Fun Festivities

We went to our first Ugly Sweater Christmas party this year. Thanks to some awesome finds at a thrift store-Brad definitely won 1st place that evening. 

The girls thougt it was hilarious that we were walking around the house pulling things off our tree and figuring out ways to wear them ourselves. 

Brad and I also got to attend a Christmas party with his work partners one evening (no picture of that night:) It was nice to be there almost a year exactly from when we interviewed-and we were able to sit back and relax this year. 

We also snuck in a double date with some friends. We went out to dinner and then to watch the new Mocking Jay movie. Enjoying the fact that we have a great babysitter and we are finding time to actually use her to go out:)

Christmas time is here!!

Meet Ariel! She appeared December 1st and has been leaving our family a new note each morning with ways we can serve others this Christmas season. Here she is with a card telling us to deliver cookies to some neighbors. We enjoyed a couple ourselves too.

The Christmas Parade Downtown...

Choir Musicals at church...

Fun with new friends....

Caroline was sick the day of her school party and Christmas show. Her precious teacher invited me back for a special preformance of one of their songs. It was fun watching these sweet kindergarteners....and remembering my own days as a kindergarten teacher at Christmas time.  Such fun memories are made!Some sweet friends took pictures for me that day at the other girls preformance.

This is starting out as one of the most meaningful and fun Christmas' yet. The girls ages, ability to understand, and desire to take part in all things Christmas is a lot of fun!! Loving this first Christmas in our new town/house:) 

Santa's Village

The day after Thanksgiving we went to Santas Village. It was freezing cold but lots of fun to walk around and see what an amazing place Constitution Village turns into at Christmas time. The girls really enjoyed seeing the costume characters walking around. They iced gingerbread cookies, drank hot chocolate, and enjoyed watching live music. They contemplated standing in line to go see Santa, but thankfully they don't care enough about him to make everyone wait in line for hours. They left happily without seeing him- and we left happy to be out of the cold:) 

Thanksgiving 2014

We hosted Thanksgiving at our house this year. We were so glad to have both of our parents and some extended family with us. We have so much to be thankful for and this was a sweet time with the girls to focus on all of our many blessings. 

American Girl Weekend

We planned a pretty extravagant, fun birthday for CGH this year...and plan to bless each of the girls with a special 6th birthday trip. We didn't throw a "friend" birthday party but decided on a getaway weekend party instead. 

Caroline and I had a very special one-on-one mommy/daughter weekend in Atlanta. We started our road trip with coffee/hot chocolate and dollar store sunglasses. We enjoyed the drive to Atlanta were we visited the American Girl doll store and she picked out her first real AG. It was so fun to watch her narrow down the process of choosing her doll. Finally, she chose and we both fell in love with the new addition:) My sister came to the store, had lunch at the AG bistro with us,  and joined us for a little Christmas shopping. I made reservations at a hotel for an American Girl package stay for CGH and I to enjoy that night. It was pretty awesome- from the royal treatment at check-in, to the all pink decor in the room, they provided a little girls dream weekend. They had a babydoll bed and pink bathrobe waiting for Caroline's new AG doll, brought us cookies and milk at bedtime (tiny cookies for the doll included!) and then delivered breakfast in bed the next morning. We enjoyed a nice dinner and then went swimming in the indoor pool. We ended the evening playing nail salon and doing each others nails. We woke up and lingered around until about 10- then went by Barnes and Noble and then hit the road back to Grammie and Grandpas house to see do the sisters and cousins:)

I'm not going to lie- this weekend was as much or MORE fun for me as it was for Caroline. It was so nice to devote all of my time, energy, and affection on sweet Caroline. The best part to me was the simple conversations that we got to have about life, the precious little hand holding that she still loves, and the fun pretend play that still comes so easily and innocently at her age. She is such a blessing- and I continue to be amazed at the mature, kind-hearted, FUN, responsible girl that Caroline is growing into. 

Meet Michelle Scarlett Hobbs:) Michelle and Jill are sisters....