Our Christmas

We soaked up as much Christmas as possible around here before the big event.

Each free night we had at home was spent around the Christmas tree, kissing on babies and talking about Santa and Jesus' birthday.

We even took L to see Santa so she could tell him what she wanted for Christmas. She was very specific. All she wanted was a pink baby doll. We heard about it for weeks. Santa was going to bring her a pink baby doll, she was so excited.

We put on our Christmas eve jammies, went to the Christmas eve service, and hurried home to be tucked into bed, waiting for Santa to come.

 

And come he did.  He was pretty sneaky, bringing in that big table and chairs for L and sitting her baby doll at her new table. Everything was laid out just right for Christmas morning. Just perfect, except...

 

When L woke up she wouldn't get out of bed. We tried to get her to come out and see what Santa had brought. She was so confused, which I am sure was our fault because she thought he was coming to our house and she was going to see him. She kept telling us that he was going to meet her at the front door with her new Christmas baby. We finally convinced her to come see if Santa had already come, but she couldn't see her pink baby doll on the chair. She kept telling Matt and I, "Santa forgot, hims supposed to bring me a pink baby doll. Him's forgot mommy. I need to go back to sleep so hims can bring me a pink baby doll." She was heart broken. After all, she saw him twice and that is all she asked for.

She finally saw it and it was pure joy from then on. Every little present she opened brought a bigger smile to her face. 

 She is such a fun age and we had such a good morning. With all of the craziness during the Christmas holiday, we love spending these few hours at home, as a little family of four, experiencing all this joy together. Laurelei was a little tired and eventually started to get a little cranky, as is probably typical for an exhausted 3 year old, but for the first little bit it was perfect.

 And let me not forget, it was Abbott's first Christmas too!

This is what he did most of the time. Sleep. We let him sleep in while Laurelei came out and opened her stocking. When he did wake up we brought him out to see what Santa had brought him.

He loved his new little puppy dog. It was just his size. It received some pretty good snuggles right off the bat. 

 

He enjoyed his new toys for a quick minute, before returning to his activity of choice.

It was a perfect morning. Seeing your babies happy is just such a gift. I loved slowing down for just a couple of hours and soaking it all in with Matt. We are so blessed this year. 

 

Hoping you had the very best of Christmases as well!

Family Christmas

Matt and I are very blessed to come from some very close and loving families. It always makes for a busy Christmas season, but we love it! This year we celebrated 4 Christmas' outside of our own Christmas at home, and all in two days. Whew! (And can you believe that is down from the 6 we usually attend!?) We had such a wonderful Christmas. We are so very blessed this year!

The Burlew Family Christmas

We spent the night at Matt's parents house on the 23rd and woke up together on Christmas eve to celebrate as a family. It was the first time we were all under one roof overnight and we had a lot of fun! The little ones went to bed without too much trouble and the adults stayed up to play cards into the night. When we woke up we had a big breakfast and enjoyed opening presents. It was kind of hilarious though, after all the presents had been opened. We have three kids very close in age, 4,3, and 2. Despite the fact that they had many similar presents, there was a lot of tattling, crying, and not a lot of sharing going on! We are attributing this much to the fact that they were very tired by that point, having not had the best night sleep. There was a lot of refereeing going on, but it was fun nonetheless!

The Yeary Family Christmas

We headed to my parents house after celebrating all day with Matt's family for my step father's family Christmas. We always have a blast eating the yummiest dinner and catching up. We do a tacky ornament exchange that is always hilarious before we open presents. Mamaw and papaw were sure to spoil Laurelei and Abbott as they always have the rest of the grandkids, and Laurelei was in heaven opening all of her presents! She was particularly excited about some fun princess dress up items. She received her first pair of clip on earrings and wore them all night, even with her jammies. She kept asking everyone if they liked her pretty rings and smiling so sweetly. It was priceless! After desert we all went to the Christmas Eve service that I've gone to for years with my family. It was really sweet to experience that with Laurelei and Abbott in tow. I appreciated sitting with my whole family and remembering the whole purpose of Christmas. It was perfect!

