Our December...

***Note: My camera is acting crazy (maybe its time for a new one!) so I'm sharing pictures that my S-I-L, Alicia, and my M-I-L, Linda, took during our Christmas celebrations. And they are huge, but I'm not going to figure out how to make them smaller.***

I have a million things swirling in my mind. I want to share about what we've been up to. I want to share some things on my heart and in my head. I want to share pictures of my sweet little family. I want to record memories for me (and my family). I could go on.

None of my girls like Santa. There were many tears shed over him during this season. But Mika seriously has the cutest sad face ever!


I've had an incredibly busy December. I would say it is the busiest December I've ever had (and that includes those three Decembers I was in Law School).

Laila, during Santa's visit to our family Christmas party.

I literally did not give myself any free time during the month. My Christmas gift to myself was to have this week off. Too bad I have a nasty cold/sinus infection thing so that I can't really enjoy it.

Love this girl!

But we survived December. Praise God!

And we even managed to enjoy it.


God answered our prayers and only one of us came down with the vicious stomach bug. I spent every waking minute for two whole days begging Him to spare the rest of us while Peyton was sick and he answered my prayers.


We've all had colds and sinus infections over the past month. But I'll take colds over the stomach bug any day!

This was not posed.... she LOVED that snowglobe and stared at it for the longest time with this sweet smile on her face. 

I have spent the last month (well actually the last two months) painting and filling orders for Christmas. I've enjoyed every minute of it. I still can't believe God has given me this artistic gift and that I actually make things that people want. I'm blown away! So if you have ordered something, thank you from the bottom of my heart.


We enjoyed all of our different family Christmas celebrations. My girls were blessed beyond belief with the gifts from our family and friends. Which brought about one of the things that is on my heart. I'm thinking I'll write a separate post on that. :) I have to say, being a parent is the greatest gift EVER. I've never been as overjoyed or excited or just plain happy as I have been this holiday season - watching my girls enjoy Christmas, making Christmas memories with them, starting Christmas traditions together, seeing their eyes light up in not only receiving their gifts but in choosing and giving gifts to others - I really think it is far better being a parent at Christmas than it is being a child.


I know how blessed we are to get to enjoy Christmas in so many ways and I do not take our blessings for granted. In fact, I have been so very emotional and my heart has felt very burdened this Christmas season. We have spent much time praying as a family for all of the people who didn't get to have the same kind of Christmas we did.


I guess I don't need to get into too much detail about our December... If I give away all of our happenings now, what would I write about in my next few posts? :) I do have much more time now that I'm not in a mad rush to finish Christmas orders, so I'll be on the blog much more! I have some great posts in my head that I'm hoping to get typed up in the next few days. We'll see.....

And this picture is here because it really isn't a get-together unless there is some photo of me laughing. One day I may do a picture post of all the photos I have of myself laughing. Ha!

In the meantime, enjoy the rest of your December and the rest of 2010.

Back in the Saddle....

Look at me, two consecutive days of posting.... Will I keep it up?

So I've been looking through cookbooks and talking to my grandmother trying to get some ideas for some fun Christmas goodies to make (alone and with the girls). I also get emails from different recipe websites and I've gotten a few ideas from there.

I'm thinking of trying some new things this year - caramels, fudges.... who knows! I'm so selective with the foods I like that most Christmas goodies don't appeal to me. I do love Christmas cookies (we've made two batches and EATEN two batches so far this season). And I could make myself sick on chocolate covered pretzels. Oh the chocolatey-salty goodness.


So I'm wondering..... What are your favorite Christmas goodies? What do you love to bake and what do you love to eat???? Maybe y'all have some ideas I haven't thought of yet. So let me know! I'm going to try to take pictures and share with y'all our Christmas baking adventures.

Happy Thursday!

Merry Christmas!

Wow. Life is so busy for me right now. I realize I haven't blogged in an age but I honestly have not had time to sit down and write. I have no excuses, but I do have explanations :)

I have three girls - and one of them just took her first steps today! She's super-mobile people! Yikes. :) Check out this hilarious picture of Mika Lynn - we took it in the window of a store in the mall we were in on Saturday night. Hahaha! I laugh every time I see it. 

I'm dealing with some personal issues that may not exactly be time-consuming but are definitely thought-consuming. I won't get into it but I will say that being a wife and a mom and a sister and a daughter and a woman is HARD y'all.

All of my free time (which is the time after the girls go to bed at night) is spent working on paintings for some sweet people who actually wanted ME to paint something for them. Me? I still can't believe that.

We've been gone so much spending time with family and friends. I love this, but it doesn't leave much time for blogging. Making these memories as a family is much more important though. :)

I got our Christmas cards in yesterday. I've been working on getting them addressed and ready to mail out. This is the first time since Jared and I have been married that we are sending out Christmas cards. Can you believe that?

