Christmas in Greenville

With my new job, I don't have any vacation time accrued and the office was open on Christmas Eve, so I had to work a half day.  We decided to stay in Greenville with our little family of three.  I must admit, I thought it might be a little depressing to be home alone on Christmas because Caroline doesn't understand it yet, but it turned out to be awesome.  We had a wonderful first Christmas at home with her!

On Christmas Eve, we went to Fresh Market and got all of our favorite foods for a fantastic dinner.  After the Cuttino kids went to sleep, we went over to eat with Ashley and Brad.  Santa had a big surprise for Grayson, Anna Parker and Cooper and it required some assembly on Christmas Eve night.  Caroline and I supervised!

Christmas Day was great.  We had a great brunch at home, went to see what Santa brought the Cuttinos, then opened presents with Caroline.  She obviously doesn't get Santa, but she did love playing with all of her new toys!

Christmas in St. Matthews

Bubbles and Mimi got a swing set!  The kids had a blast. There is a big kid swing, a little kid swing, a slide, a tire and more.  You name it, this swing set has it.  It was Caroline's first time in the swing and she LOVED it!  

We opened some presents....

And had a delicious dinner.  

We didn't get to stay long, but we made the most of the time we were there!  

Christmas in Aiken

Poor Sydney was looking rough, but she still rocked the Santa suit!

We went to visit Mimi

Merry Christmas!!

O Christmas Tree

 Before I met Lee, I had a great looking artificial tree.  I pulled it out of the attic and set it up each year on the Sunday after Thanksgiving.  In about twenty minutes, I had a Christmas tree full of lights.  Lee came along and insisted on a real tree each year.  At first I wasn't sure how I felt about real trees (putting the lights on each year, the pine needles everywhere, etc...) but now I love the look and smell and just the feel of a real tree.  So, today we went out in search of our real Christmas tree.  Because it is Caroline's first tree and first everything where Christmas is concerned, I had this vision of us wandering around at a tree farm while we carefully selected the very best tree.  Instead, after convincing Lee that the Lowe's parking lot was not what I had in mind for this momentous occasion, we wound up at Country Boys, which was a good compromise.  

Of course, by the time we agreed on a location, Caroline had a massive diaper explosion.  Without a spare outfit in the diaper bag, I changed her in the car, and had to put the dirty pants back on her.  She didn't seem to mind, so we even took some time to check out the Christmas decorations in the store. We couldn't stay too long- the poopy pants were starting to smell!!

Having some fun at Country Boys store! 

Seriously guys??  

We may not have been sipping hot chocolate in the back of a wagon searching the woods for the perfect tree to cut down ourselves, but we did end up with a great looking tree for Caroline's first Christmas! 

Downtown Christmas Parade

We went to the Christmas parade downtown tonight with the Cuttino, Holder and Bryan clans.   It was a great parade with a huge turnout!  The kids had a ball.  It is so cute to watch them all.  Caroline is a bit too small to appreciate it, but she knew something fun was going on.  She was smiling and waving and I think she loved all of the lights.

On our way to the parade.

Watching from Olivia's stroller...best seat in the house!

Favorite picture of the night- I think Brad had a LONG day!!  But the best part is the kid next to him...he is clearly thinking, "What's your problem, dude?"