Thompson Family Christmas Letter 2012

Merry Christmas to all! We hope you and your families are in good health and great spirits! The Thompson household has had all sorts of fun and excitement this year and we can’t wait to tell you all about it!

Tyler and I purchased our first house for our growing family in September of this year. We have put a lot of work into making it ours and of course had a lot of help along the way! In November, Tyler and I hosted an Open House where we invited family and friends over to check out our new place. It was great to be able to have everyone over and spend time with friendly faces.

Tyler has been working the same company for over a year now and he continues to enjoy the work that he is doing. He did have to travel quite a bit this summer and Everett and I were able to accompany him a few times. It was great to be able to have some family time together during the busy summer. Tyler has been keeping busy around the new house with mowing the grass (Everett loves the tractor) and crossing things off the “Honey Do” list.

Everett is busy growing and learning! We have been signing with him since birth and that has really helped him with being able to communicate what he wants and needs. Now he is adding speech into the mix and he amazes me every day as his vocabulary is really starting to take off. Everett loves to play and explore, but when his favorite show “Dinosaur Train” on PBS comes on he stops everything! He is becoming more independent by the day and likes to see what he can do by himself. Everett loves to hang out with daddy and imitate everything that he does! Tyler and I love that little boy and enjoy spending every minute we can with him! 

Aunt Rebecca made Everett an Elf! :)

I have been keeping busy this year with Everett (he’s been mobile since February) as well as a few of his friends as I have started watching a few kiddos from home. I am very blessed to be able to not only stay home with Everett every day but also to be able to watch a few (very well behaved) toddlers as well. Everett loves having his friends over to play and is learning so much from them. I am also lucky that I am able to continue to work part-time from home for my dad’s company. It is great to get to see what my dad does every day and to be able to be a part of that.

The biggest news for the Thompson Family this year is that we are expecting our second baby in May! Yes, another May baby is headed our way! We are overjoyed and are looking forward to meeting our new little one and giving Everett a little brother or sister. For more baby updates, be sure to check out my blog! 

We hope you all have a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful 2013!

Much love to you all,

Tyler, Laura, Everett, and Baby "Flubber"

Holiday Traditions

What are some of your families favorite holiday traditions?  Do you enjoy going to the mall to visit Santa?  Lighting the menorah together as a family?  Going to see a movie on Christmas day?  I have compiled some of my readers favorite traditions to share with you!  Here are a few of my favorite traditions...

Everett with Santa

• You may have read in my Currently post on Wednesday that one of my favorite Christmas traditions is listening to the Mickey Mouse Twelve Days of Christmas CD and hanging the ornaments on the tree!
• Our annual gingerbread house building contest is always a fun activity for everyone in my family.  We split up into teams and have a set time limit on how long we can build and how much can be made in advance.  Tyler and I's gingerbread creation is going to win this year... I can feel it! 
• My favorite tradition that we had when we were younger was going to my grandmother and poppa's house on Christmas eve and waiting for Santa to come and bring us presents.  Santa would hand deliver presents to my brother, sister, I before he set out on his trip around the world.  

• Diana from Elements of DM says...

• "On Christmas eve we have this huge party at my parents house with at least 25 people, and there is food, drinks, music, and at midnight a prayer hugs and kisses for the Lord has been born.  Even as small children it was exciting because it was the one day a year we were allowed to stay up all night! The next morning once we're all up we'd watch Christmas Vacation, you know the one with Chevy Chase! Presents have never been a huge deal but we'd open those as well eventually!"

Chaunie's daughter Mya, and her gingerbread house

• Chaunie from Tiny Blue Lines says...

• "My favorite is making the graham cracker "gingerbread" houses with my kids. I glue crackers together with cream cheese frosting and decorate it with candy! Always fun, plus I get to eat them."

• Kelli from To Teach What is Good says...

• "One tradition that we have always done since I was a kid and my husband and daughter and I do now is Christmas Eve gifts. We always open one gift on Christmas Eve and we always know what it's going to be. It's Christmas Pajamas! Every year we pick out which pajamas we'd like and then I buy them and wrap them up for everyone. So far, we've never done matching Pajamas, but now as my daughter is getting older, I'm really leaning towards matching family PJs!"

• Jessica A. from Come What May says...

• "Peruvian tradition: dinner really late at night (like 10), then you stay up until 12 midnight to drink hot chocolate and "paneton" (like fruit cake but 100x better). Then we open presents. So most of the celebrating is done the 24th at night."

Jackie's son Kasen making Christmas cookies

• Raeann (yes, that's my mom) says... 

• "Christmas breakfast, going to the plays, time with family."

• Jackie says...

• "We always open one gift Christmas Eve and we get a new ornament every year too!  Kasen will pick his own when he is old enough so I picked his first two." 

• Starr Nicole  says...

• "We have two traditions in our family.. The first is every year the family sits down and makes an ornament to put on the tree. Then our second tradition it to wear Christmas pjs and watch Christmas movies for 25 days of Christmas and whatever we watch we make a food to go with it.. Examples: for The Grinch Who Stole Christmas we drank Grinch floats and ate Grinch popcorn, for Elf we drank hot cocoa and ate maple cookies, for Frosty the Snowman we drank snow shakes and ate frosty bits... Super fun and yummy snacks."

