Burge Family Christmas

We celebrate Christmas with the Burge family (Sara's mom's family) every year on Christmas Eve.  It is always a fun time, with great food, lots of laughter and fun stories.  This year was a little strange and sad without Great Apple.  Its hard to believe she's been gone almost a year now.  You could definitely feel the void of her absence, but we were comforted to know she was looking down on us, laughing right along with us at the jokes and funny stories. 

We did our annual $20 man/woman gift exchange, which is always a lot of fun!  The great grand-kids all received some great gifts from Great Poppy and the aunts/uncles, too!  Carson got a really fun spaceship with launch pad and guys that he just loves.  He also got a really cool musical art studio, a drag car, and a learning blackberry.  He thinks its pretty fun to play on his blackberry like Mama does on hers.  :) 

Carson had so much fun playing with Mackenzey and Gabe.  They all ran around the house giggling and laughing quite a bit.  They all shared their toys pretty well, too.  Carson has wished the two of them would come over and play today.  :)

Moore Family Christmas

We didn't think we'd be able to get together with Nana, Papa, Aunt Lindsay, and Great Grandma Jackie on Christmas Eve this year, but Nana ended up having a last minute work schedule change so she was home early enough.  So we headed over to Nana and Papa's house in the afternoon to open gifts before heading to Aunt Sharon's for the Burge family Christmas Eve party.  Carson fell asleep in the short 6-mile ride over to Nana and Papa's, but he woke up well (but slowly) once we got there.  He had a lot of fun giving everyone their gifts - I think that is really his favorite part.  :)  Of course, he loves getting gifts himself, but he really does thoroughly enjoy giving them. 

As always, we are blessed with a generous family.  We all got some really great gifts.  Kevin and Sara got some new (much needed) luggage, an awesome blanket, some socks, and money.  Carson received a laptop learning computer, a DJ mixing booth, some books, an Elmo music player, a dump truck, a puzzle, a savings bond, and some clothes, socks, and pajamas.  He'll also be getting a nice toybox for his new bedroom.  He loves everything! 

Rochester Hills Christmas Lights

On Wednesday night, we took a drive down to Rochester Hills to check out their beautiful Christmas lights.  They seriously have the best Christmas lights, ever!  If you've never seen them, you really should make a point to take a drive to check them out.  The buildings are all just covered in lights for several blocks through the main part of downtown.  Carson just loves all the Christmas lights and decorations this year, so we knew he'd love it.  And he sure did!  He was in awe!  He just kept exclaiming how beautiful all the lights were.  And of course, we had to go find the yellow lights.  :)  (Yellow is his favorite color.)  It was a cold night, so we just took a quick stroll down the street, plus a few drive-bys in the car.

Gingerbread Train

Carson made a gingerbread train with Nana last week.  It turned out very cute!  And believe it or not, Carson did the majority of the work with little help from Nana! 

He is quite tempted by it and I often catch him trying to eat pieces off of it!  :)

Kitchen Dance Party

What do we do when Daddy has to (unexpectedly) work all day on a Saturday?  We have a kitchen dance party, of course!  Carson likes to dance in the kitchen because he can watch his reflection in the oven and dishwasher.  He has some pretty good moves, doesn't he?  :)  Carson calls this his "lump-a-lump, ba-donk-a-donk dance."  LOL!

Christmas with the Moore Extended Family

We had our first family Christmas party yesterday.  We had some of Sara's extended family over to celebrate - Great Grandma Jackie, Nana and Papa, Aunt Lindsay, Michelle and Tyson, and Josh, Mandy and Macie.  We had an awesome dinner followed by some gifts for the kids and some fun family game time.  Carson got some really cool Matchbox cars, a motorcycle that makes noise and lights up, and Woody and Bullseye from Toy Story 3.  He loves them all.  It is so fun to watch him open gifts this year.  When he opened his cars, he exclaimed "oh my, this is amazing!"  He had similar exclamations and hand-clapping with his other gifts, too.  It was so cute! 

Carson had so much fun playing with Macie and Tyson.  He was sad to see them go and asked several times today when they will be coming over next.  He just loves his cousins! 

Macie thought we got her blue Jello... she was being such a good sport about it, too!  :)

But she was quite happy to see there were some cool earrings inside the jello box!  :) 

Playing games is always fun!  We played Catch Phrase last night and had a blast!  It doesn't look like it in the picture, but we all get pretty into the game... lots of competiveness, excitement, and laughing! 



Wharton Center Family Show

Last Sunday we took a trip to the Wharton Center in East Lansing.  We met up with Uncle Justin, Aunt Mary, and Rebecca.  We all went to see a family show featuring many children's books - Duck for President, Fancy Nancy, I Have To Go, Pirates Don't Change Diapers, and a couple of others.  Before the show started, the kids got to make some prince and princess crowns, which was a lot of fun.  They both wore their crowns the rest of the night.  Rebecca and Carson absolutely loved the show.  They sat very intently in their seats right next to each other through the entire hour and a half show. 

The fun continued after the show when we all went to dinner at Bravo! in the Eastwood Towne Center.  Carson and Rebecca had a lot of fun together at dinner, just being silly kids.  They both ordered pizzas that ended up being huge!  We all had a great dinner and a great time together!  It was really nice to spend some time catching up with Justin and Mary.  We haven't seen them in a couple of months and we're looking forward to seeing them again next week for Christmas! 

O Christmas Tree

Like I mentioned in the last post, I took all the ornaments off our tree and we all re-decorated it after adding some red ribbon.  It just seemed too boring before.  I'm still not totally happy with it, but this is our tree this year.  I'll see what I can come up with next year to change it up a bit. 

Here's our fireplace decor this year.  We love the way it turned out.  Carson always says he thinks it is "just gorgeous."  :) 

I mentioned Carson's ornament from Kevin and I in the last post, but here's a quick picture.  This symbolizes Carson's love for riding his Trek bicycle this year.