Catching Up

A couple pictures from Christmas Eve

I would love to write an entire post about Christmas this year but it would take me forever and I am ready to move on to this year so I am going to give a short synopsis of possibly the best Christmas of my life...

Like many people, Christmas has always been my favorite holiday. I am such a family person and I love when everybody is together, more time is taken off work, and we have an entire month to decorate, wrap presents, and get prepared to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Of course, growing up I loved getting presents (and still do), but I had NO idea how much fun it would be to see my children (well, just Hadley right now) believe in Santa and get sooo excited to open presents. This was the first year that Hadley REALLY understood Santa and we started the "Elf on the Shelf" tradition. We sang Christmas songs and we sang Happy Birthday to Jesus. I know that we only have a few years of this true Santa experience and if I could stop time in the month of December I absolutely would. I want to always remember the excitement Hadley has had for the past three weeks.

Hadley got a chef's hat and apron from my mom and she was ready to cook us all dinner:

Hadley, Peyton, and Story (after a slight meltdown from Hadley)

Family time...we had lots of it this year! Both Amy (Matt's sister) and Drew (Matt's brother) and their families were in town this year so Hadley got to play with all her cousins that she doesn't get to see that often. We had many playdates and were sad to see them go back home. We had our traditional Christmas Eve with my family and Hadley, Peyton, and Story had a blast. We did Christmas morning at our home and then we went to open presents and have lunch with Matt's family on Christmas day. The day after Christmas we had a family get-together with Matt's extended family and this past weekend we finished up Christmas at my parents lakehouse with my extended family. Needless to say, we are exhausted, a little heavier, and ready for a new year. I wish I had the time to write about all of these gatherings but I will stop at that..

Nana and Hudson

All of the Holloman grandkids.

But one more very exciting event happened this Christmas. On Christmas Eve my brother proposed to his girlfriend, Lisa. I could not be happier for them and feel so lucky to be getting such a wonderful sister-in-law. She is so perfect for my brother and Peyton and we cannot wait for all the memories to come!