Hill's 24/7

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Christmas is here!!!

Christmas Morning! What a fun time! This Christmas, we invited family to our apartment. Chris, Liz, Emily, CJ, Mom, Dad, Talia, and Demari were all over at our apartment bright and early! I cooked breakfast before the "festivities" began. We had scrambled eggs, bacon, turkey bacon, orange rolls, and orange juice. Of course, the kids were too excited to eat, so they didn't really eat much.

Once breakfast was over, I cleaned up and away we began opening presents. I'm not going to give captions for the pictures because it's entirely too many pictures to write captions for. I'm sure everybody knows who is who. Some of the pictures are priceless! It took about 2 1/2 hours to open all the presents. I took a picture of all the presents....and as you can see, the floor is covered with them!

I think everybody enjoyed themselves, and Troy and I enjoyed having the family over. It was nice that we didn't have to load everything up in the car! However, I think mom made up for that by having me haul a bunch of stuff over before Christmas. Every time I went over there before Christmas, she always gave me a trunk full of stuff to put under our tree for Christmas morning. That sure was fun bringing into our apartment (sarcasm!!)

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve my mom, dad, Troy, Talia, Demari, and myself went to the Visitor's Center to see the lights and the live manger. Talia, Demari, and Troy have never seen so many lights. Troy's first words when he saw the lights were, "Holy Moly!" The weather was pretty nice. It wasn't too cold. As soon as we got out of the car, Demari gave "grandma" and "grandpa" a big hug and said "I missed you." (Although he had just seen my mom a few hours prior to this get together....). Demari grabbed "grandpas" hand, and off we went to check out the lights!

We went inside for a little bit to see the nativity scenes and other displays, but the kids started getting a little cranky (it was a little late), and they were eager to get to our house to get the cookies ready for Santa.

Sunday, December 7, 2008

"O Christmas Tree"

So here it is....our first Christmas tree together....and our second, and third, and fourth, etc. We were going to get a real tree, but decided to get this tree when we saw it in Walmart. Originally we headed to Walmart only to purchase a few inexpensive Christmas decorations. Once we got to the Christmas section, we saw this tree and decided that we would get it instead of going out in the 24 degree temperature and getting sick and probably frustrated! We looked at the practical side as well....aka, finances. You can't really beat a 7 1/2 foot tree for $78 (which is less than the cost of 2 real Christmas trees). I think it actually looks pretty real though! We are both proud of our tree!

Below are just a few of the Christmas decorations I put up around the house. Everybody knows I love precious moments figurines, so my mom gave me this little nativity scene. The background of the picture has a few Christmas snowglobes as well.

I need to get a few scented pinecones from Michaels Craftstore for this snowman "thingy." I think it's really supposed to hold U.S. mail, but I like to put festive things in it!

This picture is a little fuzzy, but it's a glass snowman candle holder and a festive lighthouse. Again, my mom gave me the lighthouse several years back. I can't remember where I got the snowman candle holder....but it's probably from her too!

So, I just wanted to have a little flash back.....back to my 1st Christmas tree. This is it! I was proud of it then....but it looks so whimpy compared to the one we have now! Below the picture of the tree is a picture I took during the winter...probably back in 2003/04ish. It was from my balcony. I thought it was pretty, and thought it would go well with this Christmas themed post, so I put it on!