Christmas 2015 {Part 1}

Christmas 2014
Christmas 2013

Once again, it's been almost two months since I last posted. The older {and more active} Emery gets, the less time I have for blogging anything. :) I wouldn't trade it for the world, though. Even though it's hard to find time to do a blog post {because really, when I do have time, Netflix or sleep usually win}, I don't want to give up on it! Whenever an old blog post pops up in my Timehop, I love seeing what we were up to in the past few years and reliving some really sweet memories. :)

Our Christmas "to do list" for this year. Emery loved putting stickers on the tags once we did an activity. :)

So, even though Christmas was already two weeks ago, I don't want to get too much further into 2016 without documenting the most wonderful time of the year! Emery's first Christmas was so much fun, but this year was even better! There was so much more we could do, she got excited about things, she figured out how to tear into presents, it was just so fun! We tried to pack in as many festive activities as we could!

We are *those* people who decorate super early. We put up all of our decorations the first weekend of November. It's just so much work and I love the decorations so much that I want to enjoy it for more than 3 weeks! I was a little worried about decorating early this year because I didn't know if Emery would leave the tree and presents alone. She loved, loved, loved the tree! Every time she would come in the living room she would say "Tee!!!!!" I only put a few ornaments on the bottom of the tree and they were all ones that Emery could play with. She especially loved the jingle bells and loved it when we would sing "Jingle Bells". Surprisingly, she didn't bother the presents at all!!

We also put a cute little tree in Emery's room. She *adored* her tree, but she really hated turning it off every night {she wouldn't go to sleep if it was on}. We always had to make a big deal of telling the tree "night night" every night, and they very first thing we did every morning was say "morning, tree!" and turn the lights on. :)

I think this is the only picture we have of her with her tree...not sure how that happened! She's really into owls this year, so she had a couple of owl ornaments.

She really loved this owl ornament...so much that she had to bring it to breakfast with her! :)

Since Emery understands so much more this year, we read a Bible story each night {the first 25 stories in the Jesus Storybook Bible are perfect for advent} and she got a piece of chocolate from this little advent calendar {only $.99 at Trader Joe's!}. Every time she saw the advent calendar, she'd say "Bible?" I would *love* to do an advent tree next year and get these precious ornaments, but they're quite an investment!!

I heard about the Little People Nativity during Emery's first Christmas, and I kept it in my Amazon cart all year because I knew I wanted to get it for her. It is such a precious little set. She loved playing with it, but the angel rarely perched on top of the stable. It was usually a camel {thanks, Daddy}.

I saw these felt Christmas trees for toddlers all over Pinterest way before I was even pregnant with Emery and I knew I wanted to have one when I had a toddler. I was going to make it myself, but then I thought about Etsy and decided to buy it from this shop instead. I couldn't have made it for this price after buying all the felt and spending hours cutting out everything...and it wouldn't have been nearly as cute. Emery loved the stocking with the "E" on it. She called it a shoe! :)

One of the churches in our area does a live nativity and we took Emery this year. She loved walking through all of the different scenes and looking at all of the animals. There was even a little petting zoo at the end. She loved the sheep!

We also got to go on a Christmas carriage ride! It looks like we may have a little animal lover, because Emery *loved* the horses! She kept saying "Neigh! Neigh! Go!" She even sat in the driver's lap for a minute so she could get closer to the horses...and she normally does *not* go to strangers. She must get her love of animals from her daddy, because it's definitely not from me!

Daniel and I went to a tacky Christmas party with our church community group. I really love some tacky Christmas business, and we were both pretty tacky...especially Daniel. He even had jingle bells on his boots.

Emery liked to wear Daddy's tacky Christmas hat. It looked awfully cute on her!

Emery got to visit Santa a few times and she got pretty good at spotting him! She still sees "jolly" ;) looking older men and will say "Santa!" Thankfully never within "Santa's" earshot...yet. The first time she visited Santa was with Vanna. This was a good warm up for her. She's always more receptive of things if Vanna does it, too. I wouldn't say she loved  Santa at this point {what could possibly make me think that?! ha!}, but she wasn't screaming like last year. {This picture just cracks us up!}

Our neighborhood did a little Christmas caravan to look at Christmas lights and we ended at "Santa's house". If Santa lived in our neighborhood, this was definitely where his house would be. They had it all decked out for Christmas, and yes, Santa was even visiting that night. The whole time we were waiting in line, Emery was saying "Santa! Santa!" but didn't quite show her excitement in the picture.

And then of course we had to go to Bass Pro since they have such a cute setup for Christmas! We didn't get a chance to go until a few days before Christmas and oh my goodness...the. line. Thank goodness for the carousel. Daniel and I took turns waiting in line and taking Emery for rides on the carousel. She *loves* carousels!

Santa stickers helped with the wait, too. Of course, she put it on her "nosey"!

When we finally got to the front of the line, she even walked to Santa herself!

But still didn't look excited about him!

Our zoo does a big event at Christmas where they put up tons of Christmas lights! As soon as we put our tree up, Emery was obsessed with "yights!" so we decided to go this year. She loved looking at all the lights, and she loved riding the carousel!

Waiting in line for the train ride! She said "choo choo" a lot!

On the train! {I love Daniel's necklace...he's a girl dad and I love it!}

We went to a Christmas parade with sweet friends! People throwing candy off the floats was definitely a highlight! And how *sweet* is this picture? {All the heart eyes emojis for this one!}

That same day we put together a gingerbread house! Emery actually got into decorating it, but was definitely more excited about tasting the candy and getting as much candy out of the decorating container as she possibly could!

Daniel and I even made time for a Christmas date night with a Christmas movie at the Alabama Theatre! This was my first time there and it was so beautiful! We decided this should definitely be a new tradition!

Daniel's mom, sister, and nieces came for a visit a few days before Christmas! It was so cute watching Emery play with her cousins.

And she had so much fun singing "Jingle Bells" with her grandma! She kept saying "uggie! uggie!" which is Emery's word for "again".

Another fun thing we do every year is Jammy Cocoa Christmas! {2014, 2013} We all get our PJs on, go to Starbucks, and drive around looking at Christmas lights. Once again, we heard lots of "yights!" and "Santa!" coming from the back seat! It was too sweet!

Wow! I think that's about it for all of our pre-Christmas celebrations, and I'm kind of tired just reliving it all through the pictures. It was so much fun, though, and I love soaking up as much Christmas as we possibly can! I'll be back soon with all of the rest of our Christmas fun! Christmas with an almost two-year-old was just too much fun!!