Cuties

One from the weekend...

NYE

Historically, we have tried everything on NYE – the dressy night out, the hotel package, the night out with friends, and I feel like every year, we end up spending too much money for a mediocre night…  This year, we decided to have 2 of our favorite families over for some family-friendly fun, and we have not stopped talking about it since! 

The Schoppes and Almans arrived after nap time on NYE – we lucked out with the weather, so we all had a chance to catch up while the kids played outside.  The Schoppes brought the Disney version of the game “Headbandz” – clearly intended for the kiddos to play… but… since they were having a blast upstairs, the adults decided to give it a shot.  And oh my gosh, it was SO. MUCH. FUN.  We played for HOURS (probably because the drinks were flowing!). Just before midnight, the kids “popped” a few fireworks and then headed back inside for adults (and kids this time!) to play Just Dance for the Wii.  We played until we all wanted to pass out – and pass out we all did.  I can’t believe my kids were up until 11:30 (and were surprisingly great the next day…???)!

Here’s to a new annual tradition!

Christmas Wrap Up

Well, it’s a good thing that my New Year’s Resolution was not to blog in a more timely manner!

Christmas this year was so much fun, and I can honestly say it was the first time that it was not stressful!  The Mr. and I took 2 weeks off (almost for me), and we enjoyed every second of it! 

It’s just not Christmas unless you decorate sugar cookies!  This year, I took a page out of Sandra Lee’s semi-homemade book… we sliced and baked Pillsbury cookies and made the icing from scratch…

And they were oh-so-yummy!

Avery busted Buddy Jingle Bell with a sugar cookie, so she decided to write Santa a note to make sure he knew that they were HIS cookies.

Side note – The elf on the shelf was really fun this year – the girls could not do anything until they found Buddy! I wish I would have taken more pictures of the places we found him this year!  Ah… there’s always next year…

Since it took Anna for forever to open her birthday presents, we decided to let the girls open a present every day Christmas week.  It was really fun for them to focus on one thing each day, and there was still PLENTY for them to open come Christmas morning!  Here the girls are in their new boots from YaYa:

It was so fun watching the girls actually play together this year!

Christmas Eve church family picture.  Someone is happy that the Mr. decided to shave his mustache. Amen.

Boompa, YaYa & the girls:

Somehow we missed Deda & JoJo at church, so we took a pic at home!

We had our traditional tamale dinner and opened gifts with Deda & JoJo, changed into our Christmas jammies and took our annual tree picture (thank you Shalonda for the idea!!):

We thought for sure that the girls would be up bright and early Christmas morning since they knew that Santa was on his way, but they decided to sleep in – ah… a Christmas miracle!

Santa brought Avery roller skates:

And Anna got her own little chair:

YaYa’s gift was a big hit though (with both girls)!

The girls could not wait to go try out their toys outside, so despite the cold, we headed out…

Daddy chasing Anna as she learns how to steer…

At the end of our street, 2 of our neighbors had inflatables in their yard – Anna ALWAYS wanted to go see “Frosty No-man” and “Baby Jesus”.  No matter how late it was, I absolutely could not turn down that sweet little voice when she would say, “Come on Mommy, go see Baby Che-sus”. So as soon as she got to the end of the driveway, she knew exactly where she was headed.  She parked her car, and headed straight for Him…

She thought Frosty was pretty cool too.  Here she is yelling for everyone to “COME ON, COME SEE FROSTY NO-MAN!!!”

Avery – still trying to skate:

Meanwhile, Anna’s still hanging out with Frosty…

Boompa the hero (or sucker!)!

We headed back inside to warm up and spent the rest of the afternoon playing with toys. Avery and YaYa loved the super fun piano from Grandma Sims! Here they are perfecting their chopsticks duet...

And we even had a chance to make some snow...

Instead of Christmas lunch this year, we had Christmas dinner... Cooking during nap time = one happy mama. Daddy was in charge of the Pioneer Woman's beef tenderloin, and it was SO good. I think we found ourselves a new tradition!

Hope everyone had a VERY Merry Christmas!