Snow Day!

Today is a SNOW DAY! We woke up this morning to 28 degree weather and snow falling. No school today. We were outside playing in the snow at about 8:00 this morning. Alex was thrilled to see the snow and Emily was super excited. This is the first time she has really seen snow! It snowed a little the year we moved to SC, but since then we haven't really seen any. It snowed most of the morning, and I enjoyed opening all the blinds to see the snow falling while I enjoyed a cup of hot chocolate! The sun is starting to shine and the snow is starting to disappear....it looks like we will back to a regular schedule tomorrow. It has definitley been fun to see this little touch of winter!

Christmas in Jax

A Christmas in Jacksonville wouldn't be complete without a ride on Granddaddy's boat! Alex and Emily had so much fun playing with their cousins, Jason and Jessica! We all enjoyed our time with the family...Granny even came for Christmas all the way from Indiana! We were so glad to get a chance to visit with her!

More Christmas

In case you are wondering about the beads around Emily's neck in almost every picture.....both she and Alex got a big basket of dress up clothes and accessories from Santa. They have had so much fun already! Emily loves Fancy Nancy....for those of you who don't know about Fancy Nancy, go to the bookstore and read one of the book. The books are by Jane O'Connor about a little girl who loves being fancy. The books are great and now of course Fancy Nancy has gone commercial with sunglasses, purses, feather boas, etc. And of course, we can't leave Alex out....he was thrilled to find a Darth Vadar mask in his basket along with Batman, a clone trooper outfit, and race car helmets, light sabers, etc.

Christmas Morning!

Alex and Emily were up at about 6:15 on Christmas Morning ready to see what Santa delivered. Alex was excited to see a Star Wars Ship in his stack of goodies, and Emily was excited to try out her new "wheels". Both Alex and Emily had to check out Santa's snack plate....he ate everything that they left for him! And the last picture is of my sweet Emily.....the thing she wanted Santa to bring her most of all this year was a Candy Cane. He didn't bring her just one....he left her 12 candy canes! And by 6:30 on Christmas Morning, she had already eataen one. I will include some of those pictures next!

Christmas Pics #1

The first 2 pictures are Christmas Eve. Alex stayed at church to help daddy turn off lights and lock doors, so we never got one of both kiddos together. The last 2 pictures are my happy, silly, Christmas PJ clad
sweeties!

Christmas 2008

Wow! It is hard to believe that Christmas has come and gone! It seems we spend so much time preparing for the big day and then it is over in such a hurry! We have had a great Christmas Season in the Allred house and I hope yours was great too! Here is a recap of all the fun we've had since getting out of school for Christmas Break!

• Playtime outside with Dad......
• Making Christmas goodies together
• Spending time with the Great-Grands and Poppa and Gan and Aunt Brooke in Gaffney
• Going to talk to Santa
• Christmas Eve Services at Church
• Opening that one special gift on Christmas Eve (although Ryan and I have discussed that Alex doesn't think our tradition of Christmas pajamas on Christmas Eve is that special anymore.....I am going to have to add to that special Christmas Eve gift next year!!! Otherwise, Alex is going to start planning a revolt!)
• SANTA came and brought loads of toys and goodies!
• Christmas with Gan and Poppa and Aunt Brooke
• Trips to Gaffney for extended-family Christmas
• Going to Jacksonville, FL for Christmas with the Allred family. Alex and Emily were very excited to have play time with cousins, Jason and Jessica!
• Back home from FL to have some play time with all the new Christmas toys!
• Undecorating the house....actually, I think my statement to Ryan yesterday was that "we need to set off a bomb in this house. That is the only way we are going to get it all clean."
• Cleaning out old stuff to make room for new stuff. Putting away all the new stuff, to find in a matter of seconds that one unnamed 5 year old and one unnamed 2 year old have pulled it all back out again.
• Clean some more....clean some more....clean some more!
• Watching lots of college football on TV. Sadly, our Clemson Tigers did not pull out a win against the Cornhuskers of Nebraska in the Gator Bowl
• Enjoying time together as a family!

WHEW! I think that is everything. For me, the most important part of this Christmas Season has been to enjoy the time with family! I don't have a ton of great pictures from our Christmas this year. But honestly, I'm okay with that because the pictures are the memories we have made together. I do have a few pics from the past 2 weeks and I will upload those in the next post!

I hope you and your family have had a great Christmas together! Now....on to 2009!