Day 358

CHRISTMAS!

Here are the boys on Christmas morning all excited and ready to open their presents.

Day 355

Last night was Ryan's school concert. I volunteered to run a raffle/game table and bake sale table. It was quite crazy, but a lot of fun. Here I am with my "Lucky Candy Canes" game and prize table.

Day 352

Today I made a cake for Ryan's school Christmas lunch tomorrow. It's vanilla cake with a raspberry filling. I had the idea for this cake in my head for a few weeks and I'm really happy with the way it turned out.

Day 347

Newman insisted on going outside today, this is how I found him a few hours later. Silly cat.

I did some secret Christmas baking for Wally today. My presents for him suck this year so I figured I'd make him something he likes. This is Orange Crunch White Chocolate Bark. It's white chocolate, vanilla rice crispies, orange extract, and candied orange peel all mixed up, spread on a parchement lined cookie sheet and then broken up into pieces. the secret ingredient of course is love :)

Day 344

I had found matching Christmas PJ's for the boys so I tried to get some pictures of them together in them. Ryan is great for pictures. Alex....not so much. I took 48 pictures and these are the only 2 that look decent.

Here they are doing what I also loved doing as a kid...lying under the tree and looking up at the lights.

Day 341

The Christmas baking has officially begun. Here are my mini pecan pie cupcakes. Any that fell apart ended up in Mine and Alex's bellies. Yum! 'Tis the season to gain 5 pounds!

Day 340

We finally put up all the Christmas decorations today. Alex loved it. I think this is the first year he really gets it. Every time I turned some lights on he exclaimed "Yay! Lights! You did it Mom!" he also kept telling us how beautiful everything was. He's too cute at this age.

We also finally threw out the halloween pumpkins much to Ryan's dismay. Wally wiped the snow off of this one and some of it stayed in the carved parts. I thought it looked neat so snapped a pic.

Day 335

I made this little snowman today from a tutorial I found online. I'm either going to add a string to him to make him an ornament, a pin so he can be worn, or a magnet so he can hang on the fridge.

Day 333

Tonight I got everything ready for the Elf's arrival. I also started a new blog chronicling the next 24 days with Elfie, which you can find here:
Project Elf 24

Day 328

I found this car decoration at the dollar store. Rudolph the red nosed Sunfire. Hmmm...How embarassed will Wally be driving with me? :P

Day 323

Today I needed to pick up some new carpeting for the stairs at a near by store. On Wednesday we got the flyers and the one from this store said that "Santa" was going to be there greeting kids and giving them a little toy today. So I packed up the kids and braved the crazy winds. Alex ran right up going "Santa! Santa!" and he gave Santa a big hug. Last years Santa was a bit scary and Ryan was apprehensive about seeing him again, but they got a new guy this year and Ryan was a lot more at ease with him. One of the employees took some pictures of the boys, and she will send them to me by email. This is the one I got before they wanted to open their present.

Day 321

I got some spiced pine cones at the dollar store and have them set out in the living room. Now the house is starting to smell a lot like Christmas. Only 44 days left!

day 318

I found a new elf for my Elf on a Shelf project today. He has wire in him so I can pose him. I tried to pose the other one, but he just kept flopping over all the time, so he's not going to cut it.

 

Alex decided to decorate Julian...

Emma being a lap cat

Day 311

I'm going to be doing a cute little thing with the boys this Christmas that I heard about on the internet. It's called "Elf on a Shelf". Basically you buy a stuffed toy elf and tell the kids that Santa sent him here to keep an eye on them and report back to the North Pole every night on their behaviour. At night when the elf comes to life, after his trip back to the house, he can sometimes get bored and mischevious, so in the morning when the kids wake up and he freezes, he will sometimes be found doing silly things. I can't wait to do this. It will be great to tell the kids "Is this something the elf should be telling Santa about?" whenever they misbehave. I'm also already thinking up some funny things they can find him doing in the morning.

This is the elf I found at the store today, and the tag he had also had a little description on how he helps Santa. He's a little small though as it says he's basically an ornament. I'm going to keep looking for something that might be bigger or will be easier to position.