Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve! We started the evening off at Church then we came home and got our Reindeer Food....

Please notice our inflatable snowman that I won at the "Dirty Santa" Exchange (Daniel is OBSESSED with this snowman!)

Basically, Reindeer Food is oatmeal and glitter that is spread on the lawn so the reindeer know where to stop and have a little treat to eat as well! This was our 1st year doing this and Daniel dumped the reindeer food in one big pile and we didn't go back outside to pick it up and Daniel wanted to know why the reindeer didn't like his food because they didn't eat it! Gosh! This kid is just way too smart=)

Then it was back inside to put out cookies and milk for Santa! HERE WAS MY FAVORITE LINE FROM ALL OF CHRISTMAS.... When Daniel woke up on Christmas morning and came downstairs, I showed him that Santa had ate all his cookies and drank all of his milk and he wanted to know why he (Santa) didn't clean his dishes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I was the proudest mama around.... I knew all of my teaching and instructing him was working!

Then it was time to open 1 present - another Christmas Eve tradition!

I think Daddy loves these boy toys just as much as Daniel does! LOL!

Then it was time for Daniel to go to bed so the "elves" could get to work on assembling some of the toys for Christmas morning!

Gingerbread Houses - Round #2

If you remember in my last post about Gingerbread Houses that we had such a great time doing them that we re-scheduled the day to do them again with some of our friends who couldn't make it the week prior.... Well, this time I was responsible for the graham crackers and the bases, Shannon made the icing and Dawn brought the candy to decorate the houses with.

So, that morning I ran to the store to pick up a new box of graham crackers and I bought the store brand since we weren't going to be eating these.... they were just for the project! Well, when I opened them up they were in small squares NOT the long rectangles that I thought ALL graham crackers came in!!!!!!!!!!!!!! UGHHHH!!!! Let's just say that it DID NOT WORK out at all as it was supposed to be... it definitely wasn't as easy and I felt TERRIBLE! Thank God the kids are still too young to notice or really care and all they really cared about was how many fist fulls of candy they could stash in their mouths!

Daniel, Parker and Sydney

Trey!

Me with my babies and Sweet Boston! Boston is only a couple of months older than Katelyn but I am totally convinced he was born a toddler! He has been crawling forever, he is totally cruising around stuff, even tries to fit in and play with the older kids..... also another very good baby!

To the right is the house from the week prior and to the left is the one from this week=)

Oh well! =)

Birthday Party for Jesus!

My friend Sarita threw a very cute "Birthday Party for Jesus" party... all the kids did a craft, played and had cupcakes! We had talked to Daniel about the "real" meaning of Christmas and his first question was, "Is Jesus going to have his birthday party at the Fire Station like me?" LOL! Then on the way to the party, Daniel asked me if Jesus was going to be there? It is so hard explaining that, "Of Course Jesus will be there but you can't see Him!" to a 3 year old!

Cookie Exchange

So, on Friday Daniel had a Christmas Party/ Gift Exchange with our play group... for some reason, I felt that this party started at noon! I went into work early so that I could be home in time to bring him... we had talked about it for a long time... picked out our gifts for our friend... I am driving home to get Daniel and I get a text from my friend asking me if I am coming??? I got this weird, sick feeling like, "she would only be texting me this if I was really late!!! Did I get the time wrong?" So, I called her and she was like it started at 10AM! OH MY GOSH! I felt like the WORSE MOTHER ever... my son had been looking forward to this party FOREVER and it was all the way in Mesa but my INCREDIBLE, AMAZING friends waited for us and they even hung out until that afternoon so we got some fun times in with this incredible group of friends (for mommy and Daniel!). HOWEVER, in the craziness... I totally forgot my camera!!! NO PICTURES after all of that! Adrianna made an amazing lunch, had cookie decorating for the kids and is just one of those very relaxed mom's that doesn't mind a bunch of pre-school kids demolishing her house! LOL! And let me tell you about Daniel's gift, my very talented friend Sue MADE Daniel a firetruck from wood... it was AMAZING! Something he can keep forever! I was so AMAZED!

