Merry Christmas

It may be a week late, but hey, it's a crazy time of year, right?! The Lindsay family, once again, had a fabulous Christmas. We try really hard to celebrate the whole month of December, and we were once again successful!

Our first Christmas celebration usually starts with Christmas at my parent's house in Fayetteville. We usually schedule this early in the month, before everyone's holiday schedules get too crazy. It's just my parents, our little family and my brother's little family. We eat and open presents from each other. It's basically just another excuse to enjoy the company of family during the Christmas season.

For some reason, one of Bella's Christmas requests was a trumpet. Since it's the responsibility of the grandparents to spoil the grand kids, my parents bought her a trumpet. Fabulous.

As any parent knows, getting a good picture of one child can be a challenge. It becomes exponentially more difficult as you add more children to the picture. Amazingly, my dad captured a great picture of my two in front of the tree. I thought this was such a good picture, I sent it out as our Christmas card photo this year.

First Christmas as a family of four!

The whole "Pitt" clan.

When my brother Will and I were born, my mom had us each a stocking knitted. I'm sure she would love to say that she made each of these by hand, but she had someone else do them. Since the first one of these stockings was made over 30 years ago, my mom has had to find someone new almost each time to make a stocking as a new member of the family came (first Scott, then Melissa, then Bella, Layla and Austin). I think she has had the same lady make all the grand kids stockings, so this poor lady has done a stocking for our family 3 years in a row. Maybe she'll get a break next year- as of right now, no one is pregnant, so for the first time in 3 years, no one will be celebrating their first Christmas next year :)


Austin's stocking holder :)

The next stop on our Christmas tour of 09 was Christmas Eve at my Grandmama's house. We all enjoyed a yummy meal then waddled into the living room to watch the kids open presents. Bella and Layla certainly enjoyed themselves.

Bella patiently waited for Layla to finish opening one of her presents before tearing into hers. She never shows this kind of patience at home!

Austin wasn't really sure what was going on, so Scott helped him with his presents. Austin is really starting to interact with his toys more, which is really fun to watch.

Later in the evening we had our annual viewing of Christmas Vacation. I felt really old when I realized that movie is 20 years old, but it's definitely a classic. Our family quotes that movie quite frequently. "That there's an RV...." or "I wouldn't be more surprised if I woke up with my head sewn to the carpet" definitely get repeated throughout the year :)

I was so happy that my kids got to have Christmas morning at Grandmama's house. Some of my favorite memories as a child were having Christmas mornings at Grandmama and Grandaddy's house. As far as I can remember, Will and I spent every Christmas eve night there, so Santa always came to see us there. It was very important to me that my kids experience it as well. I was happy that Will, Melissa and Layla also spent the night. It was so much fun to see Bella and Layla together on Christmas morning. My parents were also there, and I think they enjoyed seeing all their grand kids on Christmas morning.

Santa came!! Layla's not really an early riser, unlike my kids, so we had to wake her up. Doesn't look like she's all the way awake :)


Merry Christmas little man!


Everyone checking out their loot. Bella got a Dr. set from Santa, so she's taking my blood pressure here. I wonder how accurate a blood pressure reading is on the wrist? :)

Yes, my kids had matching pajamas. It's a new tradition I decided on and I plan on continuing as long as they'll let me. I fully anticipate this will not be cool when they are 14 and 16.

After enjoying Grandmama's delicious breakfast, we got all cleaned up and headed to my Granny's house in Red Oak. We usually eat lunch* on Christmas day with my Dad's side of the family.

*My Granny operates on a much slower time than the rest of us. So we call it "lunch" but it's really more like mid-afternoon.

Christmas lunch at Granny's always includes her famous macaroni and cheese. For some reason that I'm not sure of, Granny has never shared her mac and cheese recipe with anyone. I don't know if it's that she wants to keep her recipe a secret, or if she's just never gotten around to sharing it. Others have tried to duplicate it, and some have come thisclose, but no one has yet to achieve the exact recipe. Maybe one day she'll let us in on the big secret :)

After gorging ourselves yet again, we were up for another round of presents....

Scott and Granny

Granny gave Austin a bear for Christmas. His name is Benny and Austin loves him.

My mom (aka Grandma) and Bella

After celebrating in Red Oak, we loaded up the kids and headed to Fuquay-Varina to spend Christmas night with Scott's parents (aka Nana and Papa). We were so full from eating all day, so luckily we didn't have to eat another large meal. We got to their house and opened presents and enjoyed appetizers.

Nana and Papa gave Bella a miniture grand piano. She absolutely loves it. It's in the corner of her bedroom and multiples times a day, she'll grab mine or Scott's hand and say "let's go to my room and see if there's a piano in there" :)

Oh, and her piano has a real working microphone. It's fun. I'm sure Bella was singing Jingle Bells here. It's one of her favorites.

All of the Christmas festivities wore this little fella out.

We headed back to Wilmington after lunch with Nana and Papa. Back in Wilmington, we exchanged gifts with each other. Bella got a wagon and Austin got a ball popper (which Bella will probably wear out before Austin ever gets to play with). We finished off the evening with our traditional viewing of the movie, The Family Man. We were all completely worn out, but had definitely had ourselves a merry little Christmas. We are certainly blessed and definitely felt that way during this season. It was a busy time, but I wouldn't have it any other way.