White Christmas...sort of

We had a white Christmas this year. In our house that is. This was how we ended our Christmas day festivities. We walked into the kitchen after putting the kids to bed and a few minutes after starting the dishwasher and saw this. I could not stop laughing. It took about 10 towels to get all the water mopped up. Great fun!

More Christmas pics to come...maybe tomorrow!

The Gingerbread Cook

We made an awesome gingerbread house the other night. Or rather, we watched Makayla do all the work, after we got it all put together. She stuck all the candies on, and maybe ate a few too...
I asked her what she was making, and she told me it was a gingerbread house. So I asked her who it's for, and she told me, it's for the "gingerbread cook." In a tone that basically said "duh mom..."
I about died, I was laughing so hard! She cracks me up. Where does she even get this stuff?



So proud of her finished project. And she loved that daddy made icicles. Mostly because she liked pulling them off and eating them..haha. Santa's reindeer were having issues. One of the Rudolph's was a little tipsy. Don't think he should be flying...hehe. And we might have broken Santa's leg...sorry Santa, please still come to our house!! :)


We took a bunch of family pics at my parents house the next night. This one is just adorable. Haylee holding Brooklyn. Super cute!


This one cracks me up. We were trying to get everyone to look, and it was just total chaos. I swear Makayla is not really biting Brooklyn, as it appears.....


And all of us finally all looking at the camera. And the TV. Glad we got that in there too...


I cannot w-a-i-t for Christmas. I am so excited to see the girls opening presents and seeing the excitement in their eyes! I finished all of my wrapping tonight, and am hiding all of Jason's gifts until late Christmas eve...he tends to find them, shake them, weigh them, etc. He is the WORST!! Or I guess I should maybe say the best....cause for the last 5 years has pretty much guessed every present before opening it. The stinker. So I am trying to be sneakier and clever-er this year. We'll see if it pays off.

11 Things

Ok, so this is a fun idea that a blogger friend of mine had. She actually got the idea from a site called Reverb10.com, that gives you daily prompts to write about. This was one of them.

11 Things I don't need in 2011:

1. To have the TV on as much as it is. Sometimes I think I am the world's laziest, horrible mom. But sometimes, when I need my sanity, and have deadlines for work...it just happens. I turn on a movie. That will happen MUCH less in 2011. That is a promise.

2. Late nights. I have no idea why it is SO hard for me to go to bed at a decent hour. Most nights it's 11:30-12:30 before I hit the sack.

3. Caffeine. At least not as much of it as I seem to need now. But maybe my late nights have something to do with that...perhaps if I can fix one thing, I might fix the other...we shall see.

4. The Last 10 Pounds. They just will NOT go away! The first 17 were easy!! But the last 10 are holding on for dear life. No matter what I do. I really just wish they would disappear forever!!

5. To go to Wal-Mart. I swear. That store, I am so bad at remembering everything I need in one trip, and always..always forget to bring a list. I can never just go to the store once every two weeks. It's more like 4 or 5 times. It can wait. Most of the time. Lame.

6. To get dressed everyday. What's wrong with having a PJ day? Absolutely nothing. I always feel lazy, or that I will run into someone I know while I look like I just crawled out of bed....and the kids included. But who cares. Some days are just perfect for PJ's.

7. To Have a house. We got all ready to take the big step this month, and got hit with the "self employment red tape." So it can wait. We have no other choice. I figure, we've waited 5 years already, what's one more? And by then we'll be better off anyway.

8. Stress. Really, who DOES need stress. Not me.

9. To have a clean house 24/7. It's just pretty much impossible with 2 kids, and it won't kill me to wait till they go to bed to clean up. It won't....:)

10. To always have some fantastic meal ready for dinner. Isn't that what cereal and Ramen noodles are for!?

11. To Compare. (and this one I am taking almost straight from Sheena's blog because I liked it so much) Why is it so hard not to? And society just feeds us and feeds us with more things to compare ourselves/our kids/our husbands/our houses/our shoes too. I need to stop the comparing, and start owning what makes me, me.

Please feel free to post here your thoughts on your 11 things, my 11 things, or do this on your own blog! It's fun to think about all of the things you could do without.

We got a little bit of snow...

So we decided to play in it!! Makayla could not believe it, and was SO excited to go outside and play with Ken and Bryon and Otis in the front yard.
It was also Ken's first snow experience. He liked it a lot!

My mom took this pic. I have NO idea how she got Makayla to smile "normal." I have yet to get a cute pic of her just being normal. When I tell her to smile, she usually gets all squinty and tilts her head up...haha.


We had to make do with various snow items that Grandma could gather at her house. At least we had the boots and gloves.


Being Grandma's little helper, playing with all the Christmas decorations Grandma was getting out.


And back outside for some more fun.


Bryon with his Gigantic snowball.





We also had my Grandma's annual Christmas party/Nativity on Sunday. I actually had my picture taken on our way out the door, instead of being behind the camera for once!


You can tell that Makayla was NOT happy to be an angel, and it lasted all of about 30 seconds. Long enough for me to take her picture all angry...complete with the arm folding/scowl.


