The Carpenters' Corner: 2012

Monday, December 31, 2012

Carpenter Christmas

We celebrated Christmas with Wade's parents on December 26th. We had a great time together, as usual!

There was some Just Dance 3 on the Wii action. Clayton and Morgan were so cute! :)

Wade, of course, had to get in on the action. ;)

When present time rolled around, the boys were pretty excited about their loot!

This boy and his faces...

Aunt Leigh Ann got Drew this cute shirt and hat.

It was a super fun celebration! Thanks, Corey & Leigh Ann, for hosting! Thanks also to Grammie & Papaw for spoiling us all rotten. You were so generous, and we are so appreciative!

The weather on Christmas day was crazy! We woke up at 5:00am to a hail storm that lasted forever. It was a full 30 minutes of hail. It was cold and drizzled all morning. By about 2:00 in the afternoon, it was snowing! We were so excited to have a white Christmas!

I tease Wade all of the time about being "Fun Dad." There are very few times when I outshine him as the fun parent. Snow days are one such exception. Wade HATES to be cold. So, I get to be cool mom on the rare occasion that we get snow. ;)

I decided that it would be fun to use the kiddie pool as a sled to go down the hill in our backyard.

It didn't work out as well as I imagined. Oh well....

Snowball fights were the preferred activity. No surprise there!

Clayton managed to find a worm in the snow under the play set. Boys... :)

Baby Brother woke up from his nap and he was none too happy that we were playing in the snow without him. We were about to come back inside, so he settled for a faux snowball fight through the glass door. Ha!

The snow made a wonderful Christmas even better! Christmas 2012 has set the bar high for the best Christmas ever. I just can't imagine it getting any better, but I am sure that it will. :)

Christmas Morning 2012

We had such a wonderful Christmas this year!!! Wade and I just kept looking at each other and saying, "This is so fun!" or "It just doesn't get any better than this!" I feel like this year has made me realize how very fragile life really is. We are not guaranteed tomorrow with our loved ones, so we have to make every single minute count. I love my people so much, and I just want to make the most of every second that I have on this earth with them. Those thoughts kept running through my head all day on Christmas. I enjoyed every minute of December 25, 2012.

Santa left the boys some really fun gifts this year! They were over the moon excited. At one point, Clayton and Drew were standing in front of their Santa piles and Clayton put his arm around Drew. Then he said, "Well, Drew, Santa really hooked us up!" Ha!

We got this 'ole arthritic girl a new dog bed. She was one happy pooch! I don't think that she moved from this position all day long. ;)

Santa brought Clayton an electric scooter and a pogo stick! What in the world?!?! I kept telling Clayton that Santa should have left a prepaid card to the Baylor Grapevine ER, too. ;) Hopefully, there will not be any broken bones in our future...

Our kids woke up at staggered times throughout the morning, so that was fun. We got to watch each child's reaction to their gifts without trying to look multiple places at once. Drew was so funny - that boy makes the funniest faces!

See what I mean? That face... Drew asked Santa for a trampoline. Santa brought him a replacement bungee for his mini trampoline that broke. Well played, Santa. Well played. :)

This was definitely the year of the Legos at the Carpenter Casa. The boys put together Legos most of the morning.

I love the mini-figures. Santa put several in the boys' stockings. They are in black packages, so you never know which mini figure is inside. Drew happened to get a super cute Santa figure.

The boys took a break to eat some donuts. :)

Finally, at about 9:00, I couldn't stand it anymore. A very special someone was missing out on all of the Christmas celebrating. I went upstairs and woke up my little sleepy head.

He took a quick peek at his Santa pile...

But once he saw his shopping cart, he was off! He pushed that buggy in laps around our downstairs for a good hour. ;)

I happened to have my {NEW! - Thanks, Honey!} camera in hand to catch a sweet Daddy/Son moment. Owen walked up to Wade and said, "Hug? Dank dew." Sweet little grateful boy...

We got Clayton a Nook, and he was thrilled! He read a chapter book a day for the first 3 days. Yay!

We bought Drew some Batman underwear, and he was so funny. He wanted to put on a pair immediately and that was the first gift that he told all of his grandparents about. It's the little things in life, right? Ha!

We got Clayton roller blades, too. At one point, I looked up and he had his roller blades on. He was straddling his electric scooter with is finger on the throttle. Oh my - I think that incident earned me about 20 new grey hairs! The boy has no fear...