Christmas Morning Recap

If Derrick and I are home for Christmas morning it always starts at the top of the stairs. No one is allowed down until Dad gives the word so there is typically about a 20 minute wait while Dad and Mom tinker around downstairs and flex their parent muscles. I plan on doing the same thing to my kids one day :)

Crosby cheated and went down early.

If you know our story you get these shirts. They say "you had me at lets go to Taco Bell."

 

Cheering for our new vacuum cleaner! This thing is amazing. It will probably get its own post.

I'm always Santa. I guess that's what happens as the only girl. Between Mom and I we make sure the gifts get handed out in the right order if there is one.

Derrick branded me.

Crosby can open her own presents. It's cute until we all get distracted and finally realize she's opening one of Jay's presents under the tree. True story.

The aftermath. Pajamas and playing for the rest of the day! I got a fitbit which will also get its own post and I had a remarkable Christmas day logging just under 500 steps for the entire day. The average person walks 5000 steps/day. Hah, Christmas day success I think!

This is from Christmas eve but I forgot to include it yesterday and I can't leave this one off the internet.

There was another gift that Derrick and I gave Jay that will have its own post later this week so stay tuned!

Merry Christmas Eve!

Derrick and I had a fabulous Christmas! I hope you did!

This year we were in Hickory with my family for all of Christmas because Derrick's family was down in Florida spending Christmas with Leanna and Kevin. It was sad and different to be away from them for the holidays but it was also nice to spend a full Christmas day in one spot. Thank goodness for facetime!

On Wednesday after work we loaded up the car and headed home. Crosby was clearly very excited!

Christmas eve during the day was actually pretty busy. We had some last minute shopping to do and the rest of the family was coming over for dinner so we were helping mom grocery shop while she handled the cooking. This is how we accidentally came downstairs though. It happens more then you think.

Christmas eve night we had a great family dinner, music, and games! I'll let the pictures do the talking.

 

 

I have a lot of pictures so I'm going to be photo dumping for few days! I'll post about Christmas next!

Who Slayed Santa?

This year for our annual "Derrick's Friends" Christmas party we had a murder mystery at our place! I only say Derrick's friends so you know which friend group I'm talking about. I like these people too :)

We've been rotating who hosts each year so this year Derrick and I were up. We had a potluck type dinner, ornament exchange, and ended with a murder mystery...hence the random compilation of clothing we're all wearing! Thanks to Rebecca for taking all these pictures.

Baby Chloe Rawls came for dinner and the ornament exchange. In fact, she WON the ornament exchange! In this case winning means taking home the Russell Wilson ornament. Chloe....we need to talk about a trade.

The massage therapist, carnival worker, cafeteria worker, and....Derrick. The alternative guy. I forget his actual character description.

I got the frumpy daycare worker. And I also got the ornament that I brought because it was adorable. Derrick got a Mr. Wuf! Can't ever have enough NCSU on the tree!

Holly was the accident prone one that was suing everybody!

 
Robin was a reality TV star who LOVED Santa Clause and Greg was an a$$hole waiter from a snooty restaurant.

And Rebecca! The rich socialite with mob affiliations!!

I think the murder mystery part of the party went OK. It was a downloadable game that we paid for and then got rights to so we had to print everything off. My only complaint was there wasn't enough direction for Derrick when running it. It needed to be a little more detailed about when he was supposed to move on and when he was supposed to hand things out. I also think it would have been better to do over a longer period of time so we could more naturally have the necessary conversations. It got a little confusing and hard to remember everything that everybody was throwing out there.

But, it was still a super fun night and I'd do another one! Just with a few tweaks! Rebecca and Michael stayed for the rest of the weekend and Rebecca got some adorable pictures of the pups. I'll post later!

Christmas Card 2015

It's your favorite post of the year! The behind the scenes making of the Marcey family Christmas Card! This is our 4th Christmas card and we have officially started a trend with our cards.

We've already decided that once we have a kid we're still featuring Crosby on the front. First child privileges :)

I have loved all of our cards but this year I think we nailed it. It's my favorite one yet and I'm not sure how we're going to top it.

It started as just the idea to have Crosby dressed up as Yoda. The overwhelming theme year to year is torturing featuring Crosby so that's obviously how we kicked things off this year. Then Derrick had the idea to make the font flying away on the back. Brilliant! I'm not sure how he achieved it but that's why he's in charge of all the technical creation of the card. My job is costuming, Crosby posing, and addressing envelopes. The final icing on the cake was adding the "From a Morrisville Far Far Away" and it is my favorite part!

Crosby nailed her Yoda pose on the 2nd picture which is a record! We did manage to get a few good bloopers though.

This was the runner up for the card.

So over it by the end.

When am I ever going to learn to iron the sheet! It would make Derrick's job a lot easier.

Merry Christmas from the Marceys! May the Joy be with you!