christmas 2010

what a great christmas holiday. i love that court is at the age that he is starting to "get" everything that is going on. it is SO SWEET to watch. i love that he wanted to make a birthday cake for jesus. each night we read about the birth of jesus and the wise men coming to bring gifts to jesus. it's just precious to hear court repeat that story. 

the week before christmas, court's class got a visit from "santa". i was curious to see court's reaction because each time we saw santa at the mall, he only wanted to wave and not get any closer. he did great with his class. he was definitely a little hesitant about getting on his lap, but after most of his class did, he agreed to go so mommy could get a picture. here is his class walking in to see santa. 

not so sure about sitting on santa's lap. 

he told santa that he wanted a "green horn" for christmas. he saw a green horn in a christmas book he read with mimi and that is all he could talk about. so - santa delivered a green horn in his stalking christmas morning and court was SO EXCITED!

rhett and i gave each other 12 dates for 2011. so, we will have 2 planned dates a month! woohooo - i'm so excited. rhett got really fancy with the packages too.... here are ALL my dates! :) i have the best hubby! 

we were hoping to see aunt heather, uncle ray, hadley, ryan, and reese on their way to groom for christmas. but, unfortunately, they were ALL sick: burst ear drum, strep, colds, coughs...... just no fun. so, they bypassed our house to keep the germs away. hopefully, we'll be able to see them for ryan's birthday in a couple of weeks. 

christmas eve we headed over to mimi/pop's to celebrate. here is court making jesus a birthday cake. mommy forgot to bring the happy birthday hat from church and court was not happy......

all the kiddos playing with their santa gifts...... a grill set for cade, and an elmo restaurant for court & beckham... and they came with cooking sunglasses of course!

ring around the rosey........ 

aunt missy and miss tay watching the action. 

bath time!!! right after bath time, we heard santa's sleigh outside our window. we all looked out and saw rudolf's red-nose flying by (uncle jon). it enticed them to get to bed so santa could come! the grimes' headed home in their pj's to have christmas at their house. you wouldn't know it from these pics, but poor cade had a rough christmas day. he ended up going to the emergency room and after too many tests for such a sweet boy, he also has strep and rsv. we are hoping for a quick recovery for that precious boy. 

here we are setting out santa's cookies and milk. court and beckahm had to taste them to make sure santa would like them. we also put out hay for the reindeer that court got from school. 

christmas morning started about 6:45 AM - both boys woke up EXACTLY at the same time. so, once i got the video camera ready, we all headed in to see what santa brought. 

beckham loves his ride on toy that sings, counts, plays music..... oh joy!

court and daddy played for HOURS with the new train table. i don't know who loves it more: court or daddy......

mimi and her santa baby..

rhett was off for the beginning of this week so monday we headed to the fort worth museum of history and science and had SO MUCH FUN in the children's museum.

can you tell that this boy LOVES trains??????

beckham loved playing in the "hospital". he is a little rough with the babies however...

this boy loves to "drive"!!

fun fun fun!

trains at northpark

sunday, we headed to northpark to see the trains! court and cade are at such a GREAT age - and they LOVE trains! santa is actually bringing court & beckham a train table this year (i better remind him :)).

we grabbed a quick bite for lunch and then headed to see the trains. wow! it was PACKED!! i think we were all sweating by the time we left. 

 beckham trying to give tay a high five

two peas in a pod - court said he was holding cade's hand so he wouldn't get lost. 

cade is an EXPERT at making a train sound! here he is pointing to the balloons (which he loved!)

 getting some "much needed" girl time with my tay

 the whole family - i think cade wins for the only kid actually looking at the camera!

the boys did NOT want to wear the train conductor hats, so uncle jon modeled for us. 

 just about the only decent pic of mimi & pops with the older two + 1 silly court face!

 patterson clan

grimes clan

 stroller duty...

