Christmas~The Most Wonderful Time of the Year!

As always, we had 3 very special Christmas celebrations this year.  The weekend before Christmas we traveled back home to the family farm and met up with all of Matt's siblings and their kiddos.  This is the loudest and craziest celebration; but we all love it so much!!  The kids have a blast together...minus a few squabbles.  But they really do a great job together.  We were blessed with nice enough weather that we were able to hang outside and ride on the 4 wheeler and tractor.  My mother in law; one of the kindest people I know also had a special delivery of an outhouse that was built by Uncle Craig.  We (meaning the guys) were able to unload it and move it into the yard for her.  She was so excited!!  The rest of us were spoiled as usual getting lots of gifts but loving the time together.

4 wheeler exploring on the farm

Uncle Craig and Ava

Ella with her mountain of gifts 

New receiver gloves for Coop!

 Ella is now an running a vet clinic

 Handsome Fuller boys

 Ha!!  New apple watch for NaiNai and Grandpa

 Uncle Craig made Mama's Fullers dreams come true with a new out house

 Going through new trading cards

 A little chill time LOL!!

 Cubs decanter

 Bean bag chairs and a giant teddy bear

 Siblings annual "isle of lights" tour :)

 "dilly, dilly!!" (With apple juice FYI ;))

Tractor Ride with grandpa

Our second celebration was our immediate family Christmas on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day.  We celebrated with lunch out, Christmas Eve candlelight service, games, movies, delicious food, presents, and "Mary Poppins Returns" later in the day when we were ready to get out of the house!!  

 Steak and shrimp for mom and dad; mac and cheese and hotdogs for the girls

Santa's been here!!

 Waiting for the girls to wake up!!

 A robot vacuum!!  He surprised me!!

Matt and I had a very special surprise rigged up for the girls this year.  They opened their gifts from under the tree and just when they thought they were done we let them know that they had one more, very special gift that they needed to locate.  We put together a scavenger hunt and had a blast watching them work together to figure out where the next clue might be.  Eventually the clues led them to one final box.  And when they opened that box, they learned that we are all leaving for a Disney Cruise soon!!  They initially seemed like maybe they weren't sure if this was all real but eventually they knew it was real and were over the moon!!  Matt and I are equally excited and so glad we don't have to keep that secret any longer!!

Ready to start their scavenger hunt!

We're going on a Disney Cruise!!

Lastly we celebrated with my side of the family at the lake house.  We've talked about doing this before but never made the decision to go for it until this year.  So glad we did!  I seriously felt like we were in a Hallmark Christmas movie.  The house looked beautiful, we decorated cookies together, and in general loved each others company.   The weather was nice enough that we were able to get outside some and we cheered on the Chiefs as they clinched the division title on Sunday!!

Love them!

 My goof of a brother and his patient wife ;)

Yay!!

 Gorgeous relection

 Cheers to Christmas and family

 Making dumplings

 She's a pro!  Remembered how from last year and started her own technique.

A special gift from Uncle and Aunt: sliver coins from China and US representing
their birth year and adoption year

 Cookie cutting in the works

 idyllic

 Love!

 Our finished Chinese feast

 My first and probably only donkey

 Decorating...and eating!

Jingle Jam

I am so thankful for the church that we have been planted into near our new home.  They do a fun Christmas part every year outside of church services called Jingle Jam.  It was a blast!  We went from school holiday parties to a Christmas party at church that day!  Jingle Jam included fun music and dancing, a light hearted show, photo ops everywhere, hay rack rides with caroling, and a manger set up with petting zoo.  All of this complete with hot cocoa and cookies.  Seriously; SO MUCH FUN!!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

hayrack ride with caroling and the story of Jesus birthday

School Holiday Parties

Last day of school before break combined with all school caroling and class holiday parties means some crazy, loud fun for the kiddos on their last day.  I love that I am blessed with a flexible job that allows me to take a lead on parties to help out the teachers but that also allows me to be present for these fun times!!  I recruited 2 other moms to help with Ella's kindergarten party...these 2 ladies were super helpful at the Halloween party so I quickly requested their help for the remainder of the parties!  With their help I was able to focus on helping get Ella's class party set up and spent half my time there and then Matt and I switched so that I was able to hang with Ava for the remainder of the party.  It was great to be able to hang with both the girls!

Ella's class and friends

Ava and Mackenzie

Polar Express Train Ride

We had so much fun on the Polar Express train ride out of Baldwin City a couple weeks ago.  Our start of the Christmas season.  The train ride itself was so fun plus the characters were directly from the book.  One of our favorite stories this time of year!!  We were lucky enough to have some of our best friends from Omaha come down to join us for the train ride and spend the weekend with us.

We were scheduled for an evening train ride; which I think made it more magical because it was dark and the Christmas lights were beautiful!!  We all wore our Christmas pajamas for the ride.  We started in the train depot where the conductor came and gathered us all up for our ride.  It had been cold and rainy all day but we were lucky enough for a break in the rain while we boarded the train. We were greeted again by the conductor and our guides for the evening on board.  As the train pulled away they punched our golden tickets and then danced as the hot chocolate and cookies were brought around.  If you've seen the movie; you can picture how fun this part was!  They then read the story of the Polar Express as we got closer to the North Pole and Santa Claus.  On the way we sang Christmas Carols and heard stories from the staff.

Then we reached the North Pole!!  Where we witnessed a beautiful city lit up in Christmas lights with elves, Mrs. Claus, and Santa dancing to greet us.  Santa climbed on board the train and offered each person on board their "first gift of Christmas;" a beautiful sleigh bell with leather ties.  We also had Santa autograph our Polar Express book while we had the opportunity.   

We then headed back to the train depot to unboard.  Singing as we went.  The girls all had an awesome time!  It was fun to see the magic in their eyes.  

Ella's Thanksgiving Program

Seriously, so cute!!  Ella, along with the rest of her kindergarten friends performed a Thanksgiving Program for their families.  Cutest thing ever!!

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving was a busy but beautiful weekend...long weekend thankfully!  One of the many perks to my new job is actual holidays and days off.  And I am so thankful for that!! 

We started off with a beautiful couple of days at the farm with Matt's family.  We love our time out at the farm.  The fresh air and wide open space is always good for the soul!  

A good, exhausting first day at the farm :)

My favorite crazies!!

LOL!!  Ava said to Matt and I, "hey, that looks like one of those RIP things".  She then proceeded to talk her cousin into laying down like she was dead while Ava pretended to be the "sad family"!  Seriously, where does she come up with this stuff?!!

Atkins Shakes all around!

Then we drove back to KC to host Thanksgiving with my family.  Unfortunately our time was cute short due to a blizzard that moved in but it was still great to be together.  

Singing to Pappy

Making potato turkeys with Lau Lau

New boots from Lau Lau and Pappy

Our annual Thankful Tree is one of my favorite traditions.  This year was better and bigger than ever!  It's so fun for the girls to have more independence with naming what they are thankful for every night.  We are so blessed in so many ways!!