• Jessica V. says...

• "We do the one gift Christmas Eve night too. We also make Santa special cookies just for him with his name on them and leave egg nog instead of milk. Then Christmas morning we always have orange cinnamon rolls for breakfast."

• Amie from Casa Campbell says...

• "I always make cupcakes.  After all, it is a birthday party!"

Teresa's beautiful Christmas Tree

• Teresa (my mother in law) says... 

• "When Tyler and Jordan were little, we would dress in our pajama's on Christmas Eve and ride around and look at Christmas lights. Now WE (whoever is home-not visiting other family members), go to the movies Christmas night."

• Sarah says...

• "We have two traditions. All gifts from family are opened on Christmas Eve (Santa only on Christmas morning -- and he gets things for grownups too). On Christmas day, after the gifts, we go see a movie and then go eat Chinese food (a Jewish tradition, but we started following it about 10 years ago even though we aren't Jewish. Then again, we aren't Christian either and we celebrate Christmas, so...)"

• Brittany C. says...

• "We make our own stockings on Christmas Eve. The kids love that. We also read the Cajun Night Before Christmas."

• Laurie says...

• "Here's a few from my childhood and some from Nickand I as a couple: leave cookies & eggnog for Santa & carrots for the reindeer, open gifts in stockings before parents wake up but nothing that's under the tree til everyone is awake, visit national tree the night of Christmas eve, if we go out whether to eat, get gas, last minute store run or movies etc we always buy something for whoever helps us (i.e. gift card for cashier, big tip for waiter/waitress, candy from snack bar) that goes for any major holiday. "

• Brittany P. says...

• "As a child, my mother would give us Christmas pjs and one ornament on Christmas Eve. And right before we would go to bed we would read the story of the candy cane. This is definitely one tradition I do with Jackson. Since Josh and I have been together (dating, engaged and married), we have gone to see the national Christmas tree. We actually got engaged during one of our visits. We now do that with Jack every year."

• Judy (my wonderful aunt) says...

• "We read 'Twas the Night Before Christmas on Christmas eve and drink Christmas milk (egg nog). Christmas morning after the presents are opened we have a special breakfast of little smokies, cheese fondue, homemade breads (banana,zucchini, pumpkin, etc), mixed fruit, and grapple juice (1/2 grape, 1/2 apple)."

• Jeanette (another of my wonderful aunts) says... 

• "When Keith and Bruce were small we used to fill their stocking and put it on their bed after they were sleeping. They knew they could look and play with the things in their stocking whenever they woke up but had to wait for Pete and I before they could go to the tree and see what Santa brought. One of our other traditions was to have a Whitman's Sampler under the tree which we opened as we were unwrapping gifts--chocolates before breakfast!! We still have a Whitman's Sampler every year."

• Lisa (you might remember her from this post) says...

• "My favorite is the breakfast my dad makes every year- cinnamon rolls and orange rolls, the kind from the pop open can:) Every year as long as I remember- My parents now sleep over my house every Christmas eve because I don't want to wake up Christmas morning without them." 

• Asher (Lisa's 10 year old son) says...

• "Presents, watching charlie brown's Christmas, putting up the pickle ornament, and being with my family and Christmas eve PJs."

• Bonnie (my cool grandma) says...

Kelli's son Jackson by the Christmas Tree

• "It makes me happy to see all of my Son's wives continuing with the holiday brunch I started with my family many years ago. It is so wonderful to see them add their own ideas and treats to the menu."

• Kelli says...

• "We bake goodies on Christmas eve and open a gift and watch Polar Express. I told JR that I wanna start making Christmas tree shaped pancakes in the morning."

• Janice (another one of my wonderful aunts) says... 

• "I make chocolate chip waffles Christmas morning. Yum. They used to be in the shape of Mickey mouse. I wonder what happened to that? Also, one gift Christmas eve. We get a new ornament every year.  Everywhere we visit that is new, we look for ornaments and find them even in May and June.  San Francisco, Hawaii, Portland, Toronto, Vegas Baby... and so on... even every year we visit mom at the beach."

I hope that you have enjoyed reading about everyone's holiday traditions, maybe it will inspire you to start a few more of your own! 

Around the Nest: Christmas Time at the Thompson's House

Welcome to our Christmas wonderland here at Casa de Thompson!  To be honest, it has been "Christmas" over here since the day after Thanksgiving.  I couldn't wait to get the decorations out and get our house and us in the holiday mood! So here is a little preview of what our house is looking like these days! 

And the stockings were hung by the chimney wood stove with care...

The Santa in the lower right hand section is Tyler's from when he was a kid! 

Even the cut out got a little holiday sprucing! 

This is a hard area to photograph because of all the natural light- it is right when you walk in the front door. 

Bernard, the elf guards our front table! 

Naked tree!

All dolled up! 

So there you have it! Come back this week and read about a few of my favorite Christmas traditions! Do you have any favorite traditions? I would love to share some here on the blog!