 "mommy...... uncle jon keeps trying to get me to make the longhorn sign - get me down!!" :)

 should i be worried that beckham "loved" playing in the sleeping beauty castle at the disney store instead of the mickey mouse clubhouse???

time to head home for naptime..... in fact - court took a 3 hour nap and we had to wake him up at 5 pm! he thought it was morning time! he was worn out!!

such a fun outing with the family! :)

our christmas card

we are doing a "digital" christmas card this year. since our "christmas card" went out in FEBRUARY last year, i decided we'd do a digital one so it would be on time. just haven't had the time to pick a card, get it ordered, address envelopes, and get to the post office. i've been a little too busy chasing around 2 wild and crazy boys, and enjoying every minute of my time with them. maybe next year we'll get into the swing of things again.

a few of my favorite things

some of my favorite sounds of this holiday season are:
court singing "rudolf the red-nosed reindeer" and "jingle bells" before his naptime and bedtime.
beckham laughing SO hard when court tickles him that i have to tell him to breathe
rhett reading the christmas story to the boys before bed and other stories about Jesus.
court telling me that "Jesus was a GREAT man mommy!" and "Jesus is God's son".

christmas just gets better and better each year with these two precious gifts from God. i love that court is SO interested in Jesus' birthday - he even wants to bake him a birthday cake (something he came up with all on his own).
one thing we are looking forward to (if we are able) this year is to go to church on christmas eve as a family. we have ALWAYS done this as a family since i can remember. growing up one of my favorite things we did, was to go out of town to be with extended family over the holidays.... cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, etc. we always got dressed up and went to christmas eve services at church and had the best time together. then, we would come home and open 1 present (some how it was almost always pajamas....). we would finally get to sleep that night and wake up at the crack of dawn to see what santa brought. when we were older, at aunt candy's house, we would all go around and tell what we were thankful for and my mom could NEVER do it without crying - it was the family joke - waiting to see if she would cry or not. we would open presents for HOURS in our pajamas and snack all morning and just play, play, play. such great memories.
now, that we have babies, some of the things we've always done have changed (which is a reasonable expectation when you have a growing family) - like we don't travel to see extended family but we (rhett and i and the boys) do go every other year to spend christmas in groom. we trade off each year for christmas since rhett's family is out of town.  i love that court and beckham are getting to spend christmas morning with the grandparents and sometimes the cousins! since we've had kids, we've either had newborns around on christmas eve, or one that was already asleep for the night when church started, or an ice storm like last year, so we haven't been to a christmas eve service the last 2 years. but, this year i think we will finally get to enjoy church together to celebrate jesus' birth (knock on wood that no one has fever). i don't mind changing things up a bit, because that is just what you do when you have little ones and there are more around that you have to accommodate. a growing family just means more to enjoy during this wonderful season!

rhett and i have been doing alot of praying and talking lately about what we want our "family legacy" to be - after hearing this AMAZING sermon from jay utley at IBC. it is titled "it starts at home" and it is all about the MOST important things to teach your children. rhett and i have had several discussions about what we feel are the most important characteristics/attributes we want our children to develop as they grow up. here is our list in progress.....

1. love & honor God with your whole heart
2. love and honor your family
3. serve others as Jesus did
4. treat others as you want to be treated

it's a simple list - but one we want to strive to incorporate into our daily lives. we aren't perfect parents by any means, and i'm trying to figure out the best place to put this list so it can be a daily reminder for us. one of our family goals for 2011 is to do an act of service in some form each month. we're actually starting early and will be going to greet the troops at DFW once rhett is off for the christmas holidays. we live so close to the airport and they arrive daily at 8 AM (we are up for sure around here). we just want to make a point to thank the men and women who serve our country and keep us safe! at our last MOPS meeting, the speaker gave us some great ideas/ways to incorporate serving in our family's daily life and it really got me motivated to start doing that with our family. hopefully, we'll make this a lifelong commitment.
i guess i shouldn't leave this post pictureless......... :) so here ya go!

beckham is a walker

my baby is a walker now!! he started walking over thanksgiving - a WEEK after his 1st birthday! he is ALL over the place and loving his new skills!! :)

family pics/beckham's 1 year pics

at the beginning of october, we took family pics/beckham's 1 year pics in deep ellum. it was definitely a "guy place" with lots of dirt and grime, but i LOVE the pics... :)

ICE

sunday we got all the christmas decorations out and also headed out to see ICE at the gaylord. none of us had ever been and court absolutely LOVED it - especially since it was charlie brown! :)

court is just the right age to be interested in EVERYTHING and he gets SO excited!! :) he just makes us smile and giggle at everything he says!! :)

 court LOVED sliding down the ice. he did it over, and over, and over!!

 this is the only decent pic of mimi and pops with the boys. i think beckham was about to clobber court! :)