christmas cousins

nana thrills on shopping for her grandkids all year long, but she definitely gets the christmas-attire bug! it mattered not that i already had their christmas clothes covered (thanks to super consignment deals!)... nana could not resist buying the girls these matching dresses. and ethan's velour sport coat with the coordinating tie was also calling her name. :) i've joked that the girls have "advent dresses" this year because they have a different dress for every sunday in december! the kids surprised us by completely cooperating for this photo shoot... we were done within a matter of minutes! none of us could believe it! now i'm hoping the kids will be just as willing for our family picture!

kickin' off christmas with cookies!

it's christmas time! i can't believe it! we have been anxiously awaiting the arrival of december, and here it is already halfway over! we have been planting some roots for some precious family christmas traditions this year, and i cannot wait to share those with you. but for now, i will start my christmas blogging with our church's cookie exchange! we began this last year, and it looks like this ladies' event is well on its way to becoming a christmas tradition!

before getting down to business with the cookies, we enjoyed a delicious salad luncheon. several ladies in the church took time to decorate tables with their fine china and christmas decorations, and the tables were beautiful! the table that was chosen as "prettiest table" was also my favorite. if you know me at all, you will know why i loved this table....


this mug has my name written all over it....


another table had these beautiful flowers towering above it.


i was drawn to sit at the red plaid table... before i even knew that my dear friend tammy had decorated it! (did you know i liked red!?) i made sure to take a picture of my place setting before i got it all messy. :)


here are all the women at my table. it was nice to sit with some gals that i chat with often and some ladies that i don't get to visit with often enough. we all had our faces filled with food most of the time, but it was a blessing to be together.


i was tasked with organizing the games for this party, and i think everyone had fun with them. we started off with a simple icebreaker, a "christmas a to z" game. the first table to think of something "christmas-y" for every letter of the alphabet won! this was pretty easy, though my table got hung up on "q".


the next game was pretty hilarious. i asked for two volunteers from each table to compete in a gift wrapping competition. the teams all grabbed their supplies and picked out their wrapping paper. they all got ready to go, and i stopped the action. i announced, "before we get started, i need you to all put down your scissors and tape. each partner on the left, take your right hand and put it around the waist of your team member. each partner on the right, take your left hand and put it around the waist of your team member. this is called siamese gift wrapping!" i cracked up at how surprised everyone was about this!! so each team had two hands to use to wrap the present-- one woman's right hand, and the other woman's left hand. oh how entertaining this was! (this would be doubly hilarious to see men do this!!! actually, just to have a men's gift wrapping competition in general would be pretty funny!)




i was shocked at how quickly the teams finished wrapping! we awarded one team the prize of "fastest wrapping" and another team the prize of "best wrapping". andrea and ashley in the stylin' tinsel headbands won "fastest wrapping", while tammy and kristie were just behind them. jen and heather were awarded "best wrapping". and they should have won it! they were by far the slow-pokes. (or po-folks, as ethan would say!) here's my silly friends with their prize-winning package!


you know, i just had them wrap empty boxes, but the next time i do this, i could save some time wrapping and have them wrap my actual presents! :) haha!

the final game we played was the left-right game. someone generously donated ornaments for everyone at the cookie exchange, and we passed the ornaments back and forth as i read a nativity-version of the left-right game. the way this works is that whenever you hear the word "left" or "right" in the story, you pass the ornament (or gift) that way around your table. i didn't get to take any pictures of this because i was reading the story, but i heard lots of laughter as these ornaments went round and round the tables! here's an excerpt from the story...

Some shepherds who lived RIGHT near Bethlehem, were out at night RIGHT in their fields watching over their sheep. RIGHT then, they saw a bright light. The light was so bright that they had to close their eyes. When they opened them again, a beautiful angel was standing RIGHT in the sky RIGHT above them with his arms LEFT opened wide. The shepherds looked RIGHT at each other and were LEFT feeling very afraid.

