Holidays 2018: Part 2

Look at those little Christmas cuties!! <3 When I put them all next to each other at around the same age and smile they look so much alike. Definitely all siblings! I always look forward to getting their first Christmas ornament and picking out a picture to put in it. This coming holiday year will be interesting since I won't know if Flynn's first Christmas will be 2019 or 2020 until he arrives, so I'll have to wait to buy the ornament until after he's born! Also if you missed the first part of this post check it out here Holidays 2018: Part 1. Alright let me get right back to our 2018 Holidays!

Our friends, The Combs, were so sweet to invite us to their holiday party and hayride! I wasn't sure if we would make it since we were leaving to go to Dallas the next day, but I was able to get myself in order earlier in the day so I felt good about going. All of the kids LOVED the hayride to see the lights. Jane was so excited to sit next to her friend Paige and share a warm blanket. We love our friends and hope this will become a tradition we will look forward to every year. <3




On the weekend before Christmas we headed up to Dallas for some Daniels family Christmas time. We stayed with Sam's brother Travis and his wife, Cerena. Jane and Atlas were excited to have a sleepover with their cousin Holden! The trip up went alright. Atlas and Jane are pretty great travelers now and I can entertain them pretty easily. Alexandria on the other hand is NOT a fan of long car trips. She did better than our trip a month earlier to Austin, but she has a really hard time napping in the car especially any longer than like 45 minutes. Which makes a 4 hour trip feel really long with a 8 month old that doesn't like the car. But we made it! And everyone enjoyed their own personal tent in the car. ;) The kids were amazed by the huge pizza that Travis and Cerena ordered for everyone. It was also delicious! We tried to have a sleepover for the kids all in Holden's room, but everyone has their different ways they like to fall asleep and what makes them feel sleepy, so it didn't work out so well. I ended up putting them to bed in the bed Sam and I were going to sleep in and transferring them to their blow up bed in Holden's room once everyone was settled. Such is life on a trip with little kids.




Sam's little brother, Joseph spent the night as well and I'm pretty sure this was the first time that all 3 Daniels brothers could really relate on a similar level and play board games and everyone be competitive. It was pretty fun to watch them having a good time together. The next morning we headed off to Kokoo and Akuya's house (Sam's mom and dad) for Christmas with the whole family! All the brothers, grandkids and great grandma's were able to be there. <3 They had such a great time opening all their presents! I was so busy helping the kids open and watching their joy that I didn't actually get many pictures of present time. My old iPod camera wasn't taking very good pictures because of the lighting in that room actually, so it worked out for me to just enjoy the moment.




Christmas 2018 was more special than we realized at the time because it was our last holiday with Granny Bea. I'm so glad we got to spend time with her one last time. She was such a sweet and kind lady. I think she realized her time was growing short even though there wasn't anything seriously wrong with her health. She gave each of the grandkids a special family item from her house for Christmas. She gave us a talking Santa that tells the story of Christmas. As you'll see later the kids LOVED that Santa! We managed to grab a picture of everyone which is quite the feat. Jane was not in the mood for pictures though... She was exhausted from a poor night's sleep and all of the activity of the day. There's another picture of everyone with her basically crying. Poor girl. Real life. Oh and note from this picture how much Sam looks like his older brother Travis. Since we're having a boy just next month ( Dec. 2019) I'm so curious if Atlas and Flynn will have some big similarities like Sam and Travis too. Oh! Another fun tid bit! Cerena was pregnant here with their second. Later they found out it was a boy and their boys are the same age difference as Sam and Travis! Yay brothers!!



We headed home on Christmas Eve right after lunch. The drive wasn't too bad, the traffic was great because almost everyone was already were they wanted to be on Christmas Eve. It also helped that all the kids slept a lot. The ride home is always easier because everyone is wiped out from the fun we had instead of being all excited and impatient to get there. We stopped at rest station that had a great playground for bathroom breaks, to get out some wiggles and so I could nurse Xan. It worked out great.



We made it home around early evening to have a little time for a couple of our Christmas Eve traditions.We took our Christmas Eve walk around the block to look at the Christmas lights and we started a new tradition of listening to our new talking Santa story. We usually have mexican food for dinner with queso and let the kids go through their stockings but we didn't have time for those things. We did have Mexican food for lunch with the whole family though before we left, so that was special!

We made the trip on the weekend before Christmas because we wanted to make sure we were home for Christmas morning with our kids. But we realized that we didn't like that our Christmas Eve felt rushed and the kids were still tired and a little cranky from our trip on Christmas day. So even though it was a great trip we won't be making any long trips returning home on Christmas Eve again. I managed to make sure Jane and I still fit in our traditional Christmas Eve picture together. <3 I love to see how she has grown through the years!! I hope she always wants to take a selfie with me on Christmas Eve!

Atlas and I take a Christmas morning selfie together. <3 Look at those smiles! He's a little harder to keep still enough for a picture with those little boy wiggles, but so far we've always managed to grab a smiling picture. Thank goodness for rear facing camera photos so he can see himself. It's the only way I get him to look and smile sometimes. ;)




We take Christmas morning slow. The kids don't get to start opening presents as soon as they wake up in the morning. I make them wait until Sam is ready to get up. And that's not normally until 10am. The first thing they wanted to do this Christmas morning was listen to their new talking Santa again. After the story was done I put on a Christmas movie for them to watch and made pancakes. I gave them some powdered sugar to put on their pancakes since that was the closest we were getting to snow on Christmas. ;) They liked sprinkling the sugar but then didn't love the taste. Haha! I guess syrup is the only way to go with pancakes for my kiddos.