The next day, my friend Lisa who throws "parties straight out of the pages of a magazine!" parties (you know one of those moms that you are scared to death to invite to your parties! LOL! Just kidding because she is also one of the most helpful and most resourceful friends you can have and will HELP you if you are domestically challenged in some areas like me!) threw a very intimate cookie exchange party and it was so festive and fun.

My contribution: I made 12 dozen Gumdrop cookies the night before!

Sweet kiddos playing...

Cookie Decorating...

The station she had set up with boxes and bags to bring home your goodies...

My loot!

She even did favors for the kids with Gingerbread cookie cutters AND....

REINDEER FOOD!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I thought this was the BEST IDEA EVER!!!!!

I was sooooooooooo excited to save this to do with Daniel on Christmas EVE night! (Pics to follow in another post!)

Thank you, Lisa, for such a fun party!

The next day I had a party at my house for around 20 people... basically every group in the church that has volunteers like kids, 1st impressions, music, etc has their own Christmas party with all the volunteers in that group and we hosted the 1st Impressions Christmas Party! We played "Dirty Santa" and there were GREAT GIFTS! I got an inflatable snowman for our front yard and Brendon got a Starbucks set with a gift card! No pics=(

Some of Katelyn's 1st....

Is there anything more precious than a baby who has just woke up in the morning?

Okay... I just love when they are starting to use their "pincer" to pick up tiny objects... it is soooo stinkin' cute!

As most of you realized, I am way behind in blogging=) However, we gave the kids their 1st bath together back in December and they L.O.V.E.D it!

I still find this seat difficult for giving an actual "washing" to an infant and Brendon felt that she was not immersed enough in water so she was getting cold so we haven't done the duo bath thing since... but I know there are plenty of fun bath times ahead!

Gingerbread Houses - Round #1

We were going to have some of our friends from church over to make gingerbread houses... except at the last minute most of them couldn't come for one reason or another but April and Layla did make it and we had a great time!

April and I assembled the houses first then we let the kids decorate them... we were shocked at how easy this was! She made the icing and I had the graham crackers and we just found random things in our kitchen pantries to decorate them!

Time to decorate!

So, we decided that we would re-schedule the event for the following week... since it was so easy and fun...LOL! Well... just stay tuned for those pics in a later post!=)

A Visit to Santa

One night we met up with our friends The Haymon's and The Harb's and went to dinner then went to The Bass Pro Shop to get pictures with Santa then we went to some neighborhoods that are well-known for their amazing Christmas lights and walked around those!

Last year Daniel was TERRIFIED of Santa but this year, I had talked to him A LOT about Santa and he was very determined to be brave around Santa because he knew he had to ask him for a racetrack which he was very desperate for=) However, when our turn came and Katelyn decided that she wasn't crazy about the man in the red suit which made Daniel nervous... and I was about to burst into tears because God Forbid! I didn't get a good picture with my two babies and Santa!

Whew! 30 seconds later they both warmed up to him and snap! snap! snap! We got some pictures... the professional picture turned out great and it is in their scrapbook now!

Daniel even ran back to give Santa a hug! This kid has come a long way - LOL!

Daniel checking out some "cool toys"

Daniel and Zander

Bass Pro Shop will definitely become a tradition of ours... not only are the pictures with Santa FREE but they have a whole Winter Wonderland set up with a Slot Car Racing Track, an Electric Train Set, a kids' shooting range, craft stations for the kiddos, and let's not forget how amazing the actual store is itself for these kids with all of their stuffed and REAL wildlife!

Then, we had did some research on neighborhoods that have great Christmas Lights and we hit up those which was so fun (no pics!)... the best part was how warm the night was! Last year we had to bundle up to walk around the neighborhoods to see the lights... this year there was no complaining from this thin blooded Arizonian when a long sleeve shirt totally sufficed=)

Totally a fun night with tons of Christmas Cheer!