Crazy Christmas Eve!

Christmas Eve was a lot of fun! Grammy spent the day/night with us. During the day, we shopped for last minute items like stockings and other dollar store gifts! We made and ate meat pies! Grammy also took us shopping for a rug for the dining room! This is my favorite gift in the past 10 years. What a difference it makes to the room!!!! It was on clearance at Lowe's! When we got the rug rolled out on the floor, we turned on music and danced! Cadence danced like crazy and even made us dance laying on the floor!

Cadence picked one present off the tree to open from Cooper. She loved her new slinky. Cooper fell asleep and didn't get to chew a present open!This is our Christmas Eve picture in front of our very lovely tree! Next year, we will actually have real ornaments on it (since we bought a bunch after Christmas was over on clearance.)

This is a very condensed version of the day/night, but when I am writing about it 3 weeks after it happened, I just write the main events! Note to self: don't get this behind in blogging our life!

All I Want For Christmas are My Two Front Teeth

On December 23, Cooper had his first two teeth break the skin. The week before he drooled and blew raspberries like crazy. Now, two weeks later, his teeth are visibly showing and are oh so cute!!! His toothless smile was precious and so is his two-teeth-on-the-bottom smile! Cooper having teeth is not so much fun for me. He still likes to nibble on my fingers which can be uncomfortable, but the worst part is that sometimes he gets bored while eating and bites! He has already drawn blood:( I still love you anyway Cooper!

Meat Pie Mania

Christmas Eve day and Christmas we made A LOT of meat pies! I would guess at least 5 dozen! This will last us a few dinners and make my life easier when I can't think of anything to cook (or don't want to!) When Chris and I were "hanging out" (some people called it "dating"), we would eat these for dinner sometimes. This assisted me with growing in love with Chris!!!
Meat pies consist of a yummy, somewhat flaky crust/shell stuffed with ground beef, sausage, onion, green pepper, green onion and cajun spices. There is probably more in it, but Chris made the meat and I made the crust! It tastes excellent dipped in ketchup. Chris wanted me to document Cadence's first meat pie. There is she pressing the dough together after putting the meat inside.

The finished product! A sweet miniature meat pie! Just Cadence's size!!!

Christmas Traditions - Hopefully

For Enrichment night in December, we talked about and shared family traditions of Christmas. It made me think about what traditions we have. Basically, we have none. I really am so boring and don't celebrate holidays well. Now that I am a mother of TWO, I must do better. These are some little things that I did this year that hopefully will become traditions - maybe with a little variation.

Instead of an advent calendar, we made a chain in an attempt to help Cadence be able to see that Christmas is getting closer.

Every day we took a link off, we also added to our paper nativity set that we taped to the wall. We want the kids to know Christmas is about Christ. Santa is just a fun part of his birth celebration. (Cadence painted all the animals, star, stable and everything else.) We also made an ornament. This year, I just bought a kit from the store. On the back, I wrote the name of each kid, age and year. When they move out, they can take their ornament with them. Maybe next year, we will make some from scratch!

Also, we made a bunch of meat pies (to last us many meals throughout the year.) This yummy dish from Louisiana makes my belly have a happy party! We also open one gift under the tree on Christmas Eve. The gifts under the tree BEFORE Christmas morning are from family members. Cadence received a slinky from Cooper. She LOVED it!!! Cadence gave Cooper some dinosaurs and stacking turtles. Cooper loves to chew on them and Cadence enjoys playing with them!
We may add to these traditions next year. I want to make a little book with a picture of our family at each Christmas so we can see how our family grows and changes over the years.

Neighbor Christmas Gifts Gone Awry

I am a horrible gift giver. In the past, I just never wanted to do anything because I don't have anything "cool" to give AND I would want to give to 100 people. It just becomes overwhelming!!!

This year, I was actually going to give small gifts to my friends and neighbors, thanks to my friend at Little Birdie Secrets. She posted recipes for hot cocoa mix and PEPPERMINT marshmallows. PERFECT, I thought!!!

Cooper and I made the peppermint marshmallows and they were EXCELLENT!
Licking the bowl was a little tricky because it was marshmallowy, but well worth the effort!

I made the hot cocoa mix and started bagging it. After I got all of it bagged, I decided to try it myself. It was a good thing! It was SO BLAND!!! I just decided not to do gifts because I was upset.

After Christmas, I went back and read the recipe through again and I noticed that I did not put nearly enough cocoa in the water to do any good. I tried it again with the suggested amount and put a marshmallow in and it was SO TASTY!

We were leaving town the next day and so I didn't get to make a cutesy tag with directions and get the packages delivered. It is now January 6 and the marshmallows are getting harder. Should I still deliver them late? If it is really the thought that counts, then my neighbors should appreciate my efforts, right?

Fancy Family Pictures

We finally got family pictures. I was planning to get them months ago (even had the outfits picked out), but Cadence scrapped her nose and I cancelled. The morning we got these pictures taken, Cooper scraped his face just a little, but we still got them because they were Christmas gifts for our family!

Over THanksgiving, we bought some really cute clothes at the CHildren's Place outlet in Park City. I think the pictures are so adorable! Thanks for JC Penney for doing such an amazing job!!! (Some of the pictures won't turn the right way so you will just have to view them sideways. They are a little blurry too. SORRY.)

Christmas Card 2008

Merry Christmas to ALL OF YOU!!!

This the picture we sent with Christmas cards this year. We decided last minute to send some letters/cards out and if you read my blog, you probably didn't get one because I planned to post this on here about 2 weeks ago.

The letter basically restates what I type about on my blog. Maybe I'll come back and type it in later.