christmas 2010

It's pretty safe to say that December was crazy. With sickies going around and 2 crazy kids and making gifts, etc...it flew to Christmas day with me wondering where it all went. So here are LOTS of snapshots to share with you:

A and K right before we were leaving to go see Santa.K wasn't too sure of Santa, but after about 30 seconds, he calmed down and listened to A tell Santa the deal.

A few pictures from A's school holiday party. K sat right at the table with the big kids and they loved on him so much!

We made this totally cute gumdrop wreath. We of course ate lots of gumdrops while making it and even K got some. After it was hanging on Aislynn's door to her room...he would go and point to it and say "mmm mmm."

A pretending to be the Sugar Plum Fairy from the Nutcracker.

I got this foam gingerbread kit for us to make. The real gingerbread house was SOOOOO much easier to put together, lol!

"Helping" me bake some goodies:)

I tried lots of new recipes this year and there were some real winners. The best ones were the molasses spice cookies and the peppermint brownies.

*Trying* to get a picture of the kids in their jammies, but K would only stay on the sofa with Daddy on it.

Taking a ride to look at Christmas lights after baths one night.

K was flipping through this book and when he saw Santa he said "po po po." Eventually he got it right a few days later and said "ho ho ho" anytime he saw a Santa or a Santa hat.

Just a cute picture of "Farmer Kieran." He gets called that anytime he is wearing his overalls.

Baking Santa his cookies. We used this sugar cookie recipe. The third year of trying a new one and I am still on the hunt for my favorite one. This was by far the best one though.

You can see the remnants of one of Santa's cookies here. Oh and hello cuteness....gosh he is so stinkin' cute:)

Just a shot of our house with the lights...love that you can see our tree through the window:)

Christmas Eve...Grandma and Aislynn.

Brynne and me.

Add in a little boy who WILL NOT give up his empty wrapping paper roll.

This picture totally cracks me up:)

The girls.

Our little family:)

We had an insane amount of treats to eat after dinner.

A putting out the goods. We had to put out 9 carrots for the reindeer and they had to be big carrots because, you know...the reindeer don't eat baby ones;)

Looks like the big man came and dropped off the mother load.

I thought A would wake up so early because she was soooooo excited, but she ended getting up around 7:15. She was so happy to see that Santa had come and she had to go get "Mama Pony" (what Santa brought her last year) and show her that Santa brought her 2 kids, lol.

Kieran isn't quite at the run and see what Santa brought me stage yet. He is however at the stage where he hovers around the empty cookie plate and eats the crumbs:) Then he does what he always does lately and takes off just one sock?

Then begins to play with the trains Santa brought him. It was cute...Aislynn opened up his presents for him because while everyone opened gifts, he just sat and pushed his trains around.

A was helpful in passing gifts around.

As soon as we were done opening gifts, Grandma and James had to leave and everyone sort of trickled out after that to head to see their significant other's family or drive back to their homes for work.

We got Aislynn an Minnie doll and Kieran a "mick-me" doll and Minnie is A's favorite present. She has been sleeping with it and cuddling it on the couch. So cute. This is also the blanket I made her for Christmas which she loves. The back side is light purple and I made Kieran a light blue and light green one.

K playing with his favorite toys...his trains and train table. James made him a train table and it is awesome. It is pretty big, so we put his trains (we will have to get some of the expansion packs) on one side, and his cars/planes on the other. It has gotten a lot of use so far:)

Phillip, Josh, and their newest addition, Dexter. He is soooo cute and little:)

Brynne and me before she headed back to Birmingham (where it was snowing-so jealous!). *** We had such a great Christmas. I was so glad everyone could make it and it was tons of fun and no stress-perfect! I hope everyone else had a Merry Merry Christmas as well:)

december daily

I am doing the December Daily project this year, but have not had time to actually put any pages together...just have the base done. Good thing this blog well help me when I can get a minute to work on it;) So here are a few pictures from the weekend:

Our tree all lit up:

A and K watching Polar Express. K had been pretty fussy lately and I didn't think he was teething, so since A had just had strep and didn't really show symptoms, I took K in. We started him on antibiotics and he seems to be doing much much better. You can kinda see his red cheekie in this picture...he tripped and bumped his cheek on our ottoman and has a little "joker" bruise on his cheek.This picture makes me smile:) First, he looks stinkin' cute, but second he is holding what Shaun calls his mortar and pestle. It's this Little People suitcase that is open on the bottom and a block and he mashes the block around in the suitcase then "drinks" from the suitcase and says "mmm mmm." He does this a lot and it totally cracks us up.

At first we thought we were going to have to totally block the tree from Kieran, but overall he has been pretty good about not messing with it. He warns us when he gets close to it by saying "no." He does occasionally get brave and touches the "ba" (balls).

Friday night Aislynn and I went to go see the Nutcracker at the high school. During the intermission, she was showing me their dances in the aisle and was super excited about act 2 in the land of sweets. Well, being overtired and upset that the dancers costumes didn't look like candy (???), she said it wasn't fun. When we got home she changed her mind though.

Saturday we were going to visit Santa, but the line was insanely long...like we would have had to wait an hour. We made a deal to go home and we would write letters to Santa and have hot chocolate. So that is what we did with the promise of coming back on a week day:)

She really wanted to ask Santa for a computer? Finally she decided on Lady and the Tramp, 2 unicorns, a Snow White doll, and a Princess Tiana doll. Hopefully Santa has "selective watching," hee hee. She wrote in her letter for Santa to bring Kieran a train set and a Thomas the Train coloring book.

Today while K-man was napping, we decorated this gingerbread house. I was planning on making one this year, but I got waaaaay to ambitious and was totally thinking unrealistically about how much time I have...so I snatched this kit up from the bakery in our grocery store.

There wasn't much candy, but enough to decorate it without it being too complicated and still some leftover to eat:)

That was our weekend! We baked some amazing cookies last Thursday, I think? I am about to post the link on the craft blog...they were so so so good!! They barely lasted 24 hours here:)

o christmas tree

We got our Christmas tree up and decorated last weekend. We have a fake tree that we have used the last couple years, but we decided to change it up this year and get a real one. We just went to Home Depot to get it, so I took pictures there:) Aislynn insisted on wearing her Santa hat (actually she has worn it almost every time we go somewhere, love her Christmas spirit!).

They love when we go to Home Depot because of these cars they can "drive." K says "voo voo voo" when he is turning the wheel:)These pictures of A inspecting the tree totally crack me up. She wanted to get a bigger tree, but we told her it would be like Mr Willowby's Christmas Tree. Have you read that book? It is a new one for us this year and we *love* it. Very clever and cute!

Sunday morning we decorated the tree (which is why I am still in my jammies and look a bit crusty, hee hee).

It is nice having a tree you don't need the ladder to put the lights on. And nice that is smells good. The Christmas tree candles just don't capture the true smell.

The pine needles I could do without though...

He wanted to play with the "ba's" (balls-or ornaments) so very badly. At first we had the tree blocked off to where he couldn't get to it, but now the path is free and he really isn't getting to it as much as we thought he would. Knock on wood:)

She was totally into decorating the tree this year. Even if most of the lower branches had multiple ornaments on them...she did great and having so much fun.

And she really loved helping to put the star on:)

Cute kids:) We were trying to teach Kieran how to say "ho ho ho" when his hat was on, but he mostly says "po po po." Hee hee:) We also have put lights on the outside of our house, done a bit of holiday baking and I have been trying to finish up some handmade gifts. Seriously can't believe Christmas is in about 2 weeks! I wish for time to slow down!