I could go on. But I won't.

I decided to take the time to blog today at the prompting of a sweet friend's blog post. Elaina wanted us to blog about our favorite Christmas movies. I love Christmas! I love movies! I love Christmas movies! Ha!

So my favorite Christmas movie of all-time is probably Miracle on 34th Street. Oh, I do love this movie. However, I'm a sucker for all Christmas movies. Well, unless they are sad. I am already too emotional around the holidays so I don't like to watch the sad Christmas movies. Anyway, I also love The Grinch and Home Alone and Elf. In fact, the girls and I watched a couple of Christmas movies today.

I'll try to be back before Christmas, but I'm not making any promises. Our schedule is full and I don't see it letting up until after the New Year.

Happy December!

Christmas Eve 2009

Late.... I know! But I want to remember this so I'm blogging it!

The night before Christmas Eve we had Christmas with my husband's family. Always a wonderful time. We came home from that and I got the girls ready and in bed while J went to his parents to get their one, BIG gift from us. It was a kitchen playset. We had looked at it different times and decided it was the perfect gift for us to get the girls together. 

So with the girls in bed, Mom and Dad get out the kitchen. Oh. My. Word. I finally felt like I had been fully initiated into parenting that night. We put that kitchen together until after midnight.... and J even went to Wal-Mart at midnight to get batteries. He absolutely refused to give them a gift without batteries in it. :) 

**Side note-- apparently Wal-Mart is crazy the night before Christmas Eve, J came home and said the parking lot was full (it was midnight) and that he even ran into someone we know! 

We get the kitchen all set up - it took forever but it is a super-cool kitchen and we were so excited to give it to the girls. We finally got to bed around 1am (which is WAY too late for me!). Apparently the girls could sense the excitement because they were up by 6:30 the next morning... crawling into our bed. We all got up and headed into the living room where we had the kitchen set up....

P was bursting with excitement! This was a real smile... not one of her "cheese" grins that she gives when I pull the camera out!

Same for Little Sis.... She LOVED the kitchen! They were both so excited and seriously played with their kitchen the entire morning while I got ready and packed up to leave.

"Look Mom, play donuts!"

"Can I take your order?"

After about 2 hours of straight kitchen playtime... we were ready to get on the road. I called my sister (who was at my Nanny's house) to check on the weather situation. It had been raining for a couple of days and was starting to flood. She informed me that the road in front of Nanny's house was covered in water but it wasn't bad.... BUT she said the toilets weren't working because of all the water. WHAT?

Apparently floods make my grandmother's toilets not work so everyone who was at her house was having to make trips to my mom's to use the bathroom. I asked why they didn't just pack up and go to my mom's house and was told that Nanny wasn't leaving her house. She was always there cooking on Christmas Eve and this year would be no different. 

We head out and actually had to drive through some pretty badly flooded roads. Thank goodness for our Tahoe... and my adventuresome husband who gets a thrill out of driving in scary conditions. I kept seeing houses flooded and abandoned cars on the side of the road and my heart just broke. All I could think was that this was how these people were spending Christmas Eve and Christmas... I spent a lot of that 1.5 hour drive praying for those families and people. 

We finally made it to Nanny's around lunchtime. We spent the rest of the day driving to go to the bathroom, eating too much Christmas food, laughing, playing games, and enjoying time together.... despite the flood outside. 

Stay tuned for the rest of our Christmas Adventures....

It was a Merry Christmas....

Our Christmas was full of surprises and blessings, fun and family, and the most wonderful memories.

We celebrated with most of our family.

We traveled through crazy floods.

We laughed.

I cried.

We ate amazing food.... oh the cookies! Note: being pregnant at Christmas time is NOT good for my weight gain goals :)

We played games.

We saw the wonder in our children's eyes as we celebrated the greatest gift of all.

We shared love with each other by giving gifts, both small and big.

We had toilets that didn't work.

We burned chocolate.

We were most of all incredibly blessed, more than we've ever been, and we didn't take one second of our Christmas Week for granted.

** I have some pictures and many more details that I want to share, mostly because I don't want to forget one moment of this Christmas. But today I'm getting ready to go to the doctor and I have laundry and cleaning to catch up on.... and I'm planning a little something fun for the girls for the week so I'm not sure when I'll get to the LONG Christmas post. But it will come!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!

Merry Christmas Week!

Ok so I didn't get this out last night.... but here you go!

I woke up Monday morning and decided that this week would be called Christmas Week around our house. We are doing something fun to celebrate this special holiday each day this week....

Monday the girls and I did some of this....

I think dipped pretzels may be my favorite Holiday Treat!

