11 Years

11 years married. Love you, love you, love you Doug. =)

Merry, Merry!

The kids were so excited Christmas morning. Doug had to work a mid on Christmas Eve, which means he works from 11pm -7am. He was able to get off an hour early and head home at 6 to find the kids and I all piled up in our bed. Noah didn't realize right away that it was Christmas morning and I had to ask him if he remembered what day it was. He was like "Did Santa come?!?!" So we went to see! Grammy and Papa were waiting on us to get up and come see what was under the tree. Noah was so excited to find that Santa had brought him the Battle of Endor Star Wars battle pack, Darth Vader's ship and also Anakin Skywalker's ship. He said as he sat to check everything out "This is just what I asked for!!" Rachel found that Santa had brought her a new baby, a changing table and a dog with kennel and vet supplies. She was very excited to start playing and changing diapers. We had a great day and the kids played with their new toys all day. Thank you to those of you who sent gifts - the kids loved everything and send their love and thanks along with ours. Noah had a 'Star Wars' Christmas, you could say. Most of what he got pertained to Star Wars and he wouldn't have had it any other way. All day if you asked him what his favorite was he'd say what ever happened to be in his hands at the moment. He especially seems to love his new Millennium Falcon, X-Wing Fighter, his action figures and his Star Wars pop-up book. Rachel loves her changing table, high chair and crib that she can play with her baby dolls with. We spent the day watching the kids play, watching Star Wars (ofcourse) and eating... lots of eating. I hope you all had a great day with your family and friends. We missed everyone who wasn't with us - but know that you were all here in our hearts. We love you!

Merry Christmas!!!

Hope you all had a great day spent with people you love. ;) Lots of pictures up soon.

T'was the Night Before Christmas...

... and all through the house... the kids danced like monkeys with cookies in their mouths! ;) Tradition - the kids get a plateful of 'Santa' cookies on Christmas Eve at our house. There are lots of traditions we like to take part in at Christmas time and we have done this one every year since Noah's very first Christmas. Had to stick a couple of photos of Phoebe in there to... she's such a sweetie. The kids also tracked Santa with Doug earlier this evening on NORAD and when we checked, he was in Italy. Tonight we snuggled in for Dr. Suess's "How the Grinch Stole Christmas", read The Christmas Story and a few other Christmas books and got the kiddies tucked into bed. Looking forward to seeing the kids reaction in the morning... Merry Christmas!

Christmas Eve

Just a couple of quick photos of the kiddos. They are sooooo excited about Santa Claus coming tonight. It's all Noah can talk about and it's cute to see. For those of you celebrating tonight, I hope you all have a wonderful holiday with your family and for those of you celebrating tomorrow I hope you have a Merry Christmas as well! We will be opening presents tomorrow morning and sharing our day with Doug's parents. We can't wait to see you guys!

More Cookies.... Christmas Cookies!

So... it was a busy day. ;) Besides all the 'regular' stuff we usually do on Saturdays we also made Christmas Cookies (You know, the ones of the sugar variety with the gobs of icing... that the kids love to smear all over them). Noah has decided he prefers gingerbread to sugar cookies (yes, we made a new batch of those yesterday) but he likes making the sugar cookies more. He must have gotten some serious kind of sugar high off of the cookie dough he ate too, because as the cookies were baking the kid was going crazy and dancing with the shakers of sugar. Rachel tends to eat way more of the decorations than actually doing any decorating... Love that "Oooops, you caught me stealing a taste" look on her face. Also had to include a few photos from a light saber battle with my boy and Rachel checking out some new books Janet sent to her and Noah. They loved looking at each and every book tonight. Thanks Janet! =)

Dear Santa...

In his own words:

"Dear Santa,

Please bring me Star Wars ships and action figures, games, transformers, and for Rachel, a pink dog, and a baby and Melmo.

Love,
Noah"

Melts my heart...

Just for Fun -- Homemade Ornaments

We made salt dough ornaments tonight to paint and hang on the tree. I was talking with my friend who recently moved and she was saying how most of their ornaments were packed away at the house for sale here in Arkansas and I was telling her that she and her son could make salt dough ornaments. I rememer making these as a child myself and enjoying the process just as much as the finished product... plus you get a keepsake or two (or 15, ha!) out of it. The dough mixes up in literally a matter of a very few minutes and Noah was able to roll it out and cut out the shapes he wanted with cookie cutters. It was cute because as he was cutting them out he was telling me that he wanted to send specific ornaments to certain people. I thought that was cute that he was thinking of others as he was working at it. After baking for an hour the kids went at them with acrylic paint and I put a coat of acrylic varnish on to seal them when they were dry. Rachel made a blue and purple star, a blue and purple santa claus and an all white snowman (I added his tiny grin for her) and Noah made all kinds of different ones - a purple music note and reindeer, a yellow star, a green tree, my favorite - a red and white candy cane and several more.

These ornaments literally take minutes to mix up and 45 minutes to an hour to bake. You can paint them or let the kids color them with markers. We have several that didn't get painted that Noah wants to color tomorrow. For those of you that may be interested in making them with your little ones --

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/96056/christmas_ornament_dough_recipes_for.html

Candy Cottage

The kids decorated a gingerbread house tonight. Noah helped me decorate a gingerbread train last year and loved it. He remembers that and has been asking me to do a gingerbread house or Christmas tree this year so tonight was the night. I did the icing and the kids did the rest. I was amazed at how intricate Noah was trying to be (he kept telling me when I did something that wasn't like the picture on the box - please don't let him be obsessive/compulsive like me when it comes to things like that...). Rachel ate waaaaaaaaaaaay more candy than she helped put on the cottage. In fact, she decorated her little christmas tree and gingerbread man really cute and then immediately picked the candy back off of them and ate it! The girl just cracks me up. Noah seemed to have a lot of fun sticking the candy on and stealing bites of icing here and there. He much prefers the icing to all the candy bits.