Merry Christmas

We hope this Christmas is as joyous as it is for us! 

Bear the elf

We have loved having you around and hope you only had the best to say when you reported back to Santa at night.  

 

Today's our last day with you.  I know you are excited to go back to the North Pole but we sure will miss you.  Thanks for hanging out with us over the last month.  See you next year!

Just pretend....

with this sweet boy

that he made a choo-choo with his blankets, stuffed animals, toys and Wally's toys

Wally was confused why his toys needed to be the wheels.  :-)

The Annual Hamrick Holiday Party Kid Picture

This year...

and for comparison, here's last year's...

I couldn't find the 2011 picture but I did find this one of Charlie and for fun, I thought I should post it.

What a cute little baby and he's just growing up too fast!

More Santa Pics

As promised, here are the rest of the Santa pics from last weekend.

Charlie keeps talking about how Santa had to go back to his house at the North Pole to make his blue choo choo train. 

Wally and Freak Outs

Oh my!  Our nights normally end with Charlie wanting to play with Wally.  Charlie loves to get kisses from Wally and he calls Wally "sweetie".  Haha!  

Wally has always had what Matt and I refer to "freak outs" and Charlie loves it!  In fact, he tries to make Wally freak out.

I guess he's so used to it that it doesn't at all scare him.  Anyways, I was able to record one of Wally's freak outs.

We had a big scare this week.  Matt came home from work for lunch on Wednesday and Wally was down on the floor groaning with pain.  Matt didn't know what was wrong so he called our vets office and they scheduled an appointment and Matt took him in.  Matt called me at work and I was so worried!  The vet discovered that it was Wally's back.  We don't know what happened since we weren't here but sometime between us leaving that morning and Matt coming home at lunch, the dog threw his back out.  The good news is that the x-ray ruled out a lot and vet felt sure that all that Wally needed is a doggie high dose anti-inflammatory and rest.  So, we have followed doctors orders and Wally's not allowed to have any freak outs (at least until he's recovered).  We told Charlie that Wally got sick and had to go to the doctor so we had to use gentle hands with Wally.  Charlie has been so sweet with Wally.  

I'm happy to report that Wally seems to be fine now and is laying in bed with me as I blog!  We love you Wally and are so happy and thankful that you are feeling better!  

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

I'm hooking up with some of the blogs that I read for their Christmas tours so for any visitors, welcome!  I'm going to also try to hook up with instagram.  You can follow me here. 

It's my favorite time of year and I take a lot of pride in our decorations!  Every year I want to put up my décor super early but I normally wait until right after thanksgiving but it's hard.  This year with the late thanksgiving and busy month we have planned, I went ahead and did it before Thanksgiving.  I was "one of those" that people talk about being insane. As insane as it is/was, it's been super nice to enjoy this busy time without having that added responsibility.  Plus, I get to enjoy it for a week longer than I would.

Matt and I are fortunate that our family (Charlie's Aunt Knee-knee and Papa this year) to keep Charlie while we are pulling everything down from the attic and getting it all set in place.  He was very happy and surprised to come home to a Christmas tree.  I'm posting a picture of us looking at all the ornaments.  Disclaimer:  it's a long video and I'm the worst person to take videos.

 
We have 2 trees.  This is our "big tree" as Charlie calls it. 

This is our "little tree" which we carry down from the attic and plug in.  Easy enough!  It fits perfect in our family room. 

Here's a view of our breakfast nook area and Charlie's advent calendar.

Here's a view of our dining room:

 I have Christmas villages that are all pharmacies and this year, I got a new one from Matt for my birthday. I think I have officially hit the max that I can set out. 

I really didn't change too much different this year.  Last year and this year, the theme is toddler friendly.  Here's Charlie's corner (some of the "toys" belong to Matt)  :-)

These are my most recent updates which I love:

We don't have much outside in the way of decorations other than the candles in the window and our Christmas flag. If it were up to me, we would have a lot or at least one large tacky item but Matt doesn't seem so crazy about my ideas.  We did have a deer incident where one of them wouldn't light.  We worked with it but couldn't get it working.  We were tired at that point and pretty much needing to go get Charlie so without really thinking, we put it out at the trash.  That means we had a lone deer out.  It was working fine but now it only has 3 legs lit.  So, until I get time to work him the poor deer, he's out but not lighting up.

Our stockings (or "socks" according to Charlie) are hung by the Chimney with care...

Also, if you come by, you may or may not see our visitor. Santa sent us an elf on the shelf. 

Charlie got to name him and he named him "Bear". 

I'm taking pictures of Bear because every morning, after he has flown to back to the North Pole to report to Santa, he winds up in some silly places.  Santa said since Charlie is only 2, he has given Charlie permission to touch him  and given Bear some special medicine so he doesn't leave his magic.

My favorite decoration this year is this nativity set for Charlie.  Thanks Grammie!

I think that's the tour of our humble abode.    Merry Christmas!