Christmas morning

Christmas was fun.
I'm glad it's over.
The boys had so much fun this year.



Jackson discovering that Santa had been at our house....

James and I were actually up before either of them were. James wanted to wake them!

Never!!

The hit of the morning (and all day) were these punching balloons.
Charlie LOVES them.
Go Santa!



Jackson doing a little happy dance.

...and blowing his flute.

Aunt Lana passed out gifts from under the tree.

In her LSU Santa hat.

Charlie had more fun unwrapping the presents.

This took quite a while.

But we were all patient...

I love to see happy faces Christmas morning.

Aunt Lana got Charlie a "Thomas the train ball pit" complete with 8 million of these balls.

Thanks Aunt Lana...(grrrrrrr)

But he loves it....

what kid wouldn't that has an obsession with balls similar to that of a labrador retriever and a ball.....

So glad Santa brought Jackson the gun he's been talking about since Halloween....

Our tummies were rumbling by the time the boys finished with their presents....so daddy got to work on a yummy breakfast for us! Complete with Jackson's new apron...

Christmas night I dressed the dining room table in my new reindeer china from pottery barn that I've been collecting.

My set is almost complete.

thanks to Lana and my hubby:)

It was a beautiful table!

Hope your Christmas was extra special. Happy new year too!

pompom garland

I thought we'd squeeze one more Christmas project in before the big day..(cause, ya know, I don't have enough going on this week...) I found this idea from a blog I read and thought Jackson would like doing it. Just buy a bag of pompoms!

String 'em on a fishing line...

and voila! pompom garland for mini trees!



Jackson has a "hunter's theme" on his tree complete with a camo tree skirt and guns, ducks and ammo...so we went with coordinating colors of course!

Then we made Charlie a garland for his tree. Jackson thought it was appropriate to make it a scarf instead.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas Program

Jackson had his preschool Christmas program on Wednesday morning. It was so sweet. I think I was more excited to see him "perform" than he was...guess that's cause I'm the mommy. First, they had a puppet show, and then got up on the stage and sang Christmas carols. Right now his fav is Little Drummer Boy...he walks around the house all day singing, "pa rum pa pum pum"......so sweet.

We wish you a merry Christmas, we wish you a merry Christmas....with hand motions and all!

Jackson spotted his Daddy in the crowd....can you tell he's excited?

After their performance, we had a Christmas party in his classroom with his classmates and teachers. Mrs. Debbie, Jackson's teacher, informed me that him and the little girl he's standing next to are in love... her name is Anna Marie. She said they have to separate those two constantly. I got to see it for myself though. They chased each other around the classroom, made googly eyes at each other and just plain flirted. I am so NOT ready for this! I introduced myself to Anna Marie's mom and informed her of all my new found information about our lovebirds. She said, "well, Anna Marie's daddy is right over there..." ha.

Ho Ho NO

First encounter with the "big guy". I almost lost my finger in the encounter. It was so funny. We had Brunch with Santa at the country club on Sunday.

Long after the notion of Santa being in the room, all the other kids scattered....and this little man was still having a stare down with the man in red.

He was a great Santa. In the end, Charlie screamed when Santa tried to touch him.

...and protective "big brother" was no where to be found, oh wait, he's in the corner, fervently twirling his hair...

As soon as Santa started walking around, Jackson hightailed it to his seat next to Daddy.

And no one sat on Santa's lap. What is wrong with my children?

Our vacation is almost over...quite interesting too. It started on Wednesday with my mom coming down with a violent case of the "stomach flu". Lysol cans were being emptied by the minute. We were all shaking in our boots. Long story short, we ALL got it. Steve got it Thursday, I got it Friday night, followed by Charlie Saturday morning, Beau Saturday, Jackson Sunday morning, James and Lana Sunday evening....only good thing is that it only lasts about 12 hours.....puke.

Snow much fun!

It's a family tradition the Reeger family has every year to get up at the CRACK of dawn on Sunday morning and go out and cut their Christmas trees down. Aunt Barb brings a coffee cake and Aunt Mary brews the coffee. This year the Gilmore's got to partake in the fun. We all met up at 7am at the shop and loaded up in our 4 wheel drive vehicles and headed to the tree farm.

It was a beautiful morning. Freezing, but beautiful.

So early that the moon was still high in the sky. The snow laying on all the trees were a beautiful sight, we wished they would stay that way once inside everyone's houses....


Turkey tracks! amongst all the deer tracks!

Chelsea being herself :)

I decided to leave Charlie at home with Nonna since it was 30 degrees outside. I'm sure he was thankful.

The Reeger girls: Maggie, Jenna and Claire

Uncle Bill, Jackson and Matthew

The Drew's: Jason, baby Carter and Chelsea

Aren't these Christmas trees just beautiful?! Oh to have this in Louisiana....remember we shop at the local Home Depot. No fair!

Heading up the hill. Every family was scouting out the one to take home with them.

Paul and Aunt Mary

Chelsea and baby Carter. He was all bundled up and didn't seem to mind the cold weather!

Jackson had a blast but didn't want to get off his daddy's shoulders. No wonder James has so many back problems!

Aunt Barb was closely supervising the cutting of her tree! Can't wait to see it all decorated in her house.

Aunt Teresa and Uncle Bill

Jackson picked out Jason and Chelsea's tree so they were making their way back to tell them where to bring the chainsaw!

Uncle Chris was dragging his tree to the truck.

Jenna and Claire dragged their tree out of the woods.

My cousin's Maggie and Molly

This was the main path up through the tree farm. It was good exercise at 7 in the morning!

My little snow bunny :) His face looked like it was freezing!

Here's Jason cutting down the tree that Jackson found for them.

Self-portrait :)

Matthew and Jason dragging their tree out to the truck. Such work, but so worth it!

After everyone's hard work, we gathered around the car for some hot coffee and coffee cake. Yum!

Then it was time for some family pictures!

The Masterson Family: Molly, Mary, Paul and Chris (Annie is missing, she's at college.) We missed you Annie!

Here's all the cousins (well, the ones that were present) There's many more that weren't here...

The Byerly/Drew Family: Chelsea, Carter, Jason, Barb, Matthew and Rick

Do we really need an introduction? Besides, the family isn't complete without my little Charlie.

The Reeger Family: Teresa, Jenna, Maggie, Claire and Bill

The Drew's once more!

We were loaded back up the the trucks (all 5 of them) by 8:15! Our extremities (sp?) were frozen and it was time to go home and defrost ourselves. I'm so glad that we got to be a part of this special tradition this year. It's been several years since I've gotten to do this, and I always miss it. Thanks for waiting for us everyone!