Our Week In Photos!

Well y'all, our very planned and highly anticipated Christmas Eve-Eve-Eve and Christmas Eve-Eve  activities were dashed by the STOMACH BUG who so rudely decided to visit our house this weekend (and take me out first!) I started feeling weird on Friday and by Saturday was down for the count. Hayes woke up sick last night, and then Bryan was out today. SO....Merry Christmas!!!! I'm sure my in-laws are thankful we decided to push our visit till next weekend!

I am very sad about this and have pretty much just been moping around and trying to figure out out how to fit everything in after the 3-day delay (with a horrible headache and no energy). I placed a GIANT Wal-Mart pick up order on Friday morning and now have a ton of food to cook and prep that I still don't have the stomach to look at! 

Also, Santa has yet to wrap a single gift. 

Maybe we will remember this Christmas in a funny way in a few years but right now that is not looking likely and I will continue to enjoy my pity party!

I AM, however, very thankful that the bug appears to be the 24-hour sort and am just praying we make it through the week without anyone else going down! 

As of right now, we are (hopefully) planning to do our usual Christmas Eve activities and then will reschedule our night of driving around to look at Christmas lights to Christmas day and then will go to the Gaylord on the 26th (which will be good because I'm sure the crowds won't be as bad!).....so fingers are crossed!

Anyways! This weekend has been less than ideal but we have had a very fun week prior to all of this sick-y drama.

Last Saturday, I took a random photo of our Christmas tree....

And then my Aunt Cindy (or "Cinnie", as Lily says) came over to babysit the kiddos so me and Bryan could go to his work Christmas Party. The kids loved getting to open their presents from Cindy and I'm fairly sure did a GREAT job of wearing her out by the end of the night!

I don't have any photo evidence of our work-party-date, but we did get to dress up all fancy and drive all by ourselves to eat at Rodizio's (which was SO cool and delicious!). This was my first time to meet Bryan's colleagues and their wives and I was so impressed and am honestly super relieved that he has found such good, kind, and motivated people to work for. 

Hayes and Lily were randomly snuggling after church on Sunday (as they often do--two peas in a pod), and I was able to get a couple of photos....

I wore my new leather Spanx AND my "bear shawl" as I call it to church so I was obviously feeling very adventurous. My Spanx were a Christmas gift from my parents and I LOVE them and probably wear them way too often but I'm okay with it.

On Monday, Hayes had his Christmas program at school.

If I haven't mentioned my love for pre-school programs before then let me state: 

There are few things I love more than pre-school programs!!!

He did SO great!

Again with the bear shawl and another Christmas gift: new Anthro earrings!

We made a trip to the park at some point (I can't even tell you what day!)

We watched lots of Christmas movies! (And looked super cute while doing so!)

I did my usual favorite teacher gift: Stovetop Potpourri with a recipe card and a Target gift card attached. The plaid ribbon is a Marshall's find from a few months ago and is my favorite! 

I caught the kids all quietly coloring one night and just HAD to document that rare moment. 

You can see here what their usual reactions are when they catch me trying to take a picture... (Hayes: ignore, Parker: annoyed, Lily: "CHEESE!")

In very different news, I have been starting to re-brand my shop! I spent most of Thanksgiving break harassing my family on new business name ideas for my Etsy shop and a possible future accessory-retail-gift booth (!), and Maven Lane was the one that kept getting brought up and the one I kept going back to. The word "Maven" means "connoisseur" and while I CERTAINLY am not an expert at anything I am interested in or sell or whatever, I do have great interest all things pretty and creative and love constantly learning about them and want other people to love them, too!  I worked on the logo this week and have created new pages for everything---I just need to get the word out! 

On Thursday night we ordered pizza and then headed out to downtown McKinney for the Parade of Lights. We decided to ride the trolley into downtown since parking is so limited and  we were not disappointed one bit!

Look how cute!!

The boys loved it!

We somehow got lucky and ended up right next to the grandstand so we were able to hear the emcees announce all of the parade participants. 

This float had a train that blew real steam and was the boys favorite for obvious reasons. 

I have a thing for Christmas parades because I used to twirl in them for "Miss Tanya's Twirlers" when I was growing up and now have such sweet memories. I am so glad we were able to take the kids to one this year!

On Friday morning (while I was ordering ALL my groceries), Bryan took Hayes up to "the big school" for Parker's Christmas party. I asked him to take GOOD photos (like very adamantly!), and this is what he came home with....

HAHAHA. I tried! 

(I did hear "super fun" party reports from both Parker and Hayes, though!)

On Friday night we watched "The Santa Clause 2" and decorated the kids Christmas tree. They were SO excited and it reminded me that I should probably let them be more involved in Christmas decorating around the house. (This is a hard one for me!)

 Parker and Haysie made the star because I've seemed to misplaced our official one. Isn't it so cute?

Oh! Parker also made a "tree decorating timeline" complete with illustrations. 

He is for sure my kid.

And then we all got sick!!!!!!

Haha! Yes, we all got sick, but tonight I mustered up some Christmas spirit and we did the "Find The Pickle" game, which is a cute little game where you hide a pickle ornament and then the first kid to find it gets to open the first gift of Christmas.

Hayes found our pickle and was so proud of himself and it was adorable. I was happy he found it as his last 24 hours have not been so fun (a.k.a filled with puke.)

We let all the kids open a gift, but Hayes, the pickle-finder, got to go first!

And that's that! It's almost Christmas!!!!