Haylee on the other hand was perfectly pleased to be an angel, and was one! She sat there through the whole thing! So cute! I am still amazed that after all these years we haven't had a kid fall off of those ladders.





And THIS...I love it. I got this at a craft fair before Thanksgiving and the lady finally delivered it the other day. I had to go out and find some knobs for it, and got some cute ones at Hobby Lobby. Then I got those cute hangy-things at Tai-Pan this last weekend. We still need a stocking for Brooklyn...

More decorations...


And the tree.



I was so excited to get the tree up, I did it the day after we got back from our Thanksgiving trip to Illinois. I still have a few things to add to it though, cause I found some cute stuff at Tai-Pan!!

Thankful

We had such an awesome time in Illinois for Thanksgiving this year. We were there an entire week, and it went by waaayy too fast!! Before we knew it, it was time to leave. :(

The Sisters! I am so lucky to have married into such an awesome family! Love these girls!


Here's Brooklyn with Jason's uncle Greg. We were so glad he could make it out to visit with us!



Me and Jay at his mom's house.


Makayla and Diane. So cute, I love this pic.


Of course, we had to bust out Settlers!!!


Makayla opening her gift from Uncle Greg! Ruby slippers just like the Wizard of Oz ones! They are SO cute!


Steve and his deep fried turkey! It was soooo yummy too!


A little pool game. I was just holding that to look like I was playing...haha. I really suck at that game.


Makayla helping Papa Wade make his yummy rolls. She kept sticking her finger in the dough and eating it raw..haha. Such a good "helper."





Diane and Steve's house. I love it!


We are completely soaked in this pic. Hard to tell, but we came out of the movie theater and it was insane outside...I have never seen anything like it. We found out we were in a tornado watch, and so we were trying to decide if we should make a run to the van and go over to Jason's dad's place. So we waited for a "lull" in the storm, and made a break for it. Our car was like 10 feet from the doors, and me and Jackie were in the back and had to wait for the automatic sliding doors to open...they are SUPER slow...so Jackie gave up and jumped up front onto Austin, and my door finally opened, and hers was open, so the wind and rain was blowing straight into the van, and all over me...so I got even more wet waiting for the doors to slowly close... But it was pretty funny in the end.


We had to stop at Steak and Shake on the way home from the St. Louis zoo! So yummy!


I just realized these pics are kind of out of order, oh well. This camel was so cool looking. He was just standing there, looking all majestic, chewing on something gross, looking at us like, "I'm totally going to spit this in your face..."


Having fun at the zoo!


Makayla with Grandma and Grandpa





I just thought this was so cute, cause the cup is so huge!


A drive by Arch shot!


caught eating cookies before dinner... :)


Snuggle time on Grandma's bed, with Grandma and Great Grandma!


This is Litchfield as you see it coming in from the highway.


Jason taking down his dad in arm wrestling! Wade hadn't ever been beaten. It was about time he got de-throned!


And that's it!! We just had so much fun hanging out with family, not doing much except for relaxing and eating! Perfect.

Crafty Session #2

So, I decided to do something crafty...again. I don't know what has gotten into me. Maybe it's the upcoming wreath/craft party next week! Who knows. But me and Makayla needed a fun activity this afternoon besides having the TV on ALL day long...

And here is what we made! They turned out ok, not the cutest turkeys I've ever seen, but they were really fun to make!

And a side note...I got my hair done!! I decided to go pretty dark this time. I came home from my hairdressers place and realized that it was pretty much almost black. I couldn't handle it. She couldn't get me in again till after the weekend, so I had to go around feeling "goth" all weekend. But now it's much better, and I love it!!

And another side note. I just finished reading "The Help" and am so in love with that book. if you haven't read it yet, PLEASE do yourself a favor and go get it, or check it out at the library!! You won't regret it!

Celebrate!

This cute little miss is 7 months (and a few days) old now!! I seriously cannot believe it has been that long since she came to our little family. All of that curly brown hair has fallen out, and been replaced by blonde and mostly straight hair. I say mostly straight, because some of it still wants to curl, but not enough to really work...so time will tell I guess, when it grows a bit longer.


I love her eyes!

That tongue is always hanging out these days...working on more teeth!! She's already got two! Her bottom front teeth came in about 2 weeks ago!
And she can now sit up all by herself!!
She is such a happy baby, and loves her older sister to death!! She just laughs and giggles at Makayla ALL the time! We can't get enough of those two!

Crafty-ish

I got bored this weekend, and look what happened! I got crafty...kind of! I got really sick of looking at hairbows stuffed in a drawer, or in a jar, or on the floor, or in Makayla's toy bin...so I decided to come up with this cute way to have them all in one place. I'd seen things similar to this before, but never got one, I just figured...maybe I'll make one someday. And I did! I even drug Jason to the fabric store with me!! He approved of my fabric choices, and then I got started!
Here was the outcome!

And I am well aware that my diagonal lines are not perfectly straight...it was my first attempt...and there was a...mishap, with the...ribbons...

But here it is with all of Makayla's bows! Well, not all of them, I should have made it bigger I guess...But sill super cute I think!

And, I think I might try and make a couple more and sell them for a few bucks...so, if you have any requests, send 'em in! It was fun to make!