Peekaboo, I love you!

An Early Christmas in Iowa!

The whole McCulley and Johnson clan gathered in Iowa last weekend to celebrate Christmas together! I think this was the first time we had all been together in TWO years, if you can believe it. We finally got our first family photo with Isaac and Alexa included... Our picture will soon be outdated with one more McCulley arriving in April, but we've got one for now!

Top Row: Uncle Joel, Papa, Uncle Jay, Joe

Middle Row: Aunt Jen (Joe's sister), Grandma, Aunt Gigi, and me

Front Row: Ellie, Alexa, Wyatt (33 mos) and Isaac (11 mos)

Grandma with the kiddos...

Papa with his grandbabies! Cousins Ellie and Alexa with Wyatt and Isaac

Papa read the Christmas story to Wyatt and Ellie who both listened very attentively in his lap!

I love this picture of Daddy and Isaac!

Wyatt got his own digital camera from Papa and Grandma this year. Does he look like a pro or what?! : ) I think we've just about got that memory card loaded... I'll be sure to post a few of Wy's snapshots!

And the boys got their first remote control race car from their cousins! A little boy's dream!

It was a GREAT weekend! We had a very FULL house with 8 adults and 4 kids, which made it all the merrier of a Christmas. I think everyone was a little bit sleep deprived by the end of the weekend, except for our lil fam! Somehow our boys slept right through all of the noise and chaos... Or maybe Joe and I were just so tired that we slept through the crying (or so we hear from Uncle Jay and Aunt Gigi, who were such troopers being in the living room on an air mattress and didn't hardly sleep a wink.) We're sad the weekend is over, but look forward to next year (or maybe something even a little sooner since we're all in the midwest again!). Thanks for all of the generous gifts and sweet memories! Love you all...

Christmas Countdown!

Since I'm a bit behind on posting, I figured I'd just lump the past month into one long post! It has been quite an incredible month leading up to Christmas...

We'll start with THANKSGIVING

We spent Thanksgiving day with my side of the family, and then Grandma and Papa McCulley came to spend the rest of the weekend with us! Joe and I were able to spend a few hours getting some much-needed unboxing and unpacking accomplished while Papa and Grandma entertained the boys. We also made a little time for a fun trip to the KC Plaza! It was a perfect night to walk around, eat some popcorn!, enjoy the Christmas lights, and get plenty of pictures along the way...

Our attempt at a Christmas photo... Gotta love it!

A CHRISTMAS PHOTO

Sure glad this one turned out a little better than the previous! :) Grandma McCulley bought the boys their Christmas jammies to take a picture in for their annual Christmas letter and picture of the grandkids!

PUTTING UP THE TREE

When we moved into our new house on Nov 15th, I had the movers leave out all of the Christmas boxes on our main floor as a good motivator for me to decorate. Last year, we we had a very similar scenerio with just moving into our house in MD on Nov 13, and we didn't even put the tree up. So this year I was determined to make our home feel a lot like Christmas... I wanted it to be a year of beginning new tradition with our boys. It has been well worth the effort...the memories made have been priceless!

Mimi graciously came over to decorate our tree while I got all of the other Christmas decor strung throughout the house. I didn't expect Wyatt to be so in to the decorating but he LOVED every minute of it! He wanted Mimi to show him every single ornament and play all of the Hallmark action ornaments at least a hundred times! Are you wondering about the crazy outfit? Well, Wyatt would wear his clown costume every day if I let him, and most of the time it's a battle not really worth fighting! I'm just surprised he actually took off the red nose!

BIRTHDAYS

In the middle of the month, we had a December party celebrating Auntie B's 33rd and Poppy's 62nd birthdays!

SCENIC DRIVE OF LIGHTS

One night after Joe got home from work, we took the boys on a little scenic drive through the KC winter wonderland! It was such a fun night stopping and touring the lights and window boxes... it seemed so dreamy like it was all straight out of a movie!

CROWN CENTER

We also made a trip to Crown Center to play for a day and meet Santa along the way!

Isaac wasn't so sure about the man in the big red suit... and Wyatt didn't call Mr. Clause "Noah" this year! : )

It has been a wonderful month of celebration and the BEST is still yet to come...