Merry Christmas!

We had a wonderful Christmas this year.  Mamaw and Papaw came to town to visit and spent three nights with us.  Grammy, Grumpa and Uncle Wade joined us for our Christmas Eve church service and dinner at our home afterwards then returned Christmas morning with a special guest, My Papaw who is 93.

We spent Christmas Eve getting ready for Santa, which meant for Connor trying to get off the naughty list and making cookies and Christmas Eve dinner.  We headed to church for service at 7:00.  The kids came home to open their Christmas Eve gift of new pajamas.  Then we had a special treat when Connor sang the 12 Days of Christmas for us.

My two angels in their Christmas best.

At least we all our looking at the camera and have our eyes open, despite Allie's grumpy face.

Opening their Christmas pajamas which is a tradition in our home.

Allie was excited, more so than Connor. 

The best singer I know, singing the entire 12 Days of Christmas for us and might I say he did a wonderful job.

Connor decided right before he went to bed that he needed to leave a special note for Santa next to his cookies and milk.  I guess he really wanted Santa to know he wanted Skylanders.

Christmas morning we woke up to stockings filled and presents left by Santa!  We had a wonderful morning opening gifts and making memories.  After presents we enjoyed lunch; we cheated and ordered lunch from Hubble & Hudson.  I think we are making that a new tradition, it was delicious and easy and not very messy and way more fancy than anything I could have done!  

Connor's gifts from Santa.

Allie also did pretty well from Santa.

The first gift from Connor's stocking, his new Counting Crows CD!!!!!!!

And Allie digging through her stocking.

 While waiting for Grammy & Grumpa to arrive Connor played his new guitar from Santa and Allie rode her scooter all over the house.

And this is what our tree looked like Christmas morning, you can't even see half of the presents on the left hand side of the tree, it was insane.  Apparently everyone was really good this year.

Patiently waiting to open their gifts.

Opening the first gift of Christmas, the Ninja Turtle Sewer Layer from Santa.

One happy boy, he got his Sklanders!

Allie got pretty good at opening gifts this year.

It was a big year for Ninja Turtles at our house.

Uncle Wade's gag gift of the year, his Ryan Gosling book.  While he was filming a movie earlier this year in Austin he worked out at Wade's gym and I'm pretty certain Wade was secretly stalking him based on the daily text updates I received about Ryan Gosling's workout at the gym.

Gingerbread Man Decorators

Yesterday Connor and Allie became gingerbread designers.  They decorated their very own giant gingerbread man all on their own.  These two were pros and knew exactly the look they were going for.  Of course as to be expected Connor and Allie devoured some of the candy for their gingerbread man.

Jingle Mingle

Friday night we co-hosted the 1st annual Creekside Park Jingle Mingle with our friends Nick & Amy Cherry, Ashley & Chad Smith, Keely & Andrew Snyder and Stephanie & Wade Watson.  The evening was so much fun and a really nice addition to the holiday season.  We started the night out at Amy and Nick's with appetizers then moved the party to Ashley and Chad's for a homemade lasagna dinner and killer Sangria made by Andrew.   The night ended at our house with desserts and a shots of whiskey and Sailor Jerry from bartender Michael.  Our lasts guests left at 2:00 a.m. so you know it was a fun party, I can't tell you the last time we've seem 2 a.m.!

Pre-Jingle Mingle, my mom took a picture for us (she was our babysitter for the night).  Of course Allie decided she needed to be in the picture with us, so this is the best we could do.

 I love to bake and I always make too much food for every party I throw.  If course the Jingle Mingle was no exception.

Peppermint bark cake pops.

Homemade peppermint bark, red velvet cookies and hazelnut cookies with white chocolate ganache.

Gingerbread cupcakes.

Hot chocolate cupcakes with marshmallow frosting.

Peppermint bark brownies, can you tell I like peppermint bark.

Snowflake gingerbread cookies.

And mini red velvet cheesecakes.

Our friends Meryl and Ryan were the first guests to our house.  They were originally supposed to be in Indiana where they are from but changed their flight, what a great surprise.  And a bonus they brought baby, Delaney who stayed up the entire party and never made a sound.

And the second guests of the night, my neighbor Samantha.

And then once the party really got going our friend Matt who had an instant love affair with Spencer. He tried stealing Spencer multiple times.   We are now leaving Spencer to Matt in our will as a compromise.  

I'm looking forward to our 2nd annual Jingle Mingle!

Santa Visit

This weekend we made a stop to see Santa at Market Street.  Allie wasn't so sure about Santa at first but then she warmed up to him.  In our attempt to try and make Allie smile we forgot about Connor's smile, so we ended up with not the best picture of Connor.  But that's okay because he is still the cutest thing ever.

Connor told Santa he wanted Skylanders for Christmas and that Allie wanted a baby doll.  I guess we will have to wait until Christmas morning to see if they were good this year.

Christmas Cookies

I've been busy covering our kitchen in flour, icing and glitter sugar; but it was all for a good reason.  Allie had a cookie exchange party with some of her little friends today and I made holiday cookies for our neighbors and friends.

Here are the cookies Allie brought for her cookie exchange.  I wanted them to be pink and sparkly for her but of course Christmas-ey too.

 And here is Missy P on the way to her party with her box of cookies. 

Here are the cookies I made for our neighbors and friends.  We have lots of neighbors and friends in our area so I made over 30 boxes of cookies!

 Here they are all packaged up.

And I owe a big thanks to my friend keely who designed and printed the tags for me!