The Stockings Were Hung...

by the chimney with care, in hopes that Saint Nicholas soon would be there!

Our stockings are hung, the presents are wrapped, and the cookies are baked for Santa. Merry Christmas Eve everyone! I think I may love Christmas Eve even more than Christmas Day, the excitement is so much fun! Can't wait to hear my daddy read the story of Jesus' birth and "The Night Before Christmas" tonight, it is one of my favorite moments each year! I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas celebrating with their families and friends. Happy Birthday Baby Jesus!

My Christmas Cuties!

We have been doing all sorts of fun Christmas things in preparation for the big day. On Monday, we headed to Bass Pro Shop to see Santa. We go every year. They have things decorated beautifully and best of all, you get a free Santa pic. Both kiddos did great and sat with Santa all alone for the pic:




We also did "Christmas Card Pictures" with both kiddos...It is pretty darn tough to get a good shot of Gaby these days...He does this super fake smile that is just horrendous...Then when he tries to correct it, he tries too hard and it is just worse. Izzie is pretty easy if you can get her to stand still...and forget her keeping a hairbow in her hair, even though I make them and she has a gazillion cute ones...she rips them out immediately! Both of them together is difficult. I see why I usually pay good money to have someone else do these shots...but I thought they turned out ok for freebies! They also had their picture made at school and we got the proofs back. The picture of them together was good so I bought it, at least I have one "professional" Christmas shot of both of them...Here are my attempts:








And here are a few of the "outtakes", just so you can see what I was dealing with :)







This morning, we did a "breakfast with Santa" with Nicole, Jackson, Wyatt and more of their family. SO much fun, thank you so much for including us. Both boys got their noses painted like Rudolph and got balloon antlers, they looked adorable!

We Have Walls!

The first wall is up! Saturday 12/10/11


The kids bedrooms are framed! 12/14/11



Things are really moving along on our house! The first wall went up Saturday after Elizabeth's birthday party (more on that later) and now the kiddos bedrooms and bathroom are framed, as well as the back wall...There are temporary stairs built down to the basement. You can really see the size of the rooms now and where the windows and doors go and it is fun to plan where we are going to put things! I cannot wait to live here!!!!!! We will have TONS of room, more than one tiny bathroom, and the entire house will be the same temperature!

Birthday Pics

We celebrated with a mini-party Tuesday night with mom and dad. We did presents first b/c we knew she would require a bath after the cake. She got some adorable outfits, a comforter set/sheets for her room in our new house, and 2 cupcake toboggans that I wish would fit me and MeMe b/c I would have bought us both a set too! She will open a few more presents from us at her party on Saturday. She was not into opening the presents at all, but of course, Gabriel was right there to help her!

Elizabeth was hilarious with her smash cake. She delicately placed her fingers in it at first, I think she had no clue what to do because I don't usually let her get all nasty. But then once she got going, she had a blast and had it everywhere. She washed all that icing down with what else? Diet Sundrop! I ordered a pink/purple smash cake, thinking in my head, pastel pink and purple...But obviously I should have specified PASTEL. The icing was everywhere and even stained mom's vinyl high chair! We had to put Iz in the tub after she was finished! Lots of fun and can't wait until the big party on Saturday!

Happy 1st Birthday Sweet Baby Girl

Wow, Elizabeth is officially 1! Where has the time gone?????