And my babies had a sleepover at their cousins' house so Momma could go out and have dinner with some old friends. It was much needed time for Momma and the girls had a blast with their cousins. I had the privilege of eating dinner with 5 of the most fun ladies that I know. We all used to work together before I went to Law School. Everyone has since left the company we worked for and three of them have moved away. It just happened to be that we were all in town this week so we planned dinner last night.

We met for dinner at one of my fave restaurants, US Pizza! Four hours, many glasses of water and tea, a pizza, some sandwiches and salads later we said goodbye. What a blessing to spend the evening with these ladies.... that was a great Christmas present for me! And for those of you who helped me out so I could go, THANK YOU!!

Tuesday morning we went and picked up the girls before J went to work. Those stinkers were SLEEPY so we had a bit of a rough morning, but they both took marvelous naps so they would feel like helping me in the kitchen again!

I wanted to do some fun Holiday baking with the girls this year but I know my limitations! I'm oh so pregnant and my kids are still really little so I knew I had to pick some easy goodies to make. Dipped pretzels - check! Butter cookies - check!

Today we baked a cake for a special family to enjoy on Christmas. And I will make a banana pudding for my dear family to enjoy. We have Christmas with my in-laws tonight and I'm looking forward to it. I have to go through all of my gifts today and separate them into groups depending on where they will need to go.

Christmas Eve we will wake up and open our family gifts at home before heading out to my grandmother's. It should be loads of fun!

I just love decorating for Christmas.... I don't do much but I love what I do! I think the mantle is my most favorite thing.... I made all of our stockings (well my mother made mine when I was a baby and gave it to me to use) and I love to see them hanging each year. I'm searching for the perfect one for Baby M!

I also love our tree.... we have a hodge-podge of ornaments that we hang on there.  And every ornament has a meaning or a story or a laugh behind it. It is such fun when we decorate the tree and talk about each ornament we hang. And the angel on top of our tree will never sit straight so we always laugh as we hang her and just enjoy her leaning to one side all season long. And of course, we don't decorate the bottom part of the tree with ornaments because we have little hands that are very curious!

I hope you all have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!

No Time...

to blog. I have no time anymore. For some reason I can't find much alone time, and when I do it gets filled with things like folding laundry and doing dishes and all those fun things. So today I'm making a little time because I know the rest of this week is going to be CRAZY!

We spent last weekend in Branson with my dad and sister.... Oh the fun! I got most of my Christmas shopping done.... I just have a handful of things left to buy. I try to really enjoy buying Christmas gifts and not stress over it, but I have some gifts I'm stressing over this year. And I hate that. Because Christmas isn't about the gifts that we give each other, it is about the Ultimate Gift that God gave us. I can honestly say that I would be happy if I got zero gifts this Christmas.... all I really care about is enjoying time with my family. And last weekend was all about that! I enjoyed every minute of the weekend.... and so did the girls and my hubby and my father and my sister.

I didn't take many pictures because we were too busy having such fun... but I did get some of the girls eating Krispy Kreme breakfast. They have this precious little donuts and the girls went crazy over them! Pappy knows how to keep those girls happy!

Check out those sprinkles!!!!!!!!!

You can't really tell in this picture, but L was laughing so hard....

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My sweet M-I-L posted this about one of her Christmas memories.... and I got the urge to share one of my most cherished Christmas memories.

Christmas was a HUGE thing with my grandfather. Every year on Christmas Eve he would take us shopping so we could pick out our gifts from him. When we were old enough, he gave us money and would say "You better bring something back - don't just put the money away and save it." Then he would go sit on a bench in the mall while we all shopped. It was wonderful. He also would have my mom take my Nanny into the jewelry store and mom would come tell him whatever Nanny picked out and how much and he would get it for her. He was the sweetest man I've ever known.

When I was 3 or 4 we went shopping on Christmas Eve and he said he wanted to take me to pick something out.... just the two of us. I picked out this baby doll.... it was pretty big (at least to little me) and I thought it was the best thing ever. I believe it was $80 (which is a lot for a baby doll even now) and it was at the first place we looked so Papa wanted us to keep looking before we bought anything. This is probably where I learned to shop around and not to be an impulse buyer. :)

We looked around and I found nothing I wanted.... I only wanted that baby doll. My parents tried to talk me out of it but Papa said I could have whatever I wanted.... so he got me that doll. It was a boy baby doll and I named him Little Max (my Papa's name was Max). I loved that baby as much as I possibly could.

I think about this every Christmas.

Papa passed away in 2005. I miss him terribly, especially around the holidays. He was such an important man in my life, him and my dad. It makes me very sad that my husband never got to meet him because I know they would have thought the world of each other. We didn't start dating until a month after Papa died. I do think it was God's perfect plan that when I lost that important man I was given my sweetie.