Then the angel spoke RIGHT to them. "Do not be afraid. I'm RIGHT here to bring you the good news LEFT for all people. Today RIGHT in Bethlehem a baby has been born, He is the RIGHT one, the one that will save the world. You will know the RIGHT baby because He will be LEFT wrapped in cloths, and laying RIGHT in a manger."
when the story is over, whatever ornament (or gift) you are holding is the one you keep! it's a pretty fun way to do a gift exchange. there are several different versions of left-right stories that you can use. the nativity one is really long compared to others i've seen, but i liked it the best.

ok, ok, on to the reason for this shin-dig: cookies! here is my plate of, well, they're not really cookies, but nobody seemed to mind.


i have wanted to make these oreo bites ever since i first put one in my mouth. i was introduced to these beauties at mops a few years ago, and i had not yet made them. they are incredibly simple, and oh so good... i can't believe i waited this long to roll out these little balls of gold. run right now to the store. grab these ingredients, and whip up a batch of these. you will make new friends.

oreo bites

8 oz. cream cheese
1 box oreos (i used the publix brand that were 1/2 the price of oreos)
milk and white chocolate almond bark or dipping chocolate

-blend together softened cream cheese and oreos in a food processor. refrigerate for 30 minutes.
-roll into balls and refrigerate balls for 30 minutes.
-coat with melted milk chocolate or almond bark (i used baker's dipping chocolate- you will need at least 2 bowls of this, maybe 3. you can also use melted chocolate chips, but they do not dip as cleanly and nicely as the dipping chocolate.)
-drizzle white chocolate over the balls.
-refrigerate and serve chilled.
-makes about 50 bite sized balls that will disappear in no time.
i am making them again for bible study tomorrow night. (yes, tammy, i am saving you some this time!!) i am slightly addicted. and so are my bible study friends.

my sister-in-law made my favorite cookie at the exchange, and i did not get a picture of them. :( maybe because i was too busy eating them?? they were candy cane crisps, and mmmmmmm, they were yummy! i'll try to get that recipe up here sometime soon. kristie, i think you need to make another batch of them so that i can get a picture of them. yeah, that's it. i need a picture. ;)

my good friend jen worked tirelessly to create her childhood favorites: the beautiful bell-shaped sugar cookies at the top of this post. they were just as delicious as they look! and she is right, the bite with the red hots in it is the best bite! :)

here's a look at some other cookies that were there. i do love me some sugar cookies with icing. and the nonpareils are just my most favorite sprinkles ever.


these had a really pretty name, and i've forgotten it. "jelly stars with sugar dusting" does not do them justice. anybody know what they're called?? aren't they so dainty and sweet?


these homemade thin mints won most festive cookie! those were a lot of work! and they were really delicious, too!


there were so many more cookies... i do not even want to know how many calories this table was holding.


after all the fun and games, it was finally time to load up on cookies!


i begged jessica to leave some for me! :) nice beads, jess!


so here's the tin of cookies that made it to my house. my kids were delighted to see me walking in the door with this tin. and not because they love their mother.


and um, if you wanted me to take a picture of my tin now, well, i could.... but it would be um, empty. i mean, the cookie exchange was two weeks ago. and that would just be wasteful to not eat the cookies in a timely manner. i may procrastinate in a lot of areas in my life, but cookie eating is not one of them! and the kids helped. they gladly helped!

stay tuned for more christmas fun around here!

amelia is 10 months old!

can someone please stop my baby girl from growing up so that i can catch up on recording all of the things she has been doing lately!??! my camera is my substitute baby book these days. when amelia does something new, i just run and take a picture of it real quick. even if it's not a "keeper" picture, i can at least go back and look at the date for when she pulled up or for her first table food.

speaking of table food, amelia did enjoy some broccoli a few weeks ago for the first time. i am pretty sure she had more fun eating it than the restaurant staff had cleaning up the mound of broccoli below her chair. i did not care... i was so happy that she was so happy. (she was missing a nap at this point, and the broccoli was a wonderful distraction!)


