Wrapping Up 2024

In addition to a wonderful Christmas, countdown leading up to it, and trip to New York, we had a few other fun things going on this month. Here's some of that activity.

We always have a fun little countdown calendar for December. Ours was from Sugarfina this year, and we couldn't resist getting Decker one from Bark.

We had a ton of new ornaments this year (18 in all, I believe), so I couldn't even put a collage together or put them all on here. I picked my favorite one which is from Park Guell; it's made to look like all the Gaudi tile pieces.

Ryan and I enjoyed a date night to Hamp & Harry's one evening. At Christmas it becomes totally Home Alone themed, so I knew we had to try it. This was the outside window, but the inside was completely decked out. The menu has all sorts of items with names that are funny plays on the movie. I had the Kevin's Bolognese and Ryan had the You're Such a Little Jerk chicken.

The school has a "dress like a teacher" day each December. How fun that Calvin Edwards dressed up like, hat and all?! He looked so adorable. The teachers also dress up like students, so Ryan chose to dress up like Mia so he could wear a great hoodie.

Lily set up some wrapping paper and managed to get Decker to stick his head through. He doesn't look thrilled with this, but it's pretty cute!

The girls' classes both had their Progressive Dinners to enjoy one evening.

Mia's class decided to go casual and fun.

Lily's class opted to dress up a little bit (and let Addie Johnson join in while they were at the Johnson house).

Hard to believe this is Lily and Avery's last Stonehaven Christmas concert!

The girls went to Build A Bear soon after Christmas using the gift card Lily gave to Mia as a gift. They made Bluey and Bingo from the cute show "Bluey." Now Lily can take hers to college and Mia's can stay here, and they'll be able to keep them near as a sweet reminder of each other.

We headed down to Florida a couple of days to spend time with Grandpops and Grandma Jan. It was so nice to have time together again. We had a lot of fun with their two little pups, Pip and Rex, too!

Before getting on the boat.

We enjoyed a very nice boat ride one beautiful afternoon.

We are so thankful for wonderful grandparents!

Decker's right; it's been a tiring (though fantastic) month.

And just like that, another year has come to a close. I always enjoy making a little collage of some highlights from the year.

At the end of year, it's always nice to take time to reflect on the previous year. Our family is so incredibly blessed. We've made memories near and far. We're healthy. We have so much to be thankful for, and we look forward with anticipation to 2025!

Christmas Day 2024

Everything was ready for Christmas morning close to midnight on Christmas Eve. All the stockings were stuffed. Side note - This view is one of my favorites every single year.

The tree was filled with lots of beautiful presents just waiting to be unwrapped.

There were some pretty fun gifts ready to welcome the girls that morning. There were some joint gifts: a towel warmer for their bathroom, a Lego set for all of us to do, and a packet with tickets to &Juliet. They each were receiving some packing cubes, a playbill binder, and a record. Both girls each had a fun gift card tree set up for them.

I didn't take many pictures that morning, but I wanted a few. The girls really liked the presents they purchased for each other. Lily surprised Mia with a gift card so they go to Build A Bear together, and Mia gave Lily a cool Wicked Lego set.

Not gonna' lie, it's always fun to receive a little blue box! A gorgeous silver bracelet from Ryan was inside.

I think the best gift may have been from Lily to Ryan. She had written her college application essay about the importance of their traditional Saturday morning Chick-fil-a runs, and it truly was a fantastic essay (no wonder she got accepted to all five universities she applied to!). I loved that she framed a printed copy of the essay and included some fun CFA memorabilia, like a copy of their receipt. This is such a special gift!

Decker seemed to be pretty happy that he received a new stuffed squirrel toy and chew sticks inside his stocking. We can't leave him out of the Christmas fun!

