{Merry Christmas}

{Garden Lights 2014}

So glad that were able to go with family while they were visiting during the holidays. I'm a big of the Garden Lights at the Atlanta Botanical Garden. I love walking so walking in twinkling lights and crisp air is just perfection!

Roasting marshmallows for our smores was so fun and a good treat for all.

This guy! I just love him dearly and I will choose a lifetime of kissing him always under the mistletoe.

{2014 Christmas Video}

William & Samantha's Family Christmas 2014 from Dominique James on Vimeo.

{Christmas Dinner 2014}

After some quick rest for the whole family, we started making our way to Granddaddy and Granddmommy's house for dinner. The kids has been looking forward to this! No shortage of gifts for the grandbabies, plus the cousins always have fun when they are together.

{Christmas Morning: 2014}

The excitement of Santa's visit to our house was so much to bear for the kids especially William. He was up at 3AM and was tossing and turning all night. Finally at 6AM, we cave in and told him that he can wake his sister up.

Presents and more presents...All garnered oooohs and aaaahs.

My family stopped by in the morning to see the kids open their presents. The sleeping bags gifts from Mom and Dad was immediately used to try to get them to nap some before heading out to Granddaddy and Grandmommy's house for dinner.

{Noche Buena 2014}

Delighted that we had another wonderful Noche Buena at home. My goal was to have plenty of food for the family and spend quality time with each other. After church, we all gather at home and had a yummy traditional Filipino dinner. It's a lot of work...but oh so worth it to keep the tradition and build memories with family.

{Christmas Cookies}

Mess in the kitchen, our cookies didn't hold it shape and became one giant cookie...but all is good because we had the best time. I let the kids have at it and they had so much fun picking different shapes on the cookies cutter box. Ha, lil did they know that shape didn't matter :)

The laughter and smile around the house is so worth it. Samantha came running to me, hug me tight and said I love you (unprompted). I think my lil girl was so overcome with joy!
 The final product...homemade and truly made with LOVE (wink).

{Christmas Visit at Tennessee}

So glad that we were able to work in a quick visit to Tennessee during the holidays. It was so nice to just spend some quality time with GG and Sonie. The crisp morning up in the mountains really does wonders for relaxation.

We enjoyed looking at Sonie's Santa collection. Also enjoyable was my first moonshine tasting at 11AM non the less...that's how we roll!

Another highlight from the trip is getting to explore Ed's Uncle Olen's barn. It's been with the family for years. William even got to hit and bang the very same anvil that Ed's great grandfather used to let him play with.

We also got to me some distance cousins and had a great time just being kids and exploring and wondering. A very refreshing break from city living.

{The Nutcracker at the Fox}

Samantha and I had such a great mother and daughter time to her first Nutcracker show at the Fabulous Fox theatre. The abridged version was perfect for this little 4 year old of mine. She was in awe on the spectacular theatre and the music and dancing was just magical.

After the show, picked up ornaments to always remind us of this fun and special time together. A pink ballerina for Samantha and a nutcracker ornament especially picked by little for his best big brother.

I love being able to get one on one time with each kid and build wonderful sweet memories with them. We finished off our day with a chicken and waffle lunch at the near by Bantam+Biddy restaurant. Yum! Yum!

{Santa Visit 2014}

We had a great visit! Samantha actually sat at Santa's lap. Success!!!

We always ask the kids to only ask for two gifts each from Santa.

Samantha's wish list:
- Barbie Camper (A last minute change that sent Mommy on a Wal-Mart expedition)
- Books

William's wish list:
-Blue Zoomer Dino
-Square Up Game

Funny story, Ed came running and gave Samantha a big hug after the kids were done with their visit with Santa. Samantha whispered to Daddy that "she was nervous and tooted" :) Her hands were very clamy too :) Poor girl! But she does love Santa :)

{2014 Christmas Programs}

William's first grade class.

Samantha's Pre- K class. Oh I just love how she was beaming with confidence.

The night before she gave us a preview of The Story of Christmas.

William's Sunday School Program. He got to play the part of Shepherd.

{#EOAS}

To be honest with you, the husband and I were sorta over the Elf on the Shelf and wasn't feeling it...until the kids started asking and wondering when will our Elf Timmy will show up. Oh boy, so this momma tried to make it up, by "helping" Timmy set up a donut breakfast for the kids.

Success! Oh the joy! The kids were raving about how we have the best elf in the world!

Interesting sidenote, the Elf on the Shelf is everywhere on Target. Kids have been asking why is our Elf Timmy at Target and there were so many of them. Geez Target, can you at least hide them and put them in the back end of the store???

{Advent Calendar}

One of the new tradition we started this year is the advent calendar.  I saw different variations on the advent calendar, but I chose the printables from this website because the verse are progressive with the story of Christmas. I also picked one of each $1 advent chocolate calendar from Ikea so the kids have something to look forward to and open every night. Nothing fancy, but I want it to have a lot of focus on religion as well.

Here's Day 1.

 By day 4, they were sort of getting into the scripture verse but the chocolate treat of course is still the favorite.

And William reading the scripture, while the family listens.

{Deck The Halls: 2014}

Took two weekends because of our busy schedules, but the house is ready for Christmas!
All three of them were recovering from flu, but were still excited to finally put up our tree.

Also had their own trees up in their rooms.

Christmas details sprinkled all around the house.

And the facade of our house twinkles bright at night and ready to welcome friends and family this holiday.

{Our Very Merry Christmas}

I am still working on downloading all the pictures from my camera, but I got this sweet video link from my brother of our family's Christmas. I love love the Apple holiday commercial, and I have to admit I shed a few tears the first time I've seen it. So imagine how happy I was to get our own version of a Christmas video. I hope that when William and Samantha grows up, they'll have a ton of appreciation for all the memories of their childhood.

William & Samantha's Family Christmas 2013 from Dominique James on Vimeo.

{Christmas 2013}

Finishing my 2013 Christmas post with more special moments with our families.
My family stopped by before we head to dinner with my inlaws.

Love, love my siblings. Missing our sister in the Philippines.

Christmas dinner is always special. Love my in laws table setting.

I always love their flocked Christmas tree.

Cousins time are always the favorite.

My adorable nieces are such young ladies now.

The amount of gifts that we received from our families are unbelievable. So generous of them! Very much appreciated by all of us.