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!!