The Holidays... better late than never...

Well, it goes without saying that I am behind... very behind as a matter of fact.

The holidays have come and gone, followed by many other events, and I am just now posting them.  Oh, well.  The most important thing about the holidays is that we made each and every one of the following memories PLUS many more... it was the best holiday season ever.  Seriously.

The first week of December, Columbia received 4 inches of snow one Saturday night/Sunday morning.  It was a beautiful morning with what we called "lots" of snow... ha!... little did we know... 

This is our new house with a blanket of snow

In addition to the lovely snow falling upon our door step, another special delivery was left at the front door.  Santa left a package for Lawson and Emmitt.

An Elf on the Shelf!  We have a new Christmas visitor and he is now a part of our Christmas tradition! His name, chosen by Lawson, is Free... yes, Free! :)  You see, Santa sent Free to our house to watch Lawson and Emmitt throughout the day.  When they go to bed he flies to the North Pole where he reports the Bragg boys' behavior for the day.  He then returns before they awake each morning, and lands in a different place each day... he's pretty sneaky.  And you can't touch him or he will lose his magic.

Dad is reading the story that Santa wrote about his little elf.

And introducing Free!

So exciting!

To learn more about this exciting Christmas tradition, click here.

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Onto the Christmas cookies... friends Carla and Courtney posted these adorable reindeer cookies on their blog, helping me tremendously, as I was trying to decide what treat we were going to take to school to share with friends.

They were super easy and super cute, and Lawson absolutely loved helping me make them.

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Waiting for something as exciting as Christmas is so hard!  The day after Thanksgiving I found this little gingerbread house to help with the countdown to Christmas.  It was really cute and Lawson loved his "little house".  He loved it so much that we had to place it on top of the refrigerator because he was sneaky and would move a chair in the kitchen to the counter where he would sneak surprises... I'm telling ya... Lawson was not sold on Free! Ha!  Anyway, it was very exciting to begin this tradition with him.  Each day he would receive a little surprise and no matter how small, there is something about opening a little door and finding a surprise.

This was December 1.  Russ is explaining the house and its purpose to him.

In the first door was a little slip of green paper with the word BIBLE written on it.  His first gift of the season was a children's Bible.  He loves it; it was the absolute perfect gift.

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On to the Christmas trees...  Each year we put our Christmas tree up and deck our halls the weekend following Thanksgiving and it is always so much fun to me.  Having shopped the day after Thanksgiving, I am always eager to decorate and fill the house with Christmas spirit.  That didn't happen this year due to the "moving mess", (we'd only been in our house 10 days on Thanksgiving, mind you...) but thanks to my sweet, sweet husband our tree was finally brought up from the basement, along with a few other decorations, and we whipped this house right up into the Christmas holiday spirit!  It suddenly felt like home and actually looked really nice given the circumstances...  All seemed to be right with the world.

Here is the tree in the living room.  And yes, we do have a new T.V.  Our practicality was challenged with this purchase, but we are enjoying it very much, and to be honest, it was the only place for a T.V. in this new living room.  If you notice the mantle, it has a little mess with the cords and such.  The cable box had not yet been mounted behind the T.V. therefore it had been sitting on the mantle with a mess of cords causing me to initially not plan on decorating the mantle.  I then decided it could only help the appearance and I am happy that I did. 

We also have new living room furniture.  Our other furniture is in the living room in the basement.

I do love our tree, I must admit.  It tells a story as it's sprinkled with special ornaments that we've collected over the years.  Each year Russ and I always reminisce on the past as I decorate the tree, and it is so much fun.  We are thankful for each and every memory associated with our ornaments.

The boys also had trees in their rooms.  Emmitt could've cared less, but Lawson was so proud of his.  We picked up a few more ornaments this year, and he was able to help with that which was exciting!

They are nothing fancy, just sweet little Christmas trees. 

Lawson's is dressed in popcorn garland which was passed down from Russ' childhood.

And Emmitt's is dressed in wooden cranberries also from Russ' childhood.

(Sorry for the lighting... I'm not sure what happened to the flash.)

I struggled with adding some "substance" to these sweet little flimsy Christmas trees, but liked what I finally came up with.  I added some grosgrain ribbon to these peppermint pics, giving it a little bit of a masculine look with the brown gingham, and I was pleased with how it turned out.

