Christmas

Just as we do every year, the 3 Hughes traveled home to Florida/Georgia for Christmas and spent a week and a half bouncing all around the southeast.  We spent the first part of our vacation in Georgia with Matthew's parents.  Nonie had a special surprise waiting for Kyndall when she arrived--Her own Christmas tree to decorate....

And even though it was still only December 23rd, it appeared that Santa had already come!

Christmas Eve.....

Christmas Eve morning my in-laws' neighbors came over to give Kyndall a special gift

A beautiful jewelry box!

As is tradition, we left Thomasville for a few hours and traveled down to Tallahassee to spend Christmas Eve evening with my side of the family.

Leaving Thomasville, headed to Tallahassee

Quick flashback to last year....

Ready for the candlelight service in Tallahassee

Every year my family begins our Christmas Eve with the candlelight service at Morningside Baptist Church, the church I grew up in and was married in.  I love going back to my home church and seeing all of the people I love and miss so much.

Wyatt was fascinated with his candle

One of the people I always love seeing is my friend Georgeanna who I've mentioned on my blog before.  She too is in need of a liver transplant and is patiently waiting on her precious gift.  Love you, G!!

After the church service we went back to my parents house for dinner and gifts.

Loved seeing this sweet ornament on my Mom's tree

This year my family finally agreed to make it all about the kids.  The adults drew names and we each had a specific amount we were allowed to spend on our person.  Somehow we still spent a solid two hours opening gifts!  It's ridiculous.

This year Kyndall decided she was "into Barbies" so Aunt Kelly got her this super cute personalized Barbie case for all of her dolls and their many accessories.

Frozen themed hand wipes for my little germophobe!

When you live in Florida and it's 85 degrees on Christmas Eve, it's perfectly acceptable to give swimsuits as gifts!

This picture makes me laugh because it is so very typical of Kyndall.  She is definitely her mother's child.  As she opened each of her gifts that night she carefully stacked them in a neat pile over in a corner away from all the commotion.  Each time she opened another gift she would walk it over to her pile and meticulously place it on her organized little stack.  All of this without any direction from me.  Meanwhile, Wyatt is throwing toys and tossing paper in every direction on the other side of the room!  He's his mother's child too!  

Each year my Mom gives us all a special ornament which is representative of the year we've had or something significant about our personalities.  Kyndall got a piano since she started taking piano lessons earlier this year and performed in her first piano recital a few weeks ago.

This was Kelly's ornament.....so sweet!!

This was mine....LOVE it!

Kyndall also got a collection of Disney Princess ornaments since she made her first trip to Disney this past year and met all of them.

The gifts kept coming.....

Love this gift from my sister!

"Proof there's life after death.  Donate Life!"

In my favorite colors of pink and green, of course!

In addition to the ornaments, my Mom also makes us all a photo calendar each year

After the gifts were opened it was time to eat our Christmas Eve dinner which my Mom had been preparing all day.  We look forward to this!

My budding photographer took this one...

She racked up on the Barbies, particularly the Princess Barbies!

We finally left Tallahassee around 10:00 and made it back to Thomasville in time to set out some cookies for Santa and then jump into bed just before midnight.  

And then, Santa CAME!

We had a busy and full day ahead of us so we woke Kyndall up at 6:30 which felt like 5:30 to our central time zone bodies!

Still sleepy but excited!

The night before I told her we were going to set up my phone and "catch" Santa as he snuck into the living room.  The first thing she asked when she woke up was if she could see the pictures of Santa.  I LOVE the excitement on her face in these next two pictures as she truly believes she's seeing something magical!

Here's what she was looking at....

As she came dashing out of her bedroom she caught sight of her big gift from Santa, the one thing she had hoped for most....

A Palace Pets Bike!  The very one she had asked him for!

 So proud!

Santa ate his cookies and even left a note

Before we opened any gifts we let Kyndall tell us the Christmas story using this sticker activity and she did a great job remembering all the details.

Apparently there was a wild cow in the original nativity!  Ha!

The only other thing that she specifically asked for was something that couldn't be bought in a store so Poppie made it his own personal mission to create this item exactly to Kyndall's specifications.....

Her very own skate mate!  But not just a typical skate mate....she wanted a MINION themed skate mate and Poppie made it happen.  He made this himself and we were all very impressed but no one more than Kyndall.

