Christmas Eve

With two babies in the family, we had to break tradition this year.  Instead of going to Shore Acres to see the Christmas lights and then on to the 10:30 (pm!!) service, we went to the family service at 4:00.  Judson made it about ten minutes before I had to take him out.  (His sleeping schedule was seriously out of whack after too many late nights and he only ended up with one nap that day.)  Macy did considerably better, but eventually joined Judson.  After church, it was drizzling, but we decided to try Shore Acres anyway.  Good thing we did!  It didn't rain on us at all and was actually pretty warm.  (And it poured the rest of our time in Bandon, so we wouldn't have gotten to go another night.)

These pictures aren't great, but you get the idea...

Judson really wanted Granddad to be the one to carry him around

So sweet.  And hard to believe Judson was wearing that cozy suit last year.  (Click here if you want to see it.)

What a pair

And then we were off to Anna and Morgan's for a delicious dinner of tortilla soup and jalapeno cheese bread...  What a great night!

Moody Family Christmas

Paul, Nate, and Philip

This year we were finally able to celebrate with Nate's brothers and their wives before the twenty-fifth.  We had a lot of fun, especially Judson, who was spoiled rotten.  He was SO excited about the toys both couples gave him...he just kept going back and forth between them.  Very cute.

The first and only present Judson had any interest in opening.  After that, he was too busy playing with his new toys!

Can't you go any faster, Mom?!  Toys these days take FOREVER to free from their packaging.

Putting together the Alphabet Train

 

 

What excitement!

Kristy and Paul

What do you call an upside down gingerbread man?

I got this idea from the Christmas tree farm.  These were some of my first attempts.  I definitely got better by the last batch...

Christmas Prep with the Renningers

Okay, so this is sort of after the fact, but whatever.  I was too busy before Christmas to do much posting.  :)  These pictures are from two different evenings at Paul and Becky's.  One night we went out and helped them decorate their tree.  We hadn't put ours up yet, so it was Judson's first chance to help decorate.  He was pretty happy about it...he really loves Grandma Becky, Grandpa Paul, Auntie Mandy, and Uncle Justin!  (Mandy and Justin weren't there that night...they were enjoying two weeks in Hawaii!)

Us and  Justin, Mandy, Becky, and Paul

 This picture is from the weekend before Christmas.  We went to their house to do some Christmas baking.  Nate insisted on a group picture, even though we'll be going back soon to celebrate Christmas with them.  It turned out well, so I'm glad he insisted.  :)

Decorating the tree

Judson had a lot of fun helping us decorate the tree.  The balls were his favorite...go figure!  We let him play with them because they're just cheapo plastic.  We do have some fragile ones, which we put up high this year.  I'll post a picture of the finished project at some point.

Hanging his new ornament (a puppy, because he LOVES dogs and "woofs" a lot these days)

 

Ornaments in the ball machine :)

One of the fragile ornaments that apparently wasn't high enough

We finally have our Christmas tree

Of course we weren't able to get our Christmas tree on the sunny weekend. So on Sunday we donned rain gear, coerced Nate's brothers and their wives to join us, and we headed to a Christmas tree farm JuliAnn told me about. One reason I wanted to go out there, besides cheap(ish) trees was because they serve hot cider and cookies and there's even a Santa. You know, ambiance. I thought just maybe we'd get a cute Santa picture. Yeah, right. (See previous post.)

Judson was absolutely hysterical, which is not like him. I attribute it to a couple of factors. First of all, he'd been left in the nursery at church in the morning and was not happy about it. He hadn't been in there without us for a few weeks. Furthermore, I'd had to wake him up from his nap so we could go to the tree farm. I don't think either of those things helped the Santa cause. Anyway, we never even tried to put Judson on his lap. It was really something. After that, Judson wouldn't go to anyone but me and he screamed until I took him out of the cozy little building with cider and cookies. Yes, he was happy to stand in the rain, because then he couldn't see Santa. :)

Anyway, we got a ride (see pictures) out to the noble firs and Nate picked our tree. We were pretty wet by the time we were done. All in all, though, we had fun and definitely made some memories. We don't spend nearly enough time with Nate's brothers and their wives!

We don't have great pictures. We only had our big camera, which we didn't want to get wet. Plus I carried Judson the whole time and Nate was busy with our tree...

The group: us, Paul, Kristy, Bridgett, and Phil, without a raincoat :)

You can't tell how loudly he was screaming right here...

The only "sleigh" shot of Kristy (behind me)

Phil, Bridgett, and Paul

In front of our tree

Judson met Santa today...

Yep, it went pretty much as expected. (More on our Christmas tree expedition soon...)

Big Boy

Grandma Becky and Grandpa Paul baby-sat for Judson yesterday and he had a great time at their house. Tonight she sent a couple of pictures of his time there. Two of them were what she found in their walk-in closet after Judson's nap in there. She'd moved his pack-n-play so he couldn't pull the hangers off like he did last time. This time he was able to reach Paul's drawers and pull his socks and shirts out. He was awfully proud of himself.

She also sent this picture. How is this possibly my thirteen month old? He looks like such a big boy! Isn't he still supposed to look like a baby?!

Beach Boy

On Sunday afternoon, there was a break in the weather and my mom and I took Judson down to the beach (at the jetty, because it's easy access). Judson was in awe and quite serious about everything. He loved it, though. Once we'd been there awhile, he discovered a puddle in a huge piece of driftwood. For the first time since we'd been there, he got a huge smile on his face as he proceeded to SOAK himself. (I have to include every picture I took of him splashing. I love the look of pure joy on his face.) Then it was time to head home and get warm...and dry.

About to discover the puddle in the log...

The Rest of the Weekend in Pictures