I had one last surprise gift to give. It was originally intended to Ryan but then it kinda turned in to a whole family gift. I bought a Cameo from Daryll Tofa who played Dallas Winston in The Outsiders for the performance we saw while in NYC. He addressed to Ryan, thanked us for coming, and wished us a Merry Christmas. I had mentioned in my request to him that we were already trying to figure out when we could get back to NYC to see the show again, so in the video he said to let him know if we made it back and he'd see about getting us backstage! How incredible would that be?! We'll see if it actually happens or not, but it's fun to imagine.

We had already eaten our traditional cinnamon rolls for breakfast, so we sat down to put together the fun Lego set together. It had four different packs in it, and I bought it specifically for the Beauty & the Beast set which Ryan put together (after all, he was Cogsworth on our Disney Paris day). Lily put together Finding Nemo, Mia put together Moana, and I put together Pocahontas. It was a fun little activity to do together.

When it was all said and done, We kept the Cogsworth and Dude Crush figures in honor of our adventure to Disneyland Paris.

We were all getting a little hungry, so then we made the most wonderful lunch. Ryan grilled up some Wagyu steaks, we had a few side dishes, and some sparkling juice. It was absolutely delicious. 

It was a peaceful and joyful day which really is how Christmas should be.

Christmas Countdown 2024

 It was another very fun year o or the Christmas countdown! I love this tradition our family has. Here's a picture from each day of fun, Dec 1-Dec 24.

Day 1: Cirque du Soleil's "Twas the Night Before" at The Fox.  

Day 2: Reading Luke 2

Day 3: Label (Allison), Stuff (Mia), Seal (Ryan), and Stamp (Lily) our Christmas cards.

Day 4: Plink tournament, and Ryan won the CFA gift card prize!

Day 5: Ryan, Allison, and Lily had an evening at the Botanical Gardens. Mia unfortunately had a school commitment that she needed to keep, so she couldn't join in. It was a beautiful and very chilly night, but we had a great time together.

Day 6: Grinch Night! We enjoyed a Who-feast and ate our Grinch cookies while watching the movie.

Day 7: We flew to NYC for the weekend! There's a whole other post about this, but we'll go with the shows being our activity of each day, so for Day 7, that's The Great Gatsby.

Day 8: The Outsiders in the afternoon and Hadestown in the evening.

Day 9: The Rockettes at Radio City Music Hall

Day 10: Ryan won a Dairy Queen gift card for Christmas Scattegories.

Day 11: Decker made a paw print ornament! It was a team effort as Lily put his paw into the clay while Mia let him lick her hand to keep him in place.

Day 12: Christmas Charity Catalog. Lily chose to give pajamas and a stuffed animal through Samaritans Purse while Mia gave baby chicks through Send Relief.

Day 13: Christmas in Birmingham. Here's Bama with all 9 grandkids.

Day 14: It took several rounds, but Lily came out on top with the 5 Second Game. I believe she ended up with a CFA gift card as her prize.

 

Day 15: Just a quick round of This or That to see everyone's Christmas preferences.

Day 16: We all learned a little with some Christmas Around the World Trivia.

Day 17: We had fun with a Christmas Mad Lib on decorations. I read out the category and rotated around Ryan, Lily, and Mia for answers.

Day 18: Mia won Grinch chutes and ladders. Her prize was a Publix gift card since it is green like the Grinch. Pub subs are pretty popular around here!

Day 19: We all learned our Elf name (yes, it says Santa but that seemed weird to me so we went with elf instead). Pretty sure Mia's is the best with Shimmer Snowball Slinger!

Day 20: We went to Woodstock Arts to watch Avery perform in the ensemble of A Christmas Carol. We always love to watch her perform!

Day 21: I took home a CFA gift card for winning Family Feud.

Day 22: Brown family gathering. There were lots of laughs and good food like always, but it was a little strange not having Jodi there with us.

Day 23: Christmas movie night, and we settled on Arthur Christmas. I love this one.

Day 24: We started out the day by having Granna and Papa as well as Wayne and his family over for brunch. We ended the day at the church's lovely Christmas Eve service.

What a wonderful celebration of the season it has been! And now it's time to say...Merry Christmas!