Getting Our Holiday Bake On

My mom ever so graciously took the kiddos today and is keeping them overnight until tomorrow after their naps, which allowed us to get all of our Christmas baking done! I have to admit when it comes to things like this I do have one of the best husbands in the world! By that I mean we do it together. From making the doughs to frosting the cookies he is right there in the kitchen helping me out the whole time. This year he even made two batches of chex mix all by himself as well. I'm glad the baking is over, but we actually did have fun doing it together!  5 1/2 hours of baking, 6 dozen peanut butter blossoms, 2 dozen peppermint meltaways, 10 dozen cutouts frosted as well, two batches of chex mix, and a partridge in a pear tree. :)

Brandon mixing his chex mix together

Me rolling out the peanut butter blossoms

Carefully laying out his chex mix to dry

Peppermint meltaways

Peanut butter blossoms

Almost there - just sugar cookies left to frost

Done! We had tons more, but we already had put the plates together to give away! Not to bad. :)

Burr It's Cold Outside

For the past few weeks we have been stuck inside because its been cold and rainy and not conducive for little ones to go outside and play. However, over the past few days we have gotten enough snow to at least blanket the ground and actually give us something to play in. Brandon and I bundled up the kids and let them play in the snow for about an hour before heading back inside for some hot chocolate and snacks. It really was pretty cold out there! Only 10 days until Christmas (hard to believe)!

Showing me his snowball

Enjoying the snow!

Cuddling with Daddy on the driveway

Gotta love that smile!

Precious!

Watching Sissy eat snow

Even Daddy got in on eating the snow :)

More snow eating

Taking a walk down the street

How cute is she from behind! :) Getting so big!

Classic Marek sticking out his tongue

Helping Daddy build a fort

 

 

Susamas

Brandon's older sister Susan unfortunately has to work through the holidays, so we set aside today to be her mini Christmas with us and the kiddos. She was getting a little demanding about what she wanted for dinner and desert (not really), so we jokingly named today Susamas. A whole evening dedicated to Susan's mini Christmas with our family. Wouldn't you know she loved the name! The kids had fun having dinner with their Suey, and of course they enjoyed opening presents too. A funny note, Susan bought McKenna some really cute plush Disney dolls (she always gives me a hard time because she thinks McKenna doesn't have enough girly stuff), and wouldn't you know McKenna had more interest in the box than the actual dolls! :) Here are some pictures of Susamas 2012.

