Prelude to Lauren's 1st Christmas morning...

Every year we all get new Christmas PJs to kick off the holiday season. This year was no exception. (Sean picks them out and takes lots of pride in this tradition.) Not only did the kids love their jammies but watching the excitement for both of them was the best part... Especially Anthony's excitement as Lauren opened her present. He was so adorable and cheering her on. Then she got even more excited b/c Anthony was excited. I just loved it!






The presents... such suspense!!
















Anthony is clapping for Lauren and she's looking at Sean as if to ask, "What do I do next?"













Anthony was so proud of her opening her first present ever!

















Lauren got some My First Christmas pajamas.
Anthony got Lightning McQueen!!

Also, our favorite Christmas Elf is back! RED has arrived and is taking notes for Santa! If anyone wants to look up this tradition it's at http://www.theelfontheshelf.com/

It's wonderful! He arrives at our house every year the day after Thanksgiving!

Anthony was whispering seemingly important information to RED every 5 minutes for the first few days after his arrival.

















Our Advent Tree. There are random numbers all over it and each day we find the number and place an "ornament" sticker on it. The tree is Lauren's footprints in light green and Anthony's handprints in dark green. And of course he did enough handprints to negate any footprints that might have been visible at one point.

Anthony's 1st trip to Knoxville

We got our usual minipack of tickets to the Tennessee games this year. Anthony kept asking if he could go. I was dying to take him but Sean wasn't so sure about it. We decided that if it was an early game we'd take him b/c it would be hard to tailgate anyway.

It turned out the game was at noon so we told him he could come w/ us and he got all upset that Lauren couldn't go. He said he wouldn't go w/o her. Finally we talked him into it and he had a great time.

Anthony loved our spot! We were on the 4th row

at about the 40 yard line. The team rested right in front of us the whole time so Erik ainge is now one of his favorite players!

Anthony was good thru the 1st quarter but then he started getting tired as saying he wanted to go home. He really did a great job by not complaining but he was definitely tired. He stuck it out through the 2nd quarter and then we went out for potty breaks, a large soda and a jumbo bag of M&Ms. Filling him full of sugar was the key!

Smokey Dog!

Mimi, Papa, & GiGi got to keep Lauren all day. I think they had a really good time.