Merry Christmas!!

We had a very lovely Christmas. This has been our first year at home since Addy was a very little baby. We really liked the idea of staying home and having Santa come to our house. Addy, of course, has been anxiously awaiting this day. She has asked Santa and Elfie (our Elf on the Shelf) several times for a few gifts: a kitchen and Cat in the Hat books (Dr. Seuss books). Since she has been a very good girl and big sister, Santa delivered! She was so excited on Christmas morning. She picked every present to open, handed it to it's owner (or kept it if it was hers or Luke's) and had a blast opening! We loved some of her comments, "oh I've always wanted one of these," or "wow, that is a big ol kitchen!" Santa was up very late the night before, and both Jeff and I are still recovering from lack of sleep this week! We had a delicious breakfast, a delicious turkey dinner with all the fixins, and topped off the day with the best chocolate cake ever for Jesus' birthday. We woke up this morning to over a foot of snow and are staying home for the day. Merry Christmas everyone!!

The kids opened these matching PJ's on Christmas eve, they have adorable reindeer on the feet

The tree before all the unwrapping. Some people say I'm mean mommy for only getting 3 presents for our kids on Christmas. But, as you can see, everyone buys them so many things that it would be silly to get them more!

Addy's new baby carrier for her Bitty Baby. She also got a crib for her and matching PJ's that she can wear with her doll!

Happy Birthday Jesus!

Christmas Town

Christmas Town is Busch Gardens all decked out for Christmas-- and it is stunning! We had the best time a few days before Christmas walking around. They open the park at night and close most of the rides. They have neat Christmas shows all over, festive food, lights EVERYWHERE, Christmas markets, and Christmas music. Mimi and Papa are staying with us this week so we thought it would be a perfect time to go! This December has been very cold, but we were lucky with good weather the night we went. The kids loved the shows! Addy was in a mood to not look at the camera, but we still took a few pictures:

Cookies, Cookies, and more Cookies

This has been a busy weekend and week for us! I hosted a cookie exchange party on Monday night, and Addy had been asking to make a gingerbread house for quite some time. I thought we would make one over the weekend and use it as a centerpiece (fingers were crossed that it looked halfway decent and wouldn't fall apart). The theme was going to be perfect since my invitations for the party were gingerbread men. We then made some yummy gingerbread men, decorated, and hung them from the chandelier in the dining room. Baking gingerbread is honestly the best smelling aroma a home can have. We also made gingerbread lollipops and even made 2 more different cookie recipes! The exchange was a hit, I even gave out a few prizes and we ended up with some delicious cookies. I made boxes for everyone to take their cookies home. To top if off, I went to another cookie exchange last night. I came home with another 4 dozen cookies. Can we say happy husband and happy Addy?

Boxes to take, all of them had different center stickers. Only have mine to show:

Aren't these pretty? I found these on a blog I love and gave my friend Kelly the recipe to make. They are very easy and really pretty. She won prettiest cookie! Here is a link to the recipe:

http://glorioustreats.blogspot.com/2010/12/candy-cane-hearts.html

WAY too many cookies. I plan on freezing most of these tonight.

Ugly Sweater Party

So we had our annual ugly sweater party this weekend! It was a blast like always. This year was a little different. We decided to keep the party small mainly because the guest list would have been way too many people and would never fit in our house. Since we were in charge of hosting our dinner group for December, we thought it would be a great idea to do our sweater party for our small group! WAY too much fun!! We had a delicious dinner of beef burgundy. We played the married couple's game (Jeff and I won!) and thanks to my dad for making up the questions. We also did a white elephant gift exchange which is always hilarious.

Here are pictures of the guys:

Girls being silly:

Eating a delicious pear dessert and unwrapping presents

The wannabe winner (real winner is Rafic, in the gold sweater complete with shoulder pads):

And how cool was it that it SNOWED during the party!! We woke up to this light dusting:

Luke's first meal!

Luke had his 6 month appointment the other day, and the pediatrician told us it was probably a good idea to start solids (he is quite a big boy!). I was kind of dreading it because I remember how time consuming it is to feed babies!!! We started with sweet potatoes on Friday, just one meal a day at dinner. He's not as good of an eater as Addy was. He had a little trouble staying focused and didn't want to open his mouth very much. This could be quite a learning process for some weeks! Tomorrow I'll be making him some super porridge :) Basically, brown rice cereal. Let's hope it goes down a little better!