amelia is learning a few baby signs, and she surely has gotten the hang of "more"! at first, she would sign "more" all the time just because she got a smile out of me. now she is using it to ask to eat. we are working on the sign for "eat", but she will sign "more" after her nap when she is hungry. she does it pretty insistently, but she keeps a smile on her face the whole time!

she is jibber-jabbering all throughout the day. she is saying "dada", and lately she has been working on "mama". she loves to wave bye and usually has a smile on her face. we are enjoying watching her learn new things, and i can't believe that she will be a year old before too long! she is getting more hair, and there's even a part in the back that is trying so hard to curl.

we stayed as busy as ever in november, so i'll just share a few pictures of our sweet girl from last month. this one is probably the heart-melter of the month...


i'd been meaning to get pictures of the girls in these matching dresses all summer, and i never did get around to it. one warm day last month, i finally took some shots. i love the one of amelia watching caroline dance.




amelia modeled some hats for kristie's etsy site...


and then aunt kristie made amelia her own hat that matches caroline's! i love it! (we'll see if the flower survives three months in a car seat with amelia...)



UPDATE (12/12/09): the people have spoken. click here to find kristie's etsy site. she is happy to fulfill custom orders. she is super good at custom orders. (she's super good at pretty much anything.) tell her you found her through tenlittletoes! her yarn is so soft, and it washes well. and it gets chewed on well. amelia has been the devoted tester on that one! (and who noticed the hair stuck to amelia's chin in that last picture!? i didn't notice it till the other day...)

amelia keeps herself busy throughout the day. whether it is getting stuck...


playing peek-a-boo....


or discovering her toys...


...amelia continues to be a content baby. she does keep us on our toes as she attempts to get into everything she isn't supposed to. the kids are learning what toys are amelia-proof and what toys need rescuing. we get creative with ways to block her from their legos or train tracks set up in the living room. just today, ethan told me that we needed to set up a "bear cave" (barricade) for amelia! ha! i have yet to ever use a baby gate in this house, but i have created some award-winning barricades in the last 4 months. (for the record, we don't solely depend on barricades to keep amelia where she needs to be. we are training her to obey us! but it is a work in progress, and with two other children needing my attention, her safety sometimes requires a barricade.)

before long, amelia will be walking and talking. wow. i still feel like i just gave birth to her! (without the sleep deprivation and pain, of course.) we are looking forward to celebrating amelia's first christmas with her. we've already hung her first ornament on the tree, and she is waiting to get cozy in her "first christmas" pjs! so stay tuned for all of that christmas tradition fun!! as for now, i've gotta go see what amelia is getting into!

thanksgiving fun

every year, i get a little sad for thanksgiving. as soon as we've digested the turkey, we start gearing up for christmas. don't get me wrong, i do love christmas. and maybe that's the problem. we're so excited that christmas is coming that we shove thanksgiving to the side. i don't know... i just wish thanksgiving and christmas were a little further apart so that we would take more time to really focus on thanksgiving. (even then, i guess we'd just start our christmas planning a little early!) before the christmas busy-ness takes over the rest of the month, i wanted to share a few of my favorite pictures from thanksgiving this year.

the kids and i started off the week of thanksgiving by making these cute hand and foot turkeys. (not to be confused with hand, foot, and mouth disease! been there! done that!)


while the kids did enjoy making the turkeys, i think they were more excited about the glue sticks than the actual craft itself.


on thanksgiving day, we headed over to brian's parents' house to get ready for lunch. jeff & kristie were out of town this year (we missed them!!), and we invited our friends sam, jen, lola, and amelia to feast with us. here is the loaded table...



this boy is ready to eat!


lola loves those olives! and this picture makes me want to say, "olive you, lola!" i do love this girl. she plays so well with my kiddos, and she just steals your heart. you really can't help but adore her. (and she's turning 3 on saturday!)