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On December 22 Lawson received a special letter in the mail... a letter from SANTA! 

(you can click on the pic to see it larger in case you don't believe it!!)

I ordered this from a friend of ours who just began this business this past Christmas.  She and her husband did a great job.  I filled out an application giving specific answers to their questions pertaining to Lawson, paid a small fee, and it arrived the next week.

It was mailed from North Pole, Alaska... it mentioned his baby brother, Emmitt... his new school and friends... his elf, Free... using the big boy potty... and acknowledged that he had asked for the "gun", and a work bench... it was really cool!!!

And that concludes the events leading up to our Christmas celebrations.  We enjoyed our first Christmas here in Columbia, and we were so excited to be going to Martin to be with family.

I'm not sure about you, but Russ and I have eaten many words since having children.  We've done things we said we'd never do, and we haven't done things that we just knew we were going to do... I am pretty sure it just goes with the territory of parenting.

With that said, we always said we would celebrate Christmas as a family at home on Christmas morning, enjoying the gifts left by Santa Claus, before traveling to Tennessee.  The past two years we have done just that.  We stayed in Evansville on Christmas Eve, woke up and had Santa, and then wearily drove to Martin to begin the exhausting holiday marathon. 

Now that we live 5 hours from home verses 3 hours from home, we had a little snack and ate our Christmas words this year.  : )

I AM SO GLAD THAT WE DID!!!

It was such a great Christmas for our family... For our entire family.

We arrived in Martin on December 23rd and our first Christmas gathering wasn't until Christmas Eve night.  It was so nice to be able to relax before hitting the ground running.  Free, our elf, followed us there and so did our countdown gingerbread house... magically. : )

Our first Christmas stop was at my Aunt Bertice's house.  We ate dinner and then opened gifts before hanging around and visiting.  This was Lawson's first Christmas gift to open.  He was so excited!

Doesn't he look ready?!

It was a fire station!  It was soooo sweet... Russ finally got the ribbon off and he tore into it.  When he saw the box he said to Russ, "Dad, I wuv it!  I weally, weally wuv it!"  His sincere excitement brought tears to my eyes.  We will never forget those words.

Here is Aunt Bertice... isn't she lovely?  She is 84 years old.

Julie and Emmitt

(isn't she lovely, too?!) :)

This isn't a very good pic, but I love Emmitt's expression

All of us with Grandmother and Granddaddy

(wish I knew what L and E were looking at)

All of us with Aunt B

It was a fun Christmas Eve!  We went back to Russ' parents where we tucked our boys in and waited for Christmas morning... we were all very excited!

Santa came and we had a great time!  Christmas morning went so beautifully that I continually found myself asking, "why would we want to stay at home with just "us" when we can have Santa with everyone... everyone who loves us and our boys!" 

It was a house-full on Christmas morning and it was so much fun!!!  My parents and Julie Anne came, along with Mama B and Daddy Denton.  I thank Russ' parents for opening their home to my family so that they could be a part of the special morning, and for the yummy breakfast, too!

And Santa did visit our boys...

Here we come down the steps.

We had to wake both boys up, and we did make Lawson wear his pajamas to bed. :)

Our first peek at what Santa left

Gifts for Lawson

Gifts for Emmitt

The GUN!!!

He was so excited and oh, so cute... I believe Russ' face says it all!

That's a pretty serious aim...

To infinity and beyond!

His new tool bench...

His new desk... Santa brought this as a last-minute extra.  He saw this and knew he needed it since he is at home a lot during the day.  I am glad Santa brought this because Lawson L.O.V.E.S. it!!!  He plays with it every single day.  Even more often than most of his "favorite" toys.  If you are looking for an "art station" or for something similar, I would highly suggest this.  Made by Step2.  Great idea, Santa!

Lawson loves to pretend to wait on you and serve you your food and drink.  He wanted a kitchen, but the father of two boys just couldn't bring himself to let that item remain on the wish list, so I saw this and thought it was perfect.  It came with a large selection of healthy McDonald food items, but I honestly don't believe he plays with it like he would a kitchen.  Oh, well.  I keep thinking I might find one dirt-cheap at a yard sale and then we can play with the fattening McDonald's food on the entertaining kitchen... who knows!  Until then we will play McDonald's and let Emmitt chew on all of the rubber food as it feels so good to his tender gums. 

