Anyone Want to Guess What I Got for Christmas?

I've been wanting to learn how to knit....well, my sister got me a set of looms. I'm "hooked" (haaaa)! I went out the day after Christmas and bought yarn. I was going to make Anne Marie a hat...well, she ended up requesting a hat for Ling (her China baby), then Dora, then "Snuffy the kitty"..... I've since made a hat for one more stuffed animal, but I've cut her off at this point. I'm ready to try something else!

Christmas 2009

Well, it's going to be a long post. I've decided to just "get it over with" and post all our Christmas celebrations in one LONG post! So, sit down & get ready for pictures!

This year my poor mom had to work on Christmas day. She works for a local hospital -- she is retiring on 12/31/2009, so they asked if she would work Christmas day. She decided that since it was her last, she's go ahead and give in. So, we decided to celebrate with my family on Christmas Eve. We spent Christmas morning at home just the 3 of us. After our little celebration we went to our Church around 1:00 -- our Church serves a free Christmas dinner to anyone in the community that would like to come. It's something that we think is a GREAT thing that our Church does, and we try to take part in some way every year. Mike and I offered to help clean up this year. After a yummy lunch (workers always get a big plate ... heee) and cleaning up we headed to Mike's parents to celebrate Christmas with them.

Christmas Eve morning we had cousin Naomi over to help us bake special cookies for Santa. The girls made ginger bread men & tree cookies.

Then, it was off to my Moms to celebrate.
This is 3 of the cousins together...so cute!

My middle sister got the girls "Christmas Barbies"...ohhhh boy...I've tried to stay away from Barbies.....just not my thing, but the girls loved playing with them. They would walk around with them "talking" to each other through the Barbie...funny!

The girls having fun opening their gifts (this happened to be candy...the smiles kind of gave it away I think...haaaa)

Then, each family had a little "photo shoot" by Moms tree.

Then, it was back to our house...isn't it great that both parents live within 30 minutes!

Anne Marie in her special Christmas-Eve jammies


We set out Santa's Cookie & Rudolph's apple....

This is what we woke up to Christmas morning.....hmmmm...

Ready to open Santa's gift. We have special wrapping paper that Anne Marie picks out that we leave for Santa to wrap her one gift so that she knows which one is from him.

She got Ballet clothes!! Santa knew just what to get... it will go perfect with the gift that Nana & Mommy & Daddy got her -- Ballet lessons! She's been asking for MONTHS!!

Candy Land!!!

New lady-bug earrings!!

Then, it was off to help at Church....Anne Marie & her friend Mira being BIG helpers getting the flowers ready to take to nursing homes after the Church Christmas dinner! So cute!

Then, it was off to Grandma & Grandpas. We had a birthday celebration there. We got cupcakes to eat & I brought a candle so that we could sing Happy Birthday to Jesus.

Then, it was time for gifts...Ohhh...KaiLan Mega Blocks!!! Yea!!

Then, Grandma & Grandpa had a BIG surprise!!

A "big girl" bike!!!! WhooooHooooo!!

Due to the massive snow still on the ground.... (did I say I was over the snow yet??? Well, if you missed it... I AM!!!) she was not able to ride her bike outside...so Grandpa decided it would be fun to go in the basement. They have a finished basement, however they really don't have anything down there, so it was a good place to ride. And, ride she did...for 1/2 hour!!

We hope you all had a Christmas as blessed as ours!! Now, we're looking forward to our week off with Daddy & bringing in 2010 together!!!

Merry Christmas!!!

From our home to yours....Have a Merry Christmas!!

Remember how blessed we are that there is a REAL reason for this season....and as we celebrate our saviors birth know that we're thinking of all our friends & family!!

A Snowy Birthday Weekend...

So, what an eventful week we've had!! After our little head injury with Anne Marie (see below post) and then Mike's Birthday -- then we ended up getting "a little bit" of snow!!!

This was Mike's birthday cake. It was from the bakery where I worked. My friend and I spent all day Friday working on it..she did such a great job! We wanted it to look as much like his real tennis racket as possible. It was peanut-butter w/ chocolate filling...and covered in ton (TONS) of fondant....Mike's favorite!!! He loved it!!

Then.....................

SNOW!!!!!!! After all was said & done it was about 30 inches. UGH! (This picture was about at 24 inches.) It was fun for the first few days...we spent time inside with hot-cocoa, outside playing, inside with movies, outside shoveling, inside with crafts, and outside measuring...it was AMAZING!!! (I'm over it now by the way!!) But Anne Marie had a blast...

The snow started getting deep!!!

Then it got REALLY DEEP!!!!

Mike even had a hard time moving around in it!

She had to take a taste!

Our mini-van...amazing! It just kept coming down!

Our VERY Eventful Last Day of School...

Friday was our last day of school, until January 4th anyway. I was so excited...I will be off from work during this time as well, and starting December 24th, Mike will be off until the 4th as well!

Friday morning, we woke up excited, with VERY special things planned......

A VERY special Christmas shirt, special Christmas bow, even a special Christmas jingle-bell bracelet from our very special friend Mira.

We had even picked out & packaged very special gifts for our 2 VERY special teachers & all our VERY special friends that are in our class.

But.....this was NOT something we planned on & was NOT VERY special.........

When I went to pick Anne Marie up from school, she came running down the hallway VERY fast to greet me, and ran right into the VERY sharp corner of a table. It was then a MAD rush of CRAZINESS after that..with a VERY VERY VERY worried mommy! We ended up at the emergency room to then be sent to our doctors office...the hit was so hard that it went all the way down to the bone...POOR thing!!! They ended up cleaning it up & gluing it in a few places (inside and out) and we're "watching" it to make sure everything looks good over the next few days. We're praying that all is well after this & there will be NO MORE running in the hallway! Just a side note: She seems to being doing well today (Saturday) she even went out in the snow to play (pictures to come later) and all we've done is give her Tylenol at this point. We're just NOT ALLOWED TO TOUCH IT..or screaming will follow as I'm sure it's VERY sore!!
We are VERY thankful that it was not worse!!

Busy Busy Busy with Christmas Fun

Ok -- I have to say that when we get busy I'm really really bad about posting here! I thought I'd update on a few things we've been doing. NOT TO MENTION that I've been helping my friend with her bakery this past week --- being that it's Christmas AND she's had an order for 45 dozen (yes I said DOZEN) cookies, 4 cakes & more just this week!!! Then, we went to a cookie swap of our own...I will never want to bake cookies again..heee!!

I do have to say I love cookie swaps -- it's a great way to enjoy holiday treats w/out having to do them all yourself...and it's fun fellowship w/ my friends.

We've also been doing a few more crafts, so I wanted to share one here -- we got together with a couple of our friends to make our own mini-ginger-bread houses! Too cute!!

Soooo many yummy cookies!

Enjoying cookies, friends, coffee & fellowship..and a little "goofiness" too!

Another day this week, we got together with other friends to make gingerbread houses!! The kids had a lot of Fun! It was a little messy -- but worth it!

As you might guess --- some just wanted to eat the decorations!

Anne Marie had so much fun!


And our final results...they were all so proud -- so much so in our house, that it is still holding up, not even a little candy has been removed...very cute!

We hope you're enjoying the Christmas season as much as we are!!