Christmas morning with my family

After we open presents as a little family of four on Christmas morning, we always travel to my parents house again to open presents with them. Harrison and Jackson are still in highschool which makes me always want to spend Christmas morning with them. Eventually things will change and we won't all be able to be together on Christmas morning, but while they are there, I want to be there too! My sister Lindsey got lots of cuddling time in with Abbott too. My mom always makes Christmas so very special for all of us, and this year was no exception! I was pretty proud that our gift to her almost made her cry too! We are so blessed. After presents we had a wonderful brunch, I love all the Christmas traditions!

The Elkins Family Christmas

We were lucky this year to celebrate Christmas day with my dad and his family in Cincinnati. Our Aunt Susan and her family came to dad's as well as my grandparents. It has been many, many years since we were able to spend Christmas day with any of them, so it was very special. Lindsey, Harrison, Me, Matt, Laurelei and Abbott all piled into one car and made the trip together. We had a great time with many laughs as a family. It was a great end to a perfect Christmas weekend!

Somewhere in the middle of all the fun Matt and I were able to celebrate Christmas with our babies here at home. I think Laurelei's complete joy and Abbott's first Christmas deserve there own post, so I'll share all of those details soon! Hope you Christmas was extra special and tons of fun for you too!

Santa Baby

Wishing the happiest of holidays to you and yours!

love, santa baby

Happy Birthday!

It's another special day in the Burlew household! It's Matt's birthday! He has to work and the Christmas craziness is threatening to take over, but I just had to take a minute and wish a very happy, happy birthday to my very best friend.

 

Dearest Matty, 

You make everyday brighter. You are the most amazing husband and father. You are selfless in a way I can't even understand. You are my best friend. I love you more than life. 

All my love,

Patrice.

the birthday girl

As our little boy turns three months old, our big baby girl turned three years old! It kind of seems like yesterday she looked like this...

 

And now she looks like this!

 

 What a beautiful little birthday girl!

We started the day in a fun way. It was my last day before Christmas break, so since L had to go to school we wanted to make the morning special for her anyway. We covered the living room with balloons on the floor and told her our elf Walter did it. Of course he was looking very suspicious holding a few balloons himself...

We had such a fun birthday party for her. It was so low-key, but absolutely perfect. She got to be surrounded by her friends and family whom she loves like crazy! She was in love with all her fun presents, including a fun shopping cart, new golf clubs, high-heeled princess shoes, a microphone and a doll house, among many, many other fun things! We had a blast.

We ended the day looking through Laurelei's scrapbook. Instead of a baby book I kept a scrapbook of L's birth and first year. Each year on her birthday I plan to look through it with her, and we had a great time turning the pages together this year. She got such a kick out of all her baby pictures. She loves to say, "When I was little I..." and fill in the blank in hundreds of different ways. 

She is such a sweet heart. 

I love my little birthday girl. 100% a 'spirited' three year old girly girl, 100% mine. :)

three whole months...

My little Abbott is three whole months today. Three WHOLE months! How quickly time is passing. Abbott is such a joy every single day!

Here are some special things about our three month old little baby boy...

 

growing... I have a feeling Abbott is close to 12lbs now. He is coming to a close on his size one diapers, but I am trying to put it off as long as I possible can! He is starting to bust out of some of his 0-3months clothes as well. How is that happening?

new things...Abbott is still smiling all the time, but his coos are starting to escalate to close to a giggle! I cannot wait to figure out what makes him giggle for the first time. We have started sleeping through the night almost regularly, 10-6, mommy loves it! Abbott has also started to find his thumb, fingers, mostly his entire hand. He can be heard slurping in the backseat most of the time if he is awake. It's pretty hilarious. He doesn't seem to want to unroll those fists anytime soon though. His little fists are always clenched fairly tight. 

We still think we have about the happiest baby on the block. He smiles non stop and those precious smiles are oh so contagious. We love this sweet baby boy! Happy three months abby rabbit, you are really one of the two best gifts we've ever received.