So that is one of my most cherished Christmas memories. I love being able to make memories with my children now.... it makes the holiday season even more special. Our annual trip to Branson is one of the newer holiday traditions that I love.

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I know this post is getting long, but I won't be able to post anymore this week so I wanted to share a few more thoughts....

We got the girls' Christmas gift - and it was on sale! We had picked it out but hadn't purchased it yet. Then Sunday we see that it has been marked down about a third of the price so we excitedly bought it!

I never heard back from my doctor last week about the blood work, so I'm assuming all is well and my pain is a muscular problem. It was better over the weekend, which I was thankful for! We are so ready to meet this little girl and it could happen in a little over a month! YIKES!!!! Technically my due date isn't for another 9 1/2 weeks but my babies like to make early appearances..... so she could be here quite soon!

I hope you all have a wonderful week and I pray you make some wonderful Christmas memories this season!

Moving on up....

This will be a short, quick post. I've been waiting to post because we have something exciting going on in our little home this week. But I thought I'd give you all a little preview of what's coming....

Today we are waiting on a new piece of furniture that will enable two of the most precious little girls to move into the same room (and potentially drive their Momma CRAZY!). I cannot wait to get everything set up and come up with some fun stuff to put on the walls. 

I also made Christmas wreaths for the girls' rooms that you can see here. They are the perfect Christmas decorations for my girls - and I can hang them high enough so that they are out of those sweet little hands' reach!

Hope you all have a great Thursday! We'll be busy moving things around and putting my baby in a big girl bed.... be watching for pictures! :)

Getting in the Christmas Spirit...

I start asking to put up Christmas decorations in September.... my sweet husband politely refuses to do it that early. I don't give up though... I keep asking. Every time we are out and see something Christmas, I bring it up again. Well.... last week I saw the Christmas decorations on our town's light poles and I knew it was time! That is always one of the first "signs" of Christmas for me.

So the girls and I decided to go to my mom's for the weekend. We went to a Holiday Craft Show on Saturday. I was disappointed. I am usually one to find way too many things at Craft Shows, but not this time. I did get a darling Christmas gift for my Nanny but that was it. My mom didn't even find much. However, we had a good time and the girls were SO GOOD! What a blessing that was. I forgot my camera so I don't have any pictures :(

I decided to leave the girls with my mom and come home to have a date night with my sweetie. It was so much fun! We had our favorite dinner out, saw some good friends, and came home and watched all of our DVR'd shows (we had quite a few to catch up on). We got up yesterday and went to church and out to lunch. And since the Christmas bug has bitten me I tried to get the hubby in the spirit.... by shopping for gifts for the girls. We figured it was the perfect time to go shopping for them since they were with my mom. We picked out all of their gifts and got some stocking stuffers.

We both were getting so excited while shopping for the girls. It is so much fun to pick out things for our children and dreaming of the joy and excitement they will feel as they open up their gifts. It brings such happiness to us - they bring such happiness to us!

This morning I decided that we would start putting out some of our Christmas decorations.... so during the Little Doll's morning rest time, Big Sis and I got to work. There is a heavy box that I can't get into just yet (I'm hoping to get some help with that after hubs gets home from work) but we got just about everything else out. It isn't much.... but it is enough for us with the girls being so little and curious. We are saving the tree for the weekend after Thanksgiving (which is SO SOON - hello, Thanksgiving crept up on me this year!). I have some wreaths to finish and a stocking to finish making but that should all be done by Thanksgiving! I'm so excited. Christmas is my favorite time of year - I just love the excitement and joy and getting to teach my children about the real reason we celebrate!

I hope you all have a great Monday!

Some info...

So this week is crazy for me.... we have a lot going on and some really fun things this weekend to prepare for.... and this will likely be my only post this week. :(

I have a sick little girl.... just a cold, thankfully. It has us kind of messed up. She hasn't been sleeping well (until last night) and neither have I (with her in the bed next to me, kicking and snoring). And I can tell because I have been struggling this week keeping my sanity and not losing my cool. But she is on the mend.... yay!

Anyway... I wanted to let you all know about my sweet S-I-L's Christmas Giveaway! Go check it out over on her blog. She's getting me in the Christmas spirit! YAY!!

I've even started my Christmas shopping - this is very early for me. I usually don't start until after Thanksgiving because I like to see the Christmas decor around the stores as I shop.... but there have been some things I couldn't resist for my family so I started shopping early!

I also have been working on some fun baby crafts.... I'm thinking of starting a blog devoted to only my creations... what do you think?

Ok.... I really need to get to my list of things to do today. Hope you all have a wonderful day and a wonderful week!