jeremy, Jadon and I all went to Mission Arlington to help serve in the Christmas Store the week of Christmas. For those of you who don't know, The Christmas Store is set up by Mission Arlington to help provide Christmas to under-resourced families. We helped stock the gifts in the "store" where families can come help "shop" (there is no money involved) for presents for Christmas. We did get to help a few families shop also, which I always enjoy the interaction with the people. Here Jadon was helping mark through UPC codes on the gifts with some new friends he made at the Christmas Store.

I don't mention all this to brag on us or even Jadon, but to tell everyone how it truly changes your perspective when you do more to reach out to others at Christmas instead of it just being all about ourselves, the gifts, the parties, etc. It truly does bless you when you give of yourself because of the love you have for Jesus. And I could tell how it changed the way Jadon was looking at things and made him more thankful.


So before we knew it, Christmas was actually here. We spent Christmas Eve at my parents house having the annual Lasagna dinner. Then we opened some presents from my parents and the rest of the gang: my sister, Kim, and Seth and her daughter, Abby, and her husband Ed. And of course Aunt Peggy was there with us too! Here are a few photos from Christmas Eve.

Jadon loved his shark gift from cousin Abby.

Kailey loved her new purse from Mamaw.

Reece loved a special talking dinosaur he got. This was the year of the dinosaurs.

This was also the year of baby dolls. Kailey has just really started getting into babies, so she got a couple of new ones for Christmas. I love this photo of her rocking her new baby while all the chaos with the boys was going on.

Here is a photo of the madness.

The other thing Kailey discovered this year was her love of "dookies!" Here she is sampling some of them on Mamaw's counter.

When we got home, Jadon wanted to write a note to Santa to put with his cookies and milk. Of course Reece remembered we needed to put carrot sticks with it for Santa's reindeer. 

Christmas morning the boys got up early as usual and were so excited to see what Santa brought them. We had to wake Kailey up around 9 to join in on the fun.(She was still tired from Christmas Eve.) Santa brought a T-Rex Dinosaur for Jadon, a remote-controlled robot for Reece and a baby for little Kailey.

After we checked out what Santa put in our stockings, we worked on opening presents from Mommy and Daddy. Then the kids were able to Skype Mimi and Pawpaw so they could watch them open the presents from them. 


Kailey loved the play make-up kit she got. 

She also loved her new sleeping bag. She loves to bring her babies into it and pretend to sleep. 

The boys loved their gifts from Mimi and Papaw also, but we didn't get any photos of them because we were talking on the computer. 


So I have to say one of the funiest moments on Christmas morning was when Jadon gave Bandit his gift he had picked out for him (yes, he bought the dog a Christmas present. That is just our sweet boy.) It was a package of sqeaky toys for him, but when Jadon started making them sqeak Bandit started running away from him. He was so afraid of those toys!! We never laughed so hard!!

After we had our special Christmas in the morning, we had to get ready for the family to come over for Christmas dinner since we decided to host this year to give my Mom a break. Keeping up the Chesnutt tradition, we served enchiladas, the green chile kind, tamales, and a taquito casserole. It was a great Mexican feast to be proud of. Afterwards, it was time to open more presents. This time it was mostly presents that we bought everyone.


Here is a photo of Aunt Peggy opening one of the gifts Jadon picked out for her. 

All the cousins, except Kailey, watch Abby open her present from Jadon. 

Kailey decided she was going to give Papaw her special ornament she had made, which as you can see really made his Christmas even more special. They just really have a special bond.

Mamaw and Kailey enjoy some dessert at the end of the day.

So I guess that just about wraps up our Christmas and our 2011 for that matter. Now we are looking forward to what 2012 holds for us and the adventures that lay ahead. I don't really make resolutions, but I do hope that this year will bring our family even closer, I will grow closer to God, and I will reach out to others more. That is really all we can hope to do, to be a better version of the people that God created us to be. So here's to a better 2012 and maybe even I'll get better at blogging. We can hope!

Our Favorite Tradition

As I write this I am sitting in my living room surrounded by Christmas lights and decorations. I love this time of year because all of the decorations just make my house feel warm and cozy. It also reminds me of the hope we have because of a special birth, the birth of Jesus. A week and a half ago, we were not feeling warm because we were finally having colder weather and it was REALLY cold, at least by Texas standards. The funny thing was that I was actually happy about it because I'm kind of a dork in that way. We spent our Tuesday doing our favorite Christmas tradition, so it always puts me more in the Christmas spirit when the weather actually feels like Christmas and not spring. 

Every year we visit  Northpark Mall to see the Santa there, and also to see the miniature train exhibit. Jeremy grew up not far from the mall, so he loves it because it is the mall he remembers going to as a little boy, so that part is special. But the Santa is also pretty special because there is no doubt that he is the real Santa! 

Here Kailey is about to see Santa.

If you don't believe me, look at the photo below. (That hair is all real!)

Kailey did better this year and didn't scream, but then again when she started to get upset, I just didn't want to force her to sit in Santa's lap. I looked at last year's photos though, and it appears we tortured her last year. Here is the photo from last year. 

Its funny how much she has changed from last year, but the boys don't look quite so different as her in one year. The best part is we were able to get two Christmas' out of these shirts! Woohoo!!

The other thing we absolutely love about Northpark is it just always puts us more in the Christmas spirit. I don't know if its because it is decorated with more trees and holiday lights, or if its just that it doesn't seem to be the wall to wall people that you see in most malls. But whatever it is, it was so nice to be able to stroll along and enjoy ourselves. This was the first year that we were able to go during the day because of homeschooling Jadon, so we definitely had more time at the mall this year. 

The mall also has more unique features, such as the big water fountain seen here. The kids just love playing around this fountain. Of course it is always a challenge keeping Kailey out of the water.

 

There are also Christmas trees around every corner. Here they are posing for Daddy. I absolutely love this photo!!

Here they are posing with Mommy. 

I just love these kids!! I truly am blessed to have them in my life. 

The mall also has different entertainment throughout the mall. The one we see every year is the Scrooged Puppet Show. He picks people in the audience and makes them part of the show, so it makes it pretty entertaining. 

 Kailey and Daddy share some pretzels while they watch the show. 

And of course no trip to Northpark would be complete if we didn't visit the Northpark Train Exhibit. The best part is the money you spend to see the exhibit goes to benefit the Ronald McDonald House. 


All of the kids were truly fascinated watching all of the trains and all the little miniature houses and people. Kailey was pretty much mesmerized by the whole exhibit. She just keep pointed and saying, "Choo Choo...Choo Choo" and when one of the trains would go into a tunnel where she couldn't see it, she would just keep asking where the Choo Choo went until one showed back up again. It was so cute!! 

But the boys also loved the exhibit and they would get excited about some of the little towns and people that were in the exhibit. 

I love this photo below because this is so Reece, so animated and excited about special moments. He really is our little energizer bunny.

Here are more photos of the trains exhibit. 

After our busy day at the mall it was time to go eat and then drive around Highland Park to look at Christmas lights. It was a lot of fun, even though we were all pretty tired by then. Jadon was excited about all of the "Big Mansions" we saw with their extravagent displays. Poor Kailey did fall asleep though about 30 minutes into it. Oh well! 


I hope to make at least one more post this week, but if not, I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!!