Christmas 2007

What a wonderful Christmas we've had building memories that we will always cherish. The past week has consisted of celebrating with family and as usual, fun was had by all. We spent last Saturday with Cory's family opening presents and decorating train cakes (a tradition Cory's mom is starting with her grand kids). Christopher had a ball decorating and so did his Memere'! Then my family arrived here on Saturday night and we've had the best time playing games, eating, and celebrating. The entire extended family was here for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day which made for a great time. We played Rockband on the XBOX (a gift for us from my Dad this year) and Boxing on the Wii (a gift from Santa to my cousin's little girls)...giving everyone a really good laugh.

Here is a variety of pictures we've taken...most of them are from Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. I sort of went brain dead and kept forgetting my camera when we went places!! They don't all show up on the checkerboard in the blog, so if you are interested, click on the "View All Images" button to see more!

Enjoy and Merry Christmas!

Mission Accomplished

We finally made the journey to the mall today to battle the lines and sit on Santa's lap. While Christopher seems very excited to talk about Santa and loves to point him out in pictures and books, I was very skeptical of whether or not we would actually get a picture with him smiling. Once again, my little boy amazes me. When it was our turn to see Santa, his face just lit up with a huge grin. He told Santa he wanted "lots of toys" for Christmas and he sat there very patiently while several photos were taken. It took us a little bit to actually get the grin on his face but he eventually cooperated. Another fun memory for mommy!

Mr. Serious and Santa


Getting close to that smile


Third time's a charm!

'Tis the Season...

...for Christmas parties and sugar highs!!! Yesterday, one of the moms from our neighborhood playgroup had a Christmas party for the kids. It was so adorable. The kids made ornaments and decorated Christmas cookies. While most of the icing for the cookies went straight into my son's mouth rather than on the cookie, he still did a great job. When we got home he picked out the perfect place to hang his ornament on our tree. Unfortunately the battery on my camera ran out after only a few pictures of the party. I did take some pictures of his finished cookies and ornament once we got home though.

Christopher makes his ornament


Fun with beads!


Decorated cookies


Christopher's snowflake ornament



Today we had a Christmas celebration at Christopher's school. The kids all made a reindeer using cut-outs of their hands and feet. Then we made reindeer sandwiches for a snack - the sandwich was the head, we placed pretzels at the top for antlers, used raisins for eyes, and a red hot for a Rudolph nose. They turned out pretty cute, for all you other moms out there reading this, you might want to make one with your kids!

Making our hands and feet reindeer


Mrs. Bronson's 2 year olds


Enjoying our snack


It has been such a joy to experience Christmas through the eyes of my two-year-old. He is filled with excitement and wonder for the season everyday. We are counting down the days on our advent calendar every day. We've talked about celebrating Jesus' birthday (although, sometimes when you ask him whose birthday we celebrate at Christmas, he will tell you Santa Claus') and what a special day that was. He asks us to read The Polar Express to him every night before he goes to bed, and he often walks around the house, saying "Ho! Ho! Ho!, that's what Santa Claus says." While I know Christmas isn't just for children, it sure makes it more fun when you have them to share it with!

Good Friends

This weekend I went to Pampa, Texas to visit with two of my best friends and former college roommates, Megan and Noelle. We all live in three different states now, (Megan in Colorado and Noelle in North Carolina) so we don't get to see each other very often anymore. In fact, it had been over a year since we had all three been together and ALOT has gone on in our lives...

My friend Noelle, had her first baby in September and this was our first chance to get to meet little Anderson Michael Hardin! What a doll he is! He is so precious and being with him made me VERY excited about our little one arriving in April!! Noelle had been telling me what a fussy baby Anderson was and he really made her look bad this weekend as I thought he was just a little angel. It was so fun to get to see Noelle be a mommy. She is so sweet with Anderson and he is a lucky little boy.

Our other good friend Megan, is expecting her first baby in March, due just a couple of weeks before me. I don't think either one of us ever thought we would end up being preggers at the same time but it is really fun! She doesn't know the sex of her baby either so we spent lots of time speculating what the two of us are going to have. Megan is going to make a great momma too. I'm so glad that two of my closest friends are finally getting to experience motherhood with me!!

Thanks for a fun weekend girls! You guys are the greatest and I can't wait to get together with all of our kiddos soon!!!


One new momma and two baby bumps...

O' Christmas Tree

We have finally put up our tree!! While most of the tree was decorated late at night we did save a few ornaments for Christopher to help us put on. For those of you who know me, you may know that I tend to be very particular about my Christmas tree. I like certain ornaments to be placed in certain places on the tree, I like to make sure that from all angles, the tree looks equally decorated and the ornaments evenly distributed. Off course, my two year old, has no idea about this and enjoyed hanging most of his ornaments all in the same general area. So it has taken MUCH will power for me to not rearrange his decorations and keep things just how he wanted. He does love the tree though, and it has been so much fun to watch him look at it each day and point to his favorite ornaments!!



Christopher decorates the tree



Two identical ornaments placed VERY close together!!



The finished product!

A Visit from St. Nick

Tonight, we had a surprise visitor for Christopher...Santa! Although he never made it to his lap, he did warm up enough to the giant man in red to tell him that he wanted cars and trucks for Christmas. Christopher also took Mr. Claus by the hand and personally showed him where our fireplace was so Santa would know where to leave the gifts. For me, the cutest thing was right after Santa left our house, I was standing there holding Christopher, and he said to me, "Mommy, Santa Claus!" with his big blue eyes so full of excitement. Then I got the biggest squeeze around the neck and Christopher laughed and said, "Ho! Ho! Ho!" Oh the joys of motherhood truly come in all kinds of ways.




Christopher visits with Santa



Our family and Mr. Claus

Building Traditions

Well, it has been a busy week in the Locke household trying to recover from jet-lag, return to our daily routines, and get the house decorated for Christmas. We are all three very glad to be home and to be getting things back to normal.

One of my favorite holiday memories from childhood is helping my mom put up her beloved Snow Village. My brother and I would have so much fun finding the perfect place for the tiny little people and then covering the pretend city with snow. This year, I had a wonderful little helper who gave my village the perfect touch...

Forbidden Fruit

Well friends, I am happy to report that the Locke family has returned safe and sound to this side of the pond. Once back on US soil at the airport while we were waiting for our bags to arrive, the backpack Cory was wearing became of great interest to the Agriculture dog (I guess like the drug dogs only they sniff for agricultural products). The security guard who was leading the dog around asked to see Cory's backpack. Sure enough, inside one of the pockets was an apple that I had grabbed in the British Airways lounge back at Gatwick that I had completely forgotten to eat. So that tiny little apple sent us through a completely different customs line before we could leave. In our special line, which was in a completely different room, they had to hand search EVERY single one of our bags! Please keep in mind that all of our bags were extremely full containing everything we didn't want to be away from for the past six weeks. It was quite a sight and all because of one small apple which in this case, was truly living up to its nickname.

Thank you all for keeping up with our adventures in London through the blog. I've had many people ask me if we are going to keep the blog going now that we have returned and the answer is YES!! So feel free to contine to check every now and then to see what daily life is throwing our way.