Christmas in March

Merry Christmas friends! ;) Christmas was so amazing this year and not for any reason in particular. We stayed home (which we always do now.) Jared and I used to always go to my parents for Christmas morning but since Andon was small we started to stay home and then go visit our families Christmas afternoon.

I don't exactly know what it is but every year I tell Jared 'this was my favorite Christmas.'

And really, 2011 really was.

All the Christmas traditions seemed so exciting and special this year. More so than ever.

Going to pick out our tree and decorating it...



Making a gingerbread house.. Andon loves to do these. Neither Jared or I help make it. (I help hold the walls together at first so it doesn't fall apart but that's it.) We let the kids go crazy with the decorating so we usually have some pretty awesome gingey houses!! :))



Going to see Santa!



We added a new tradition this year. Our sweet little elf on the shelf "Pix"!

He did all kinds of fun things like hang candy canes all over the tree and climb to the top for the kids to find him in the morning. One night he cut out lots and lots and lots of snowflakes and hung them all over the ceiling outside of Andon's room. That was his best trick! :) He wrote his name in cereal and Santa in legos and hid in many places all over the house.



Baking and eating lots of chocolate chip cookies.. I'm sure I baked cookies a half dozen times during the month of December! Growing up my Mom always made them around Christmas so whenever I make them I think of it. Love that.



Going to watch Andon in his Christmas program at church. Such a sweet thing but sometimes these tend to be more funny to me. All the different little personality's up there. So cute!



And opening gifts on Christmas morning. This was the first year that we had a child come into our room at an absurd time of the morning or I should say night. We put Andon to bed around 8:30, his usual bed time. Then Jared and I got to work putting together a gifts and things. We had got into bed around 11:30 and sometime right after that Andon came walking in asking if it was time to get up! No way child.. Jared took him back to bed only to have him show up again around 2:30 am. Poor guy just couldn't rest with all the excitement! I took him to bed this time and he didn't wake up until around 6:30 or so. I can handle that! :)



I'm sure it sounds crazy to be posting about Christmas in March but this is my blog and it's what I do. Not really, just this year. ;) Blogging has not come easy for me in the last few months. I love love love to document these things for my littles and myself to look back on so that's why i'm posting about Christmas now. Boo! But better late than never! It's only March right! Wow though, can you believe it's March!? We were just all hopped up on New Year's Resolution's and now it's halfway through March. Time is a flyin'.

Family Pics

Right before Adelyn's first birthday we had our sweet friend/photographer Paula Herko take some pics of our family. We're always taking pics around here but we hardly have any of the four of us. The pic in my new header is my favorite of all the the family ones. Here are a few of my other fav's.




I sure do yub him... :))

Christmas Morning

I'm a little late in posting but I can't not do it!! Christmas morning was so much fun around here!! I can't believe it was our first time ever waking up on Christmas morning alone. We really have loved being with family all these years but this year just topped them all!!

Andon and Adelyn both woke up around 6:30 that morning. So after I was finished feeding Adelyn we all headed downstairs together. Even though Andon had already taken a quick peek down there. ;) When he came into our room he said "Santa came and he's really real because he used blue wrapping paper!!"

We got the monkey bread started and then started tearing into some presents. It was such a fun time together, Andon kept saying this was his best Christmas ever!!

Here's a couple pics of my sweet ones playing the mess.

Merry Christmas!!

We are so excited for Christmas around here!! This is the first year we have been alone as a family in our own home!! We have loved getting to spend Christmas morning with our family all these years (either at their homes or ours) but are looking forward to it just being us in the morning. :)

I have monkey bread sitting in the fridge and ready to be popped in the oven as soon as we wake up.

Today was such a fun and relaxing day. We had no last minute shopping to do so we had the whole day to just be together. I have been wanting to snap a few pics of the kids with their Christmas clothes on so today we did just that.



Does she not look like such a big girl in these pics!?!?




That was just a few of the fun pics we got today. Unfortunately we weren't able to get any with us all together because we couldn't find anywhere to set our camera down. Boo...
But, i've already asked a sweet friend (who is a great photographer :)) to take some family pics after the holidays. So looking forward to that!!

Hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas!! I've gotta go snuggle with Santa. :)

The Week of Christmas

We have spent the majority of the last week chillin around the house in our jammies. Watching lots of movies, baking and eating lots of sweets, snuggling, and playing.

After being sick with colds and sinus infections for the last few weeks Andon goes and gets the darn flu! Poor guy got really sick for 2 days then felt somewhat better for a couple of days and then threw up in the middle of the night and then felt better again. I think he's in the clear now. Fortunately Jared, Adelyn and I never got it!

We'll be spending Christmas morning here at home as a family then heading over to where our parent's live to spend the next couple of days with them.

I absolutely love this time of year!!!

But one mistake I made this year was to "bake" some Christmas gifts. I've only done it once, years ago before Jared and I got married and it wasn't the best idea then. Not that the stuff is just plain nasty. I just get really stressed about the whole thing. I feel like I have to deliver the stuff within an hour of it coming out of the oven and the longer I wait to give it the more stressed I get!! And not to mention the fact that I chose to make things that I have never made before. (Truffles and Toffee) Not a good idea people. Even though, oddly enough, the things I made that I never made before people have been loving and the other things that I usually make I haven't heard anything about. ;)

Anyways, I like the whole baking at Christmastime. It reminds me of when I was little. The smell, the tastes and just being in the kitchen together making all of it. Just not so sure about the gifting of the baked goods idea.






Andon and I did the gingerbread house this year. Daddy wasn't able to help but I think it turned out great anyway. :)

Addie in her jammies.... We haven't had any problems with her trying to mess with the Christmas tree. I think because we have a train going around it she doesn't want to cross the tracks! :)

Pics with Santa 2010

This morning I took my littles to see Santa Clause at the mall. Almost every year we have gone to the Millennia Mall because the Santa there is awesome. But this year I just didn't feel like it. (We have been sick around here for the last week and still feel pretty crummy.) We were there a week ago and the line was about an hour long. Last year, like crazies, we waited in line for 3 hours to see him! So this morning Andon asked "are we going to the long or the short one!?" haha! :)

Here they are waiting for Santa...


Andon has been so interested in Santa this year. Asking lots of questions and wanting to know whether he is real or not. All I ever say is "what do you think?" So when Santa came walking out this morning I saw him inspecting and watching, trying to decide what he thinks.

To my surprise, Santa came right over to Andon. He asked his name and invited him and Adelyn over to talk.

He was so very sweet and kind to my kids. It was adorable! He asked Andon what he would like for Christmas this year and Andon tell's him The Joker Castle. Well, he told me last week that he was going to ask Santa for Lego World Racers!! So that is what Santa already got! Guess we'll be going to the store again. :)


I was able to take my own pics and as many as I wanted to. Love that! After Andon had a chance to talk with him we put Adelyn on his lap too. She didn't have a problem with it at all! She was very interested in him and what this was all about.


These are my favorites... :)


When we are all done, Santa asked Andon if he could have a big hug. He told Andon that it made his day to meet him today and that he was a very special boy. It was so sweet!

And the verdict is in... As we were walking away he say's "oh yeah, he's real Mom and he made my day too!" :)