Rawls Family Christmas

This year we celebrated Christmas with my family the Sunday before Christmas.  It was a day full of fun!  We started off having breakfast (our traditional breakfast of baked oatmeal, cinnamon rolls and freshly squeezed orange juice) with Papa, Grams and Jamie.  The rest of the family joined us for presents and lunch before we headed off to church for the candlelight Christmas service.  It was one of our best family Christmas celebrations ever!  The kids had so much fun visiting, playing and opening presents :)

Little Bud had waited for days for the cinnamon rolls!

cousins!

So happy Sylvia joined us!  Still can't believe my parents bought her this 

photo; they are the nicest Alabama fans ever ;)

Big Sister's Dance Recital

A few weeks before Christmas, Big Sister participated in her first dance recital.  Her class did the cutest tap dance to, "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree".  Two of her favorite friends are in her dance class, and it was so fun to see them dancing together on stage.  Little Bud loved the recital too!  He was excited when his friends came out on stage, and kept calling all of the girls princesses.

Big Sister's beautiful flowers.  She is loved!!

Charlie Brown Tree

This year for the first time in our married life, we decided to get an artificial Christmas tree. Having a real tree has been such a hassle the last few years that I wanted to see if an artificial tree would make the holidays a little easier.  It did!!

As a compromise (John said he NEVER wanted a "fake" tree), we went and cut down a real tree in the woods on John's parents' property. They had some beautiful cypress trees, but Big Sister had her heart set on a Charlie Brown southern pine, since it had cute little pine cones growing out of its trunk!  We displayed our advent ornaments on our "real" tree, since it's little branches wouldn't support regular ornaments. 

Festival of Lights!

The Oak Mountaim Festival of Lights was great!  The lights were amazing, and we were able to say hello to Olaf in the little Christmas village.  Papa and Grammie came along with us, and the kids were almost more excited about them riding in the car with us than they were about the lights :)

Big Sister and Little Bud were SO excited to wear the shirts they made

at their Christmas craft day with Grammie and Aunt Liz

visiting with Olaf in the SNOW!!!

Olaf at Church!

During the At the Movies series at church, every Sunday a few characters would be around before and after service to meet the kids. Pretty much all of Little Bud's dreams came true when he saw Olaf before service one Sunday!!  The look on his face was absolutely priceless. He was so excited!

Little Bud ran over to Olaf and jumped into his arms!

Little Bud had to tell Olaf good bye before we left

After church, we went by to see Papa and Grammie,

and the kids had a blast jumping in their leaf pile

Big Sister and Little Bud with our snowman

Disney on Ice

At the end of October we went to Disney on Ice with some of Big Sister's favorite friends.

You simply must dress like Elsa if you're going anywhere you might see a princess!

Although the show had a different headline title than when we went a few years ago,

It was strangely similar.  Big Sister didn't realize though, and thought it was great!

Benton Thanksgiving

This year the kids and I spent all of Thanksgiving week in Benton; John drove up after work on Wednesday to join us.  Grams, Papa and Jamie all had the week off, so it was great to spend time with them, since we don't see them as often as we'd like.  Big Sister and I drove into Chattanooga one afternoon so she could spend a few hours playing at her cousins' house.  Before lunch on Thanksgiving, Jamie took some family pictures for us (this is turning into a bit of a tradition, this is the 3rd year she's taken our family pictures on Thanksgiving at the cabin).  She was able to capture some incredible shots this year!  These are my favorite family photos of the 4 of us!!  Thanks Jamie :)