St. Nick's Day

St. Nick's Day was always celebrated in our house growing up so it's something I wanted to continue with Elle.  This is a new holiday for Eric so he doesn't completely understand St. Nick coming to fill your stockings but he's on board none the less.  I tried my best to explain to Elle the night before that we needed to hang her stocking so St. Nick could come and fill it up.  Somehow my story ended up with St. Nick being Santa's brother?  May have to rethink that next year.

 I have a really cute video of a sleepy Eleanor walking in the kitchen and seeing her stocking on the kitchen table.  She was really excited!

Her stocking this year had candy, Frozen socks, Monsters Inc. guys, an Advent calendar, a Frozen cup, a couple new books and her Elf on the Shelf made his first appearance!  She is a little young to understand the Elf, the no touching rule that is described in the book is completely lost on her but she gets excited to see where he flies to at night.  One day he was up by our TV and I could hear her from the kitchen say "hey Mr. Elf, get down!".

This year threats of Santa is watching you work part of the time, she will look at me and say "yes, mommy" in the cutest little voice.  Hopefully this silly little elf has some pull next year too. :)

Thanksgiving 2014

I love Thanksgiving, to me it officially kicks off the holiday season.  This year Eric had to work Wednesday night so Elle and I headed to my parents house without him for our annual pre Thanksgiving party.  Now the party just consists of eating appetizers, decorating the tree and watching the babies play and weave in and out of meltdowns.  We go hard.

 

Eric came home from work Thursday morning and tried to get some sleep while Elle and I ate breakfast and watched the Thanksgiving Day parade.  It was a fun morning, she really enjoyed watching the parade.

She looked adorable in her dress so I took approximately 500 pictures.

Since Eric had to work it also meant that we weren't able to go to Sullivan for Thanksgiving with the Hylton side of the family.  I think this is the first year since we have started doing holidays together that we haven't gone.  Eric's mom hosted Thanksgiving lunch, Elle was her usual shy self and refused to get off my lap.  One big holiday highlight - we turned Elle around in her carseat.  Eric had been asking for awhile but I kept holding firm that we wouldn't turn her around until her 2nd bday.  I caved a month early.  Elle loves it...although since I'm writing this about a month later she now asks to sit in the front passenger seat instead. Not gonna happen little lady.

After lunch we headed to mom and dad's house for dinner.

After dinner we ATTEMPTED to get a cute picture of all 3 babies in the matching jammies from MawMaw & PawPaw.  Nailed it.

Then us ladies hit the road for our annual overnight shopping extravaganza.  This night is so fun and something I look forward to all year.  It always includes a run through Starbucks, stopping for breakfast and lots of laughing.

This is a picture of our loaded up cart caravan through Toys R Us.  3 spoiled little babes, that's for sure. So ready to see how excited this little babes are Christmas morning!!!!

Decking the Halls

I'm big on wanting to create Hylton family traditions.  This year I decided that every year we should pick a night to decorate the Christmas tree, order pizza, eat it right out of the box while we decorate and watch Christmas movies while putting the tree up.  My mind is constantly moving and creating different fun little scenarios like this so who knows what "tradition" I will up and decide we should roll with next year...but this year was perfect, messy but perfect.

Our tree is pretty big (maybe 10ft? I'm not good with measurements :) so for the past 2 years Eric has had it up and put together before we start the decorating process.  Elle and I came home with pizza and got to work!  First we "fluffed" the tree, Elle was a great helper.

Next, we started stringing the lights.  Elle was so concerned that they were hot that she just stood there and blew on them over and over trying to cool them off.

 

 

She had a little bit of trouble actually getting the ornaments to stay on the tree but she had fun trying.  A few days after the tree was up I bought her a pickle ornament to hide on the tree.  I have no idea where she hid that thing, I don't even know if it's on the tree.  We've had multiple people look for it and no one can find it, Henry is dying to know where that darn pickle is!

The finished product....

can't wait to load this baby up with presents!  I know a little girl who has been very good this year!

Henry's 3rd Birthday!

It's so hard to believe but our sweet Hensy is now 3 years old.

I was so excited to celebrate this little birthday boy!  His birthday fell on a Friday so we all met at mom and dad's Friday evening to start celebrating.  Per the birthday boys request he wanted a party at MawMaw's house.  I think he sees all the adults have birthday dinners & opening presents on their birthday at mom & dad's and he wanted the same thing.  After opening his first Mama Rita birthday basket we all headed to Kokomo Joe's for some birthday fun. 

Henry opened more presents (and immediately put on his new firefighter costume), the babes played in tunnels and bounce houses and then eventually made their way over to the bowling alley and games.  Henry and Elle even went on their first go cart ride with Unc & Paige.  Notice their car color choices, fits them both perfectly.  Elle was stoic and holding on almost the whole time.  Henry and Unc were 2 wild and crazy guys in that car!

The next day with Henry's Handy Manny birthday party at Mary & Nick's house.  He was so excited to get to the present opening!  At one point one of the babies at the party crawled over to his gifts and Henry ran to protect them while accidentally tearing his gift from MawMaw & PawPaw open.  Once his little eyes saw that a skateboard was in there, which he had been asking & hoping for, it was hard to keep him away.  As soon as he was able to tear it all the way open he immediately had PawPaw putting it together.  Soon after we were all chanting for PawPaw to blow up the inflatable Santa  we bought for Hen.  Dad is always the one asked to fix or assemble anything.  If any of Elle's toys aren't working or breaks she will say "PawPaw fix it".

Sneaking some licks of icing.

I love my little Hensy Hoo with all my heart.  He makes this world a happier, funnier place to live in.  He is the sweetest little boy and says some of the funniest things! He loves going to Chick-Fil-A where he can eat and play, is not afraid to let you know if something isn't his jam "Me no loves this", prefers everything be green or orange, refers to himself as "big boy", is one of the all time best shopping buddies you could ask for, will break out in song and dance at a moments notice, has some imaginary friends with some pretty creative names, goes to an imaginary school where his teacher allows him to use scissors and is a typical little boy who can't get enough bathroom humor.  He came into our life 3 years ago and turned our world upside down in the absolute best way possible.  I adore you, Henry.  Being your aunt and getting to spend so much time with you is one of the biggest blessings in the world.