after we finished our delicious feast, we relaxed and played the wii. jen beat me and brian at tennis, though her husband finally put her in her place. :) thanks, sam!! here is jen beating my socks off in tennis.


i should have given up on the wii and just joined the girls' tea party. as soon as they sat down, lola exclaimed, "we need to pray!" and then my little stinker knew she was being funny by pulling her hat down over her eyes during the prayer. this picture just cracks me up.


this was my view of jen most of the day! (and she could probably say the same thing about me!) she is loving her canon 50d, and she got some great shots of our turkey day. some of these pictures are hers. i'm using them with permission. though i did tilt and process and mess with them all. i didn't have her permission for that. :)


and we did make the turkey cookies! the kids had a lot of fun with these, though they needed our help with the fine details. caroline did not need anyone's help digging into the icing on numerous occasions before we were finished decorating them. here are the kids with the finished turkeys.


the cookies didn't turn out quite like the pictures, but the kids didn't seem to mind.


lola enjoyed every second of eating that cookie. and caroline is not taking her eyes off lola!


ethan was very proud of his creation. he put the candy corn on all by himself.


we all got a big laugh out of the fact that caroline chose pink eyes for her turkey. as if our family has not had enough of pink eye this month! apparently, this turkey's pink eye was pretty bad, and it spread to both eyes. honestly, by the looks of that turkey, pink eye is the least of its worries!


i know i posted our little thanksgiving play already, but i wanted to share a few pictures that jen took during the play. caroline was not satisfied playing the general role of "pilgrim girl". therefore, she played the part of "pilgrim girl who did not like her hat".





she eventually put a smile on her face... i'm pretty certain this was after she found out that there was bread involved.



oh man, i could eat these girls! they do love each other.


here's one more shot of ethan as pilgrim man/william bradford/abe lincoln/whoever.


little miss amelia napped through all of thanksgiving lunch and for most of the afternoon. see her sweet thanksgiving bib?! my mom found that last year after thanksgiving, and i've been waiting all year for her to wear it!



she is not so sweet in this one!



some thanksgiving kisses from my baby girl.



i love my three turkeys!



we filled this thanksgiving weekend with friends and family! on wednesday, one of my dearest high school friends came over for lunch with her husband and niece and nephew. i had not seen melissa since my wedding, and i was so thrilled when she told me she'd be in town for the week! i loved meeting her husband, and the kids really hit it off well. we played the fishing worm game (leftover from caroline's party) and dug out all the kids' dress-up clothes. and i loved seeing my friend. melissa is the same down-to-earth, beautiful, encouraging friend that i remember from high school. i hope that our next visit is not 5 more years down the road!!

melissa and her husband, arturo- aren't they a beautiful couple?!


dr. ethan checking melissa's vitals- she is a doctor, so ethan dressed up as a doctor for her. :)


finishing off those gummy worms from her party! our guests were such good sports!


the day after thanksgiving, my grandma, the kids, and i took a drive to see my great aunt and uncle and their kids, grandkids, and great-grandkids for the day. we do this every year, and i always look forward to this visit. the guys are always so great about entertaining my kids, and this year was no different. here is micah humoring my kids in a game of war.... later, ethan played football with all the guys. he had a blast.


and everybody always loves the babies. this was amelia's first time to meet most everyone out there. and she charmed everybody as usual... here she is loving on "uncle" terry. she had a field day with his beard! sorry terry!


the next day, we took another day trip to see brian's grandparents and aunts and uncle. ethan and caroline had so much fun singing and playing with everyone there. here is caroline beating aunt joanie in a game of go fish.


and the smile on grandmommy's face as she held amelia made it worth the trip.


SO! we had quite a busy thanksgiving weekend! we have much to be thankful for! and now that i have finished this blog post, i can officially start celebrating christmas! :)