Christmas 2010

We have had a very happy and busy Christmas. We started lots of family traditions this year and are excited to have started them and can't wait to do them year after year as a family. We started our traditions by decorating Christmas cookies on the 23rd. Our church had 8 Christmas Eve services, so Ben was very busy, but we joined him for the last one on Christmas Eve and Ellie got to go in the big service with us and loved it. We came home and Ben read the Christmas story to Ellie and I. Then Ellie and I left out milk and cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer. We started a new tradition of having take out Chinese and had a relaxing evening. Christmas Day Ellie had a great time. We first checked to see if Santa and the reindeer enjoyed their treats and then we started with stockings, had Monkey Bread and opened presents. Ellie loves to take off the bows and loved to rip the paper. She got lots of new toys and clothes from all her family. She is very independent, so opening presents was fun, but ended up being a mommy and daddy job towards the end since she wanted to play on her own with her toys. Then we had a big Christmas meal and had a birthday cupcake for Jesus' birthday after dinner. (I kind of think she thought the cupcake was for her, since her birthday was about a month ago, but we want her to know why we really celebrate Christmas and this is a great way for her to understand it is for Jesus' birthday as she grows.) We had a great day! It was very nice to wake up in our own bed and wear our pajamas to open presents. Ellie was even in her jammies all day! That night it also started snowing and we woke up to a Winter Wonderland. We took Ellie out in the snow and she wasn't too sure about it this year, but we know next year there will be no stopping her :) Ben's parents then came for a couple days on the 27th to have Christmas with them and Ellie had a good time playing and opening her gifts from them. Overall, we had a wonderful Christmas and feel extremely blessed to have had this time together and to have started traditions with Ellie to remind her why we really celebrate Christmas.

Christmas Parade

We took Ellie to the Davidson Christmas Parade. They have a cute little downtown that the parade goes down and it was fun. It started snowing and sleeting right when the parade started and we stayed as long as we could, but we did not dress for snow, so an hour is as long as we could make it. We are excited to make this a family tradition and hope to be able to stay long enough to see Santa next year :)

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

The Sunday after Thanksgiving we went on our traditional Christmas tree hunt with our good friends Andy and Katie, or as Ellie calls them Uncle Andy and Aunt Katie. This was our 3rd year going to the mountains to cut down our tree and we loved it. We got our 9 foot tree for only $25 and have found a great tree farm to go to every year. We found our tree pretty fast for the Holden house as they had a great selection. Ellie came just in time last year for us to go, but this year she was able to enjoy it a little more. It was very cold, but still nice. After loading up our trees, we finished the night with dinner at the Daniel Boone Inn (yummy!).

Thanksgiving 2010

I have been a little behind in my blogging updates, but we had a great Thanksgiving. Ellie is much older this year and was able to enjoy all the visitors. We had a full house with both sets of parents here. We had a busy time as we also had a little birthday party for Ellie with all the grandparents, ate lots of good food and even did some shopping on the morning of Black Friday (Ellie's second time, but last time she was too young to fully experience the early morning shopping).

Watch Out World, Here Comes Ellie!!!

Ellie has been doing this for at least a week, but gets a little more daring and confident each day!