The Herrins from Scratch: Way Late...Holidays 2013

This is WAY late, but none the less a very memorable part 2013. Thanksgiving and Christmas came and went like a blink. From the weekend before Thanksgiving to New Years Eve we had one festivity after another. We kicked off the holiday season with a really fun non-tradtional pre-Thanksgiving meal with my mom and brother. I really enjoyed decorating the table...so I'm going to include a picture of it in this post. Then we headed to Dublin, GA for Thanksgiving with Mimi and Papa. We all had so much fun that we stayed an extra night because we didn't want to leave! As always, the food was delicious and everyone was really full. It is always special to get to spend time in their Daddy's hometown with Mimi and Papa. Ella's 3rd birthday was next...which I'll save for it's own post. And of course all the holiday parties were fun too.

Christmas we stayed at our house. On Christmas Eve we went to the afternoon church service with my mom and brother, came home and had some appetizers, took a ride in my brother's NEW car, then we all headed over to our dear friends' Jeff, Becca, and Evan's house for some fondu and mingling, came home and ate taco soup, exchanged some really wonderful gifts, and put two very tired girls to bed! The girls got an AWESOME bounce-house from Nana which they got early and it has been a huge hit with them and all their little friends ever since! We had such a wonderful night hanging out and celebrating together. Great memories!! It was a busy day and night but it was really, really fun!! I love Christmas!!

Christmas morning was amazing. Ella was SO SO excited about Santa. She had written a letter to Santa a few weeks before Christmas that wasn't even addressed to anywhere but the Northpole (we didn't even put a return address)... and somehow Santa wrote her back. I think it's because we have such an AWESOME post-woman! Once she got the letter from Santa back she was more pumped than ever. She was busting at the seams to see what Santa would bring. We attempted Elf on the Shelf, but she just wasn't that into it this year and Ava Jane could have cared less. In fact, Ella wanted it to stay in the same place on the tree, then got freaked out that he was watching her...so I took him down and put him away mid-way through December :) Maybe next year? Any way, Christmas morning was priceless. The girls ran downstairs to find all their Santa gifts and were the happiest I have EVER seen them. Ava Jane was really into it which was a really nice surprise. I was expecting her not to get it, but she did and seeing her eyes light up was so touching. Ella keep saying, "Thank you, Santa," and "Did Santa Bring all this for us?" It was really cute. The icing on the cake was this was the first year that Ella connected that Christmas was Jesus' birthday. So she kept saying, Happy Birthday, Jesus! I think next year we are going to start the tradition of baking Jesus a cake. I know the girls would love making and decorating one and it helps to reinforce that we celebrate the birth of Jesus first and foremost during Christmas. Christmas morning was really so awesome. It was definitely our favorite "grown-up" Christmas to date. It's incredible to see Christmas through the eyes of a child!

That afternoon we went over to my Mom's house and had a terrific Christmas dinner. It was really good and especially awesome because all we had to do was show up and eat :) The girls brought some of their toys over to show my Mom and Brother and it was cute to see how proud they were of their new toys! We had a great time spending time with my sweet family!

Friday after Christmas Brent's family came to town and we had Christmas again. Brandon and Hayley got to come down from NYC so it was super exciting to see them!! They are getting married in June so it was really fun to talk about the upcoming wedding and get a chance to catch up. The girls loved all their awesome gifts from Mimi and Papa and Brandon and Hayley. I think they were in shock at how many days we celebrated Christmas! It was a wonderful weekend of getting to spend quality time together and just enjoying each other's company. It really was so special having Brent's family all here under one roof. What a special Christmas memory! Sadly my phone memory was full and my camera was dead, so I didn't get any pictures. Just realized this :(

And we rounded out the year with some friends and their families over for New Years. We had a potluck and a fire-pit and the kids had the indoor bounce house inflated and did lots of jumping! It was really fun to top off a great year! I did ring in the New Year ALONE b/c obviously the girls were asleep, our friends had to take their kids home, and Brent passed out on me because he was sick with pink-eye. I took a selfie to commemorate it at the bottom. Lol. Oh yeah, and the next morning Ava Jane woke up with a terrible stomach virus-- not a great start to 2014...but it's been looking up from there!

2013 was a memorable year capped off with an even better holiday season. We were blessed beyond belief to share so many awesome memories with each other, our families, and are wonderful friends.

Now I'm going to overload you with a million pictures.... enjoy!!