Wonderful Light Display

Instead of driving to look at Christmas lights we loaded up Leighton in the stroller and went for a really long walk. It was so much fun. Although Leigton slept about a mile outta the 2 mile walk, it was still alot of fun.

We were having such a great time we decided to cross over to the other side of our neighborhood and visit the giant famous light display. We were so glad we did! This man goes above and beyond and this year was even better! He added so much this year that he took up two of his neighbors yards also. His house is on a big corner lot and he uses it all, and then overflowed across the streets. He has a giant train, with elves building toys, cartoon characters and Even Santa for you to talk to. He does this with a microphone system and he stands on the corner and watches for people to walk up to santa, Genius! He even hands out free candy canes! Such a good time. He also has a full scale giant choir made of old maniquins which was in a neighbors yard, and this year add a life size nativity with maniquins and life size fake camels also in a neighbors yard. Everthing is 3 dimensional also no plywood cutouts. So amazing with christmas toons and all the animated props! So glad Leighton was awake for that one!

 

 

 

 

BTW it was actually decently cold out as we set out on our adventure a cold front was blowing in luckily Leigton was in his super warm reindeer suit.

More Christmas Cutie

Here's more of Leightons Christmas photo session. After Bella refused to sit anymore Leighton continued alone for some super cute shots! I should also mention that there are 5 cameras flashing at him and a crowd of people standing over him trying to get him to "smile" and "look over here".

 

 

 

 

I hope he knows what he got himself into. His mom is a little crazy about costumes and photos.

Let us out!

It seemed like such a no brainer to me to use my Santa sack as a prop for cute photos of the cousins, I guess Leighton and Bella didn't think it was such a great idea

 

At first they seemed unsure like is this lady serious?

 

They huddled for support or to form an escape plan not sure which.

 

Leighton decides to grin and bear it, Bella is over it!

 

Santa Hat and Snowman Weeble

What an active little christmas kiddo, standing, crawling, chewing, and flapping tissue paper just a few of the things he was up to that night and pretty much any night. He is such a happy energetic little guy probably why he is so skinny.

 

The bumbo seat is such a great invention....but for us he wasn't to crazy about it but now thinks it is to climb on. It really seems he uses it more now than he did when he was smaller.

 

 

 

Isn't opening presents fun?

Christmas with Extended Family

I really should have started by saying that this season was the busiest ever! Not sure if it was Leighton or what exactly but I just felt like I was treading water barely keeping my head above level all season. There was never a time to rest or really even relax and enjoy. I really wish we could have just enjoyed things but I think we learned alot. I wanted to do so many things and start new family traditions, and we did get to do all the things we wanted, some were maybe a modified version, I will explain more later! Even though we did all those things we didn't quite get to enjoy them all as much as we should have. I guess all the firsts were just a few to many :)

We had all the family from my mom's side over for christmas a week early it was so nice to have everyone together. We ate and laughed and scratched the famous lotto tickets from my grandparents via my aunt Wallie. 17 of us total from 4 different generations.

 

Kyler ( my kinda niece/2nd cousin)looking oh so adorable.

 

Mommy helping Leighton open his advance new Elmo cell phone, It even know his name after we activated it. It really is super smart and complex it says a million different things and always calls him by his name, so special! He loves it!

 

My sister Stacey and I and Leighton and BElla

 

Kick off Christmas with Advent House

Well I guess Thanks to Annie we have found the easy way to keep this blog updated for all to enjoy! So now I can quickly recap our Christmas season with everyone.

 

This year we did advent gifts for Leighton. We bought an advent house and planned to stuff it with lots of little christmas things. Here is Leighton opening some of his advent gifts.

 

The problem with the "Little" gifts is that most things that would fit in the doors of the house aren't ok for babies. (candy and trinkets). Well so I have friends that wrap the gifts that are just to large and leave notes instead that direct to a present with a number for the day. So this would be our plan for the larger things.

 

When the Advent house arrived I was so excited only to realize that only a small piece of candy or jewelry(wink wink) could fit in tiny tiny cubbies behind the doors. Nothing I bought would fit even the Santa Rocks pacifer didn't fit! The house is so adorable that it is a great decoration and count down but I ended up having to wrap all the gifts and put them separately anyway!

 

By the way, most of the gifts that we gave were themed xmas like xmas books, or toys, bibs, pacifiers. It will be fun to build on but next year not so sure, I will get so many since I now know they won't fit into the house. My favorite advent gifts we gave him were the Christmas weebles!

He's a Maniac!

Crazy
 

Christmas Cousins

Leighton and Bella are super cute together and when we tossed them together in Santa's sack I think I got a toothache it was so sweet.