Addy wanted in on the fun!

Christmas Tree

We did our annual tradition of cutting down our Christmas tree at a local farm the day after Thanksgiving. We were there bright and early Friday morning and had the tree decorated by the afternoon! Christmas decorating can be exhausting, but we wouldn't have it any other way! Here is Addy in front of the tree she wanted :)

In front of the tree we actually cut down!

Thanksgiving Celebration

Addy's school had an adorable Thanksgiving celebration! They all dressed as Indians and sang some very entertaining songs for all of us parents. They also had a real Thanksgiving feast complete with turkey, cheese, crackers, grapes, muffins, and pumpkin pie!

Fall Photo Shoot

We had a fall photo shoot with my friend, Michelle, a few weeks ago. We just received the CD and are very very happy with the photos!! I've only posted a few of the pictures, I am saving all of the family pictures until we send out our Christmas card. We're still not sure which one we want to use! Here are some of my favorites:

Papa's Airplane

Mimi and Papa came to visit us last weekend, and Luke had a great time in Papa's airplane!! He didn't get to fly, but he loved checking it out!

Chili Cook-off

I've been meaning to post these pictures for a little while. We hosted a chili cook-off the day before halloween at a neighborhood playground. The weather was perfect and the location ended up being awesome because the kids played for hours straight and had a blast! I must say, this is the BEST chili cook-off I have ever been too. Let me repeat, THE BEST!!! Not because the party was a blast (because it was very fun), but I've never tasted better chili in my life. And I love chili. Jeff and I were judges (along with 6 others) and it was so hard to pick the top 5 because they all tasted sooooo good. Last year, our friends hosted this party in October and didn't want to host again. So we decided we had such a blast that we would take it over this year. The reigning champion was my friend Maria who happens to be a fabulous cook. She bragged about her "award winning chili" for a year and definitely weeks leading up to the party. I think this made everyone want to bring really yummy chili to beat her! We had so many varieties. There were a few traditional chilies, a few white chickens, a cashew chicken chili (which was delicious), a vegetarian, a sweet chili, some with steak and sausage, and they were all very tasty. I liked 4 of them so much that I had to take a break for a little while and really determine how I would vote. The winner ended up NOT being Maria! She ended up in second place and the first place winner was Kinan who made a delicious chili of so many different flavors that she swears she'll never be able to replicate it!

Anyhow, it was a great activity before halloween. I did not make chili and made several desserts for the kids. I did happen to bring my camera and completely forgot to take any pictures of the party with the exception of the few I took before the party started. I hate that I do that! So needless to say, all I have is a picture of the winner and a pictures of my dessert table. I even delayed this post hoping that people would send me pictures, but no such luck!! My sister-in-law Kelly directed me to this website which gave all kids of GREAT tips for a chili cook-off (with free printables!) So all of the chili looked so cute numbered anonymously with their signs and I have no pictures of it :(

Here is what I gathered:

Picture of the winner!! Kinan is on the right

Yummy desserts that were devoured by little mouths

I did manage to get a picture of sweet Lukey :)

Trick or Treat

I love Halloween!!! First of all, it's an awesome holiday. Second of all, it kicks off the holiday season. And how can you complain about cool weather, hot cider, lots of candy, happy kids, and parties, parties, and more parties?? LOVE IT!!! We had a great weekend. It started with a birthday party on Saturday (post below) followed by us hosting a Chili cook-off Saturday afternoon (post to come later). Sunday started with a lunch party for kids and then of course trick or treating Sunday night followed by party at the neighborhood plantation. It's exhausting just typing all of it! But we had a terrific time!! Too much sugar is my only complaint, and that is not a bad problem ;) Addy has a new favorite holiday, I think our social butterfly loved every minute she spent with friends and sugar.

Here are the kids right before we went trick or treating. As you can tell, Addy was a witch (a nice witch she'll remind you) and little sweet baby Luke was an elephant.

With Sloan in the wagon

We had quite a big group out on the streets

Our first house-- it was very festive and they gave each kid a big bag of candy and other treats.

Maria who seems to steal Luke at every moment she can (as if her 4 kids aren't enough)

Luke still happy at the end, although I'm pretty sure there were many times this weekend where he was OVER the festivities and ready for a good nap :)