She is so deprived.

Our family, including our fur babies

My favorite gift that Kyndall received from my in-laws was this sweet necklace.  Since Kyndall could talk, she's been telling all of us that she loves us "to the moon and back".  So this necklace was just perfect.

Poor Huckabee was dreaming of Christmases past when he was the center of our world.  Yes there was actually a time when our dogs had stockings and gifts of their own.  Those days are long gone, little buddy!

Kyndall's gift to Nonie and Poppie was this wall hanging so they can display her many artistic creations

Kyndall saw these rainbow colored "wiskas" (whisks) one day when we were out shopping and absolutely insisted that I buy them for Nonie.  "But Nonie loves to cook and she loves rainbow colors...we HAVE to get them!"  So, we did.

Another favorite gift---Matthew's Mom got me this silver bracelet with a camera charm on it because, well....you know.

She's had this stocking since she was born and every year it is filled to the TOP!

If you know what this is then you know why my husband got it in his stocking!!

Playing with Poppie after all the gifts were opened

I wonder how long she will let me buy matching clothes for the two of us?

Nonie cooked us a yummy pancake breakfast before we dashed off to Two Egg in order to have Christmas lunch with my Grandma, cousins, and other extended family.  We don't love doing the Christmas Day shuffle, but I know one day we will miss it so we try to enjoy it despite how hectic it can get.  We are blessed to have lots of people who want to spend this special day with us!

Christmas lunch at Grandma's followed by our annual game of Dirty Santa

I was SO excited when I found this gift for my Grandma!  I have vivid memories of sitting on her lap in this very same living room when I was about Kyndall's age as she sang this song to me over and over again.  I wrote a note on the back reminding her of my special memories.

My favorite place to be on Christmas Day!!

We also gave her an "adult" coloring book and asked her to color us a beautiful picture that we can frame and hang in our home.  This particular coloring book has scripture references on each page so I am excited to see what she chooses for us!  (Grandma--I know you're reading this so don't forget your assignment!)

When it's nearly 90* on Christmas Day, it's alright to go without pants.

Our family plays a nasty, cut-throat game of Dirty Santa!  Gifts are stolen, hearts are broken and there are even alliances formed between husbands and wives in order to strategically end up with the gifts they want!  It's intense!

The hot item this year was the cold hard cash that Justin is proudly holding here.  It was stolen over and over again.

My Dad, the comedian.  He likes to try and guess what the gifts are before choosing one.  This turned out to be a fishing net which was also popular among the men.

Matthew ended up with this PINK gym bag, of which I am now the proud owner!  

Kyndall insisted I choose the gift I brought, which was this Vera Bradley purse

This is the last picture I have of me and Carrie before she became a MOMMY this past Thursday!

These two cousins, born 6 days apart are the best playmates.  Just wish they saw each other more often.

Whenever there's a family gathering in Two Egg, you can bet there will be some of this going on....

Once things settled down we went over to the nursing home and visited with MeMe.  I took her a Christmas gift and spent time talking to her about her day.  It makes me sad that more of our family members don't make the effort to go see her.  I live ten hours away yet I always always always make a trip over to Marianna when I'm in Florida.  Priorities.  Time is precious.  MeMe will be 96 in a couple of weeks and I will be back in town again to celebrate her big day with her.

Back at Grandma's house we decided we needed an updated "cousin" picture.  Giving Brian my camera resulted in a series of hilarious pictures that made me laugh out loud when I saw them a few days later.  Exhibit A....

Katie, Carrie, Jeffrey (The Basford kiddos)

Me and Kelly (Kirkland girls)

How is the oldest (me) also the shortest and the youngest the tallest??

Last year's cousin picture....

It was a looooooong day!

On the road back to Georgia 

Apparently she caught her second wind once we arrived back at my in-laws' house because suddenly she was bright eyed and ready to play with her new Christmas gifts.....at nearly 11:00 pm.

This game quickly became a favorite as you'll see in my next post.....

Whew!!  Christmas 2015 was a blur.  Blissful chaos is what I like to call it!  We are so thankful to have so may places to be and people to see and although we are always tired by the end of Christmas Day, it is the best kind of tired!

We had another busy week ahead of us filled with lots and lots of fun things in Tallahassee and Thomasville.  That post is next!