The long Awaited White Stuff

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas this year! Leading up to ours was a little bit of a whirlwind, but once the plane landed and I saw my family I breathed a sigh of relief--time to relax and really enjoy the week before Christmas! We baked cookies, wrapped presents, enjoyed their anual church concert (with many visitors in attendance!), did a little last minute shopping and just enjoyed the Christmas spirit. The strange thing was, it was all done with fairly warm weather and no snow! We had a green, sunny, beautiful Christmas and finally today--over a week later--we saw the beautiful white stuff on the ground. My kids were so excited and actually played outside much longer than I thought they would. They loved it!

 I just love this one, because anyone who has bundled up little kids knows how stiff and awkward they can be with all their layers on. It's too cute. :)

I'll be doing a nice, long post of our Christmas--eventually. :) For now, enjoy your week and Happy New Year!

The Cookie Project (Part 1)

I rarely bake for just us. I don't buy pre-packaged cookies, either, so we don't have many sweets around here. The extent of what we get is "Mommy's Chocolate" because I always have a stash of that in the freezer. However, around this time of year, I go all out. I actually started mid-November this year in preparation to make cookie trays, put them with tracts and give them to friends and neighbors. At this point I have around 20 dozen assorted cookies in my freezer. Peanut Butter Blossoms, Toffee, Peanut Butter Balls, Chocolate Pretzel bites, Russian tea cakes and sugar cookies are all tightly packed in my extra freezer right now. The last thing to do before we could complete the trays was frost the cookies.

The kids each got their own little plate to frost and decorate.

This is some serious business right here.

So neat and precise...

and so 2 year old looking. Love it.

It wasn't long before he was eating frosting. I think he is becoming famous for eating while we are cooking!

Her finished product

and his :)

In the meantime, I was frosting snowflakes--and look at the pile I had left!

I just bought the snowflake cookie cutter this year. I love it!

I seriously could not fit all of the cookies in the frame of my camera. It took me hours to do all these. I can't wait to see the trays all put together, spreading the good news about what Christmas is all about!

We are really enjoying our Christmas centerpiece this year. At least I am :)

A funny story, that night we went out to do some Christmas shopping and left the cookies just like this. When we got home I immediately noticed a few cookies were overturned and upon further inspection, a few eaten, some licked and some with tiny paw prints in them. There were tiny frosted paw prints on the kitchen table as well. Somehow Buddy weaseled his way up there and got into the cookies! Thankfully the damage was minimal and I was able to laugh-not cry-after all that hard work!

I am hoping to get to post the finished trays that we assemble before I leave, but if not, it will be up here soon. :)

A Marshmallow World

"Stop and get some twigs off a tree," I texted Nate on his way home. "We can roast marshmallows!" We have to appreciate the cold days around here because they are few and far between. Starting a fire and enjoying it in our decorated living room is just one of the ways we love doing that--so roasting marshmallows would just make it better. :)

While the fire rose to a good marshmallow-roasting-temperature, we broke out some locally made kettle corn that Nate brought home from a church event and snacked on it. Yummy!

Little popcorn face

I love this picture. She adores her daddy more than anyone else in the world!

Brooklynne was the first one to get to roast her marshmallow. As you can see by the look on her face, she was delighted!

Roasting marshmallows is serious business

Our poor, poor, poor doggie got shaved. And by shaved I do mean shaved. His face looks cute but his body is tiny and rat-like, and I mean that in the nicest rat-like way possible. We still love him though...enough to buy him a Christmas sweater so he won't freeze!

I think this may have been the first time my kids have ever tasted roasted marshmallows. The loved them--what kid doesn't?!

Buddy get's a lot of people food around here. :)

Mommy gets a lot of people food too--I could just eat my babies all day, one tiny nibble at a time. They make my life! This night was so special, because in the very busy Christmas season, I love making time to make memories with the most important people in my life. Parties and Christmas concerts and shopping are great--but this is what really makes the holidays for me.

And the icing on the cake? A little Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, belting out the classic's I grew to love at a very young age. 

In all of your business this season, don't forget to take time to make lasting memories with the ones you love the most. This was something as simple as a $1.00 bag of marshmallows but it was one of the best things I'll do in the month of December!

Pizza's, Parties and Pounding Headache's

We are SA-LAMMED this year with parties, photo shoots, church events, extra music practices, Dr.'s appointments and just the normal life on top of it all. It's easy to get overwhelmed with all I have going on, especially because I leave 6 days before Christmas so I have to cram even more into the time I'm here.

 However, I'm really trying to make this a fun Christmas season for the kids since they are both old enough to really understand--and, they're at easy ages, so we aren't as tied down by nap times, bed times, etc. I found a cute idea online about making Christmas-shaped pizza's and thought it would be so much fun to do with the kids.

(click on any picture to see all the pictures in this post in album form)

An awesome part about these pizza's was that I made whole wheat dough and the veggie's were the decorations--so they were super healthy!

 First up was our snowman

 I gave the kids piles of "snow" (aka mozzarella cheese) and they covered him well.

 He kept eating the cheese. What a surprise.

 Olives, carrots and zuchinni finished off our edible guy.

 Isn't he cute?

 Next was the Christmas tree, which in my opinion was oddly shaped, but I did the best I could.

 Us with our finished products...the kids LOVED making (and eating) them!

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On Monday evening we had a big young couple's party at our house. This is the second year in a row we've hosted it, and while it's a lot of work, it's so worth it for the great time we have!

Another cool centerpiece idea! Fill a vase with ornaments, water and floating candle. I put mine on a platter and put greenery and berries around it too.

This year I found lots of cute "Christmas" recipes to pass around for people to make. This one actually came out of taste of home--it was a delicious ranch dip. The funny thing was, no one wanted to mess him up and eat him! :)

 Because there were so many people, I wasn't able to get pictures of everything, but a little while into the food line I grabbed a picture of this veggie tray Christmas tree...

 A caramel cheesecake dip with heath and chocolate...this recipe is a keeper for sure!

 A chocolate mint roll made with andies mints--beautiful and delicious!

 I think including our babysitters who were upstairs wit the kids, we had 50 people in the house. So much fun!

 The gift exchange was fun because gifts could be stolen, but only 3 times. As usual there were the popular gifts that everyone wanted, like an ipod docking station, ULTA gift card, TX Roadhouse gift card, etc!

 Hosting and being a photographer doesn't really work too well, but I did manage to get someone to take a quick picture of me and my man :)

 Steve and Kelly

 Anthony and Nicholle

Sadly, I have no other "couple" pictures of the wonderful friends who filled our home that evening, but it was a great night filled with lots of laughs, way too much food (I woke up with a pounding headache the next morning from all of it--sugar, fat and salt--not a good combo when I don't normally eat much of it) and a great devotional by our Pastor about what we can add to our marriage to make it sweeter.