And Mr. Emmitt got a few gifts, too!

As the tradition continues, Emmitt received a shotgun for his first Christmas.  Lawson's first Christmas was pre-blog and I don't have those pics on our new computer or I would share that with you, but Emmitt now has a matching gun to Lawson, both received on their first Christmas.

He got toys that make noises and sing songs... he loves them all!

So does his big brother...

After the enjoyable Christmas morning we headed over to my Grandmother and Granddaddy's for lunch and more gifts.  I got very few pictures while we were there, but here is Lawson with his new laptop which is also a fave.  I can't believe how much he likes it.  He can proudly show you the "L" for Lawson, the "E", the "R", and the "S".

We left Grandmother and Granddaddy's and went directly to my mom's house for Christmas with my parents.  It was a lot of fun!

Emmitt slept the entire time we were there; Christmas morning wore him out!  And I am guessing if we had all had the opportunity for a nap, we would've all been asleep!

Don't worry, Lawson happily opened all of his gifts.

The hi-lite of the time with my parents was Lawson's new Buzz Lightyear car!  My parents gave him this, and he was so excited!!!  He does a pretty good job driving it, too.  We are looking forward to warmer weather so that we can ride it outside as it is currently in the basement.

We finally concluded Christmas day with Russ' family.  We had a delicious Christmas dinner with his family followed with more gifts. 

Here's Lawson with his first gift of the night... JOHN DEERE BOOTS!!!

I think he likes them, don't you?

The next gift was a microphone and amp... he loved it, too!  Only to get home and add this set-up to the drum set my sister gave him... he is set!!!

And get ready - the following pics are microphone and boot pics... and there are quite a few, but I couldn't resist.  Hope you will enjoy them with me!

Pretty cute, aren't they?

And our last Christmas celebration was with the Bell Family.  We met at Aunt Christy and Uncle James Denton's on Sunday after church.  We ate another great meal and enjoyed lots of family time!

Here is Lawson with Maddie Claire, my cousin's little girl.

-My family-

Me, Emmitt, and Maddie... notice my cousin in the background wearing the gray shirt... we are expecting Jenna Kate on Friday!!! 

Another family pic

My dad, Aunt Sarah Beth, Uncle James Denton, Mama B, and Daddy Denton

Mama B and Daddy Denton with their great grandchildren... seven were present, two were in Knoxville, and two are currently on the way... wow!  eleven great grandchildren... It's a house full, I promise.

Front row:  Lawson, Emmitt, baby Jordan, and Maddie

Back row:  McKenzie, Logan, and Lauren

In Knoxville:  Nolan and Sally Ann

On the way:  Jenna Kate this Friday!, and baby boy Bell in April

We did have snow the day after Christmas which was very pretty.  As we left Aunt Christy's I snapped this shot of Lawson and am so thankful I did!  This reminds me of my childhood with the farm in the background... I really like this pic.

Ok Martin friends - if you missed out on visiting with Fred over Christmas, here is your fix!  Fredrick is a high school classmate who will show up at Russ' parents unannounced when we are there.  I think he must have a radar or something letting him know when we are in town.  Lawson has slowly warmed up to his bear hug, and he always has hugs for us, too.  He is very proud of his Chevrolet truck and always shows us his newest accessory, as well as takes a picture of us with him.  I happened to have our camera handy this time and here you go!

This pic is not so great as we were getting ready to head out and had been packing... he just caught us in the nick of time!  How about his Michael Jackson pose (as he called it)?! :)

And lastly, New Year's Day can't go unmentioned.  It was an uneventful day as always, but so enjoyable.  We enjoyed our traditional meal of battered bacon, fried cabbage, black-eyed peas, macaroni-and-cheese, and cornbread... mmm, good!

Emmitt enjoyed a few fruit snack puffs, too!

Whew! I think that gets it! What a holiday season... so much fun and so much love was shared by all.  We are thankful for our family and for the memories we made... we visited, reminisced on past memories, laughed, ate way too much, Russ and I took a date night, and overall we simply enjoyed each other's company.  Our new Christmas tradition is to always share the excitement of Santa with our family! 

Although this posting is late (and lengthy), it was worth my time... better late than never. 

Thanks for reading... more to come as I attempt to get caught up.