2012 Friend's Christmas

Each year, we get together with our friends and all the kiddos for a little get together and gift exchange. It's such a special time and we love being with our bestest of friends during the holidays. This year, The Cortes family hosted our fun in their beautiful home! The Grammers, The Grants, The Judds, The Owens, The Abellis, Alex & Karly's parents along with us, had a great night together. Of course, the kiddos look forward to the gift exchange. With our ever growing group of kids, we decided to draw names this year. It was a little less chaotic and the kids really enjoyed their gifts.

We all brought a few dishes to share with everyone. Karly and Faith made some DELISH cookies! And aren't they just precious! Too good looking to even eat!

Our two newest additions to the clan! Tanner was born in May and Ethan in February. Such cute boys!

A couple of the girls... Leah and Kendall... didn't mind posing for me :)

A couple good shots of the Grants

The Future Mr & Mrs... Stryker & Avery

 

A group shot of our cutie kids!

 

Time for presents!!!!

 

Some more sweet shots of the night:

 

Aunt Angela & Tanner.. Next year we'll have another baby! Rudy & Angela are expecting!

 

Full belly and all that fun = a sleepy baby!

 

Shawn & Christie

 

Such a cute picture of The Grams

2012 Boys

2012 Gals

 

You know me, I LOVE traditions! And this is yet another tradition I look forward to each Christmas. Celebrating such a joyous season with such great friends is what it's about. And the kids... the kids are such a blessing! They play together, look out for each other and always enjoy time together. I can't wait for next year when we add Miss Sydney (Abelli) and the little Judd... whom shall be here any day (we are all looking forward to finding out if it's a boy or a girl!). I hope we continue to get together every year and watch the children grow and celebrate!

Christmas Treats

Today we enjoyed a nice church service, a quick trip to Wal-Mart, lunch at Los Arcos and some fun Christmas activities. My little helper was very eager to get his hands dirty (and lick the bowl!) to assist me with chocolate cover peanut butter balls and decorating some Christmas trees.

The PB balls were a pain and didn't really turn out as I imagined. Good thing it's not the looks that count, but the taste! And they.are.GOOD! We moved on to a more Stryker friendly treat. Instead of a gingerbread house, we made Christmas trees this year. We used sugar cones, icing dyed green and some M&Ms. Stryker did a great job putting the candies on his tree. At first, he wasn't digging the green icing being all over him, but then he figured out it was purely sugar and delish! I think he may have eaten more icing and M&Ms then not, but we had a good time.

Back in November, we made salt dough ornaments to send to Uncle Bubba for his tree. Stryker had so much fun doing these as well! He helped mix the dough, roll it out, cut the shapes and then painted them! We will absolutely be making these again next year for our own tree!

 

I just love doing these fun things with my little man! I hope he appreciates it and one day looks back on these traditions we are making. Either way, Mommy & Daddy are enjoying each moment of this Season with him!

Quiggly at Christmas!

Today we did some visiting with Dan's Aunt Lee and Uncle Ronald. We look forward to seeing family, but a certain little someone (and us too actually!) look forward to seeing Quiggly the Camel as well! Aunt Lee & Uncle Ronald's neighbors have a few exotic animals on their property. It's pretty cool to pet a camel and this year a zebra as well!

 The animals enjoyed seeing us and we enjoyed seeing them. Stryker has been talking about Quiggly since we left! Perhaps Quiggly and the Zebra will be around next year!

After heading back to the house, we took a walk down Uncle Ronald's dock to look at the water. It was super low tide so it was mainly pluff mud, but Stryker didn't mind. He thought overlooking the water was great!

We can't wait to head out to the Island again next year to see our family and (animal) friends!

Grant/Gehlken Family Christmas Traditions

For the last three years, The Grant family & our family have ventured out to see the Christmas lights. The first year it was James Island County Park. Stryker was just over 1 and Kendall was just 11 months old! We enjoyed the lights and a train ride.

Last year, we visited Celebrate the Season at Old Santee Canal State Park.  We rode through the light display, visited Santa and roasted marshmallows. Kendall wasn't enthused with Santa last year so that made for a classic picture :) All in all, it was great fun!

That brings us to this year. Once again, we headed to Celebrate the Season in Moncks Corner. Their light display and Christmas activities have expanded and so has our group! Stryker now 4, Kendall almost 3 and Ethan 10 months. First, we rode through to gander at the lights (poor quality b/c I have YET to figure out my camera!)...

We parked the cars and hopped out to ride a cool tractor up to the Canal State Park museum to find the Big Guy. These two little elves hopped in the sleigh for a photo op first!

We waited patiently and finally got to sit in Santa's lap and tell him what we wanted for Christmas.

Then Kendall jumped  was coerced into having a picture with Stryker & Santa like last year! She was a little apprehensive at first, but flashed me a sweet smile nonetheless!

With those two cutie kiddos smiling away, we stuck Ethan in the pic too.... and he wasn't having it! Classic crying baby picture!

We headed outside to find the marshmallows for roasting and some hot chocolate. Stryker and Kendall did their very best to roast their treats, but the fire wasn't exactly big enough so they basically enjoyed marshmallows on a stick sans the brown :)

After they were done with that, we walked around the little shops, listened to a kid's choir singing carols and looked around the house on site that was decorated. Then we got our picture taken with the Grinch!

Needless to say, the kids weren't excited about sitting near this guy, but it was a great group shot! 

We always have lots of fun with the Grants and Stryker & Kendall just love each other so! We can't wait to continue this tradition with them every year at Christmas!

Our First Family 5K

We got to participate in our very first Family 5K today! Dan & I are both runners and have run many 5Ks, but never together and NEVER with Stryker.

We ran the Reindeer Run in downtown Charleston. We were up very early and headed downtown to East Bay Street & the starting line. It was PACKED! There were lots of runners, costumed runners, dogs and kids. We met up with our friends and got situated. We borrowed a jogging stroller for Stryker and I was quite nervous about running with it. Luckily, Dan was the navigator for the first mile. At mile 2, it was my turn to take the reigns.... Jogging Strollers are NO joke! And not training/running with one (ever!) was not a good idea! I think I may have made it to mile 2.7 and begged Dan to take back over :) He did and boys took off to the finish line.

We had a blast! We hung around afterwards to play on the jump castle and people watch. Soon it was time to head back home. Funny, I figured Dan & I would be more worn out!

I can't wait to do more runs in the future with Dan! And I can't wait to teach Stryker the importance of exercise and one day run with him!