Other Random December Pictures

My mom and dad are now empty nesters, so they thought it would be fun to wait to decorate the tree with the grand kids.  The only problem is, three of their five grand kids are one.  And there were just so many other things to do that the tree never ended up getting decorated.

In all honesty, it was a pre-lit tree and had some cool little frosty branches and berries on it already, so you didn't really notice.  Although I have to admit I found it rather ironic.  My mom usually makes her trees absolutely gorgeous.  In fact, I remember a year in high school when Dad and us kids wanted all our little "made these at school" ornaments and she wanted a fancy tree so we had two Christmas trees...te he he.  This year I was really excited to photograph all her beautiful ornaments.  Of course, the year I'm excited about photographing the fancy tree, we don't have a fancy tree.  Oh well.

There actually was one ornament on the tree this year:


My mom's friend gave it to her for Christmas, so she put it up.  Isn't it AWESOME!  I've got to get me one of these for my tree.  Thanks Gwen!  At least I got to photograph one ornament!

My mom also got some adorable little outfits for all her grand kids.  She wanted a picture of them all together in front of the Christmas tree.  This was the closest we got.



Anyone have any tips on how to get three one-year-olds to sit still, look at the camera and smile?

At least I was able to get some cute pictures of the kids individually.


The outfits were adorable, but I think the babies preferred these outfits.


And as is every trip to my parents house, this one was filled with games after the kiddies went to bed


I suppose the good thing about posting this late is that now there's only 11 months left until Christmas.  The countdown is on. :)

Christmas Day!

Addison and Hannah were very excited to find a Bike and a Trike under the tree for them. The twins were excited about the cereal. By the way, putting cereal out in front of the tree is a tradition that started with my dad's family. My Grandma told me one year was an especially tight year with respect to finances and Christmas Eve they were looking at the tree and feeling kind of down about how little there was under it. Then they got an idea. They went to the pantry and brought out stuff they had in food storage and put it under the tree. The next morning the kids each got to pick some of their favorite foods from under the tree. It's since evolved into cereal, but I love the little story behind it.

Opening Stockings. Waking up my sister was kind of a big deal this year. I took pictures of her coming out of her room. See that random cardboard thing on the right of the picture. That's what caused this reaction. What is it you wonder? It's a life size cardboard cut out of her boyfriend who left to serve a mission in Argentina just before Christmas. Now, lest you think we're REALLY weird and disturbing, we kind of have an ongoing joke with her. When High School musical came out, my parents found a cardboard cutout of Justin Bieber and got it for her. We found it incredibly entertaining to put it in random places like her shower or closet to creep her out. The tradition continued with Robert Pattinson when Twilight came out. We put him right in front of her door Christmas morning...like the open-her-bedroom-door-and-he's-right-in-her-face kind of "in front of her door". That year it scared her to death her when she opened her door, her blood curdling scream could be heard throughout the house. It was AWESOME.

So this year, as Bart and I were talking about how Ron (her boyfriend) was leaving, Bart commented, "Hey, we should get a cardboard cutout of him for her for Christmas!" After some web searches and the go ahead from my parents, Ronnie boy was on his way. She thought it was pretty funny, and her roommates were pretty bummed she didn't bring it back up to school with her.

There, now hopefully you only think we're mildly weird and disturbing. ;)

Moving on...

We mistakenly had Hannah open her Polly Pocket as one of her first presents.  It was like pulling teeth to get her to open the other ones.
But this was her reaction to a robe my parents got her. Who knew a two year old would be so excited about a robe? I think she was just excited to give Grandpa a hug.

And this is my adorable niece wearing the hair clips I made her.


And more of the day's festivities.  That pan Bart is so excitedly holding up in the air...comic muffin tins.  He LOVES them.  Now he always wants to make muffins.  I have to admit, they are pretty freaking amazing. Sigh, Christmas always seems to go by so fast. 

Catching Up - December

Okay, in an attempt to get caught up on my blog I'm going to just post mostly pictures from December.

Christmas Cookies (I had a lot of fun with these)...thank you Bakerella

  The kids had fun making theirs too Christmas PJs Our own little Christmas before we left Naps at Grandma's House Snuggling with Grandma's toys...This morning Addison said, "Mom, I just can't get Grandma's house out of my head. She has so many toys!" LOL! The twins were pretty excited about all the presents. Christmas Eve. Bart & I were in charge of Christmas Eve dinner (my family has a big Christmas eve dinner instead of a big Christmas dinner). We made prime rib. It was delicious! Christmas stories (that's the book I made my dad last year for Christmas...and got to him around Valentine's day...It would have been done in time if the twins hadn't come early!  I'm glad we got to use it this year though) and opening Christmas PJ's...Maya apparently would rather crawl on presents than open them.

Christmas Suckers

When I was little and we went to my grandma's house for Christmas, her counters were always covered in goodies, but my favorite were her Christmas suckers.  They weren't necessarily the best tasting goodies she had, but I thought the way she made them was just so awesome.  She always let us choose the flavor and color, and then when it was ready, she'd pour the hot liquid into these old fashioned sucker molds, and we would quickly scramble to get the sticks in before the liquid hardened. It was awesome.

So when my uncle dropped off some Christmas presents from my grandparents when he passed through town, I was excited to see the suckers.  My kids were pretty excited too.

Yeah, those two got a bath shortly after those pictures were taken.

I think I am going to make it my goal in life to find molds like my grandma's so that I can make Christmas suckers too.

Festival of Trees

I think I'm finally coming to grips with the fact that I will forever be a month behind on my blog.  But for those of you who like Christmas music, feel free to turn it on, read this post, and relive the holiday season.  :)

I was feeling very brave at the beginning of December and decided to start off the month with a trip to the festival of trees...just me and the girls...all FOUR girls.


It was an awesome outing...for about 15 minutes.  Then Hannah accidentally bit Maya's finger while playing with her and it kind of went down hill from there.  Even with that, though, I think I'll try and go again next year.  There were so many awesome decorations, I really enjoyed it... even though we only got to see about a quarter of it.

 

My personal favorite was the"Up" tree

If I could, I'd TOTALLY move in to the up house.

The Way I View - New Beginnings

So I'm not a huge resolution person, but I do love taking time at the beginning of a new year to make some goals for myself.  To me, each year is a fresh start.  A chance to commit to improving myself and trying new things.  I used to make a rather lengthy list of goals every year, but since the number of children in my house exploded in a rather short amount of time, the list has been whittled down a bit.

This year one of my goals was to really work on slowing down and spending time thinking about the pictures I'm taking instead of just snapping away and praying that I get something good.  In order to keep myself accountable, I joined a group of 11 other women and committed to take a photo based on a theme each month and then share it on our blogs.

January's theme was "New Beginnings," and for my picture, I decided to photograph one of my other goals: trying a new recipe at least two times a month.  Below is a picture of one of the new recipes Bart & I tried out this month.  It's a Citrus Shortbread Torte, and it was FABULOUS!  It also didn't really help with my other goal to eat healthier, but eh, here's to New Beginnings!  :)

 

 If you'd like to see pictures from the other ladies, head on over to Kelly's blog.