Once Sam was up and ready we let them start with their stockings since we didn't get to them on Christmas Eve. It took them a while to get through it all. I like to stuff them pretty full with little dollar store items. I think the biggest stocking hit was the little dollar store play phones. They both got one so they love to pretend to talk to each other on them. They had a blast opening their presents and I think we did a pretty good job of making it special and affordable. I didn't get any big ticket items. I got a lot of fairly reasonably priced toys that they would like so they had more presents to open. It went over pretty well. ;)




After all the presents were opened we usually watch one of the movies they got for Christmas. I almost always get them their favorite movie from the year for Christmas. Atlas got Toy Story and Jane got the Incredibles 2. I also got them Olaf's Frozen Adventure. We opted for that one since it was short and they both like Olaf. After the Olaf movie we moved on to Christmas cookies! Kokoo sent a gingerbread man decorating set home with us from our trip and they had so much fun decorating and eating their cookies. I feel like Atlas tries to see how much icing he can end up getting on his face. Haha! Looks like I won with the Moana costume for Christmas because Jane wanted to put it on right away! I totally was going to let her watch the movie the next day since it had been on Netflix for some time, but when I searched for it I found out it had been removed just the week before. Oh Netflix!! I guess we'll just have to buy it then... It's all part of their plan!

I'd say they made out pretty well on presents. ;) And we still had one more Christmas celebration to go! Xan only got a few things since she didn't know the difference and didn't have opening presents down yet. Also, I'm already swimming in baby toys for that age. So much so that the puppy and bead maze pictured here I had to take back because we already had both of those toys. She really liked her little ducky stuffed animal I got her though. She wouldn't leave it alone for the picture. We exchanged the toys we already had for a fluffy teddy that she adores and a singing tea set that the girls can play with together. It worked out great!





New Year's Eve and Day is our last holiday celebrations of the year. Usually Scott and Anna come and stay and we have our Daugherty Merry New Christmas Day. But this year we were sick... I don't even remember what I had honestly. I think it must have been cold stuff with a mild fever or something. Anyway, I wasn't well enough for Scott and Anna to come when they were planning so we postponed our family holiday by about 4 days or so. I was well enough on New Year's Eve to spend the evening with my parents though! My dad bought a few fireworks for us to set off and sparklers for the kids, but Jane was the only one that wanted to watch them. Xan and Atlas wanted no part of it and stayed inside with Marmee. We definitely still enjoyed our New Years Eve!



Finally the weekend after New Year's had come and we were all well enough to be together. <3 My dad had saved a few fireworks to set off with Scott and Anna so we could still feel like it could be New Years Eve. ;) I had to decide what special day would be Alexandria's holiday selfie with mom day. I decided that we should do a selfie on the night before the Daugherty Christmas or as I like to call it Merry New Christmas Eve. She is so good at looking and smiling at the camera! My little photogenic baby! I can't wait to watch her grow through our selfies together too. :) Do you see Atlas holding Jane so sweetly?? When does that ever happen? Only when everyone is in the best mood because it's Christmas! Again!! ;)




It's finally New Christmas Day! Are those adorable kids actually mine?? Sometimes I have to pinch myself. I am so blessed. They were so excited to get to have a third Christmas day! My dad bought Santa hats for everyone to wear and little elf ears for Alexandria. It was so fun! Most everyone kept their Santa hats on the whole time we were opening presents. Xan would not keep her elf ears on at all, but at least she left them on long enough for a picture! We had the whole crew this year. Last year Mama had to skip because she was sick, we FaceTimed her in though which worked out well, but it was so much nicer to have her in person this year with Papa.




Man, my brother sure does have a great looking family too! <3 We were so excited because Scott and Anna told the rest of the extended family about baby Daugherty #2 with an ultrasound picture they had wrapped up. We were so glad because a few of us had to catch ourselves a few times to not give it away before the present was opened. I had gotten Anna some stud earring since she'd have a newborn trying to grasp at earrings soon and I almost blurted it out when she opened it before everyone knew. I caught myself just in time though. I would have hated to give it away before the fun surprise! The rest of the present opening went splendidly. I had my mom pool our Christmas money together get our family a Nintendo Switch for Christmas. Woohoo! The kids were pretty excited! I was too. ;) Sam had told me to unbox the Switch beforehand and get it set up and have the system all up to date with any system updates and such then put it back in the box and wrap it up. That way we could play it as soon as we opened it. What I didn't think about was charging the controllers... They were dead. Uncle Scott to the rescue! He had brought his own Switch and set it up to play real quick so the kids felt like they were playing their new Switch. :)




Before presents we had a delicious meal. (notice Jane's favorite dessert. Whipped cream with no pie) After presents we headed outside to play the Frisbee game I gave Scott and to set off the last few smoke bombs we had and play with bubbles. We had a lovely holiday together. It's always a good time when we can have everyone together. Look at all those Grandbabies! We didn't know it quite yet, but their number will grow by two by next New Christmas Day! :D First and only time there will be two new Daugherty and Daniels grandbabies in just one year! Yay babies everywhere! :D




The last thing I do for the holiday season is take down my outdoor lights. A few days after our Merry New Christmas I let the kids go out one last time to see the lights before I took them down. Oh, have you noticed that my camera is way better than when I started this Holiday 2018 blog? On January 1st I finally got a smart phone for the first time! I got the newest one so it will last me the longest and it has an awesome camera! I love it so much.

The tree is empty and the holidays are over. Somehow I'm never sad that the holidays are over. I love the season, but also I love it when everything goes back to normal too and things slow down a little again. We got so much wonderful family time this holiday season and got to do so many fun things how could I be sad?? It was wonderful. Farewell Holidays 2018. See you next year!!

Which is now... yes... Now. We are planning to set up the Christmas Tree next week. Haha! I'm excited! Bring it on Holidays 2019!

Matthew 1:18-23

Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”

So all this was done that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying: “Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”