Christmas Cards

We were soooo late getting our cards together this year. I had my design picked out and the pictures taken early, but actually ordering, addressing, and stamping all the cards seemed to take forever. It finally took the end of the school semester to get myself together and get my cards out. While they aren't my favorite cards of all time, I am really happy with the way they turned out! Our friend Jackie took these great family pictures and it was fun to show them all off on the card. I kind of hate that it wasn't a picture I took myself this year, but Jackie just did such a good job I couldn't resist her photos!

So, Merry Christmas from the Burlews!

 I always pick two because I just can't decide!

(sorry about the poor quality files, they are much better in person!)

Tell me it's okay...

That I am probably not baking Christmas cookies this year.

That I went out today in an old sweatshirt and sneakers, sans make-up.

That I am not going to get around to taking all those cute-pinterest inspired pictures I really want that I've seen on everyone else's blogs.

That the wrapping on my Christmas gifts is pretty much sub-par this year with just a twine bow.

That Abbott and Laurelei don't have a ton of cute Christmas outfits this and I haven't bothered dressing anyone up in much more than pj's and sleepers.

That we haven't opened any days on our store bought advent calendar. Nevermind anyway since Laurelei switched around all the verses before December 1st even came!

I need someone to tell me that it's okay that I intend to spend the majority of Christmas just soaking up the little smiles and many memories. Spending time with family and keeping up with only the most important traditions. All of the other stuff is just going to have to take a backseat. With all the rush in our life recently, I think my whole family needs this time just to exhale. To sit and play and be.

my miscellany

one. Today is the first day of sweet, sweet Christmas break. I am so excited to have two long and peaceful weeks at home with my babies! I am very thankful for a job where this kind of holiday vacation is built in.

 

two. Abbott is growing like a weed. A good weed, but an unruly, can't keep it small kind of weed none the less. We've watched one by one as all of Laurelei's friends and cousins have passed her in size. I am fairly certain this will happen with Abbott too. Would you guess there are three years between them looking at their size? It's ridiculous!

 three.  Laurelei is three! I cannot believe it. She deserves an entire post about her birthday, all to herself, so I won't spoil too much of the fun, but I still can't believe little bit is three whole years old!

four. I love this time of year. The past three weeks have been particularly perfect with sweet little Abbott in tow. I swear that two kids is just twice the joy. It is just ridiculous how happy I am! I watched White Christmas last night and just cried. I love this season, I love my family, I love Bing Crosby. It was great!

five. I have been on a definite dry blogging spell. Can't seem to work in the extra time at the end of the day, and that is okay. However, I know that I will be using this next couple of weeks to catch up on some memory collecting, so be warned. The amount of pictures of my family is about to get out of control, I'm fairly certain of that!

six. Merry Christmas week friends! yay!

{linking with Carissa at lowercase letters}

time

I don't really have a lot of time to post at the moment, but seeing as how this is the longest consecutive few moments I have to blog in what seems like weeks, I just wanted to reminisce on a few things.

Work and keeping up with life has been a little too much for me this week. I can't seem to figure out how to work everything in and still sit down at the end of the day before just completely collapsing into bed.

And today? Today Laurelei turned 3 years old. My sweet baby girl is 3 whole years old. Time is passing. Passing a little too quickly I might add.

 It's a funny thing, time. Some days can feel like an eternity in and of themselves, but just as you turn around, 3 years have gone in the blink of an eye.

Happy Birthday sweet Laurelei. You light up our lives with your sweet smile, spunky personality and every other little thing that is 100% just you. We love you baby girl.

Back to teaching and a thank you to Pinterest!!

 amen...

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Only one week back and I am feeling...like...what? I mean keeping up with two kids at home seemed like a lot, now I've got 20 more! I am having a great time, I really am, but when I saw this pin on Pinterest all I could think was...amen.

Here are some other pins that are making me smile again when I think about teaching...

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and my FAVORITE is...

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I just LOVE teaching clouds!

Thank you Pinterest and your education tab... :)

You can see the rest of my classroom pin board here. It is in need of even more inspiration. What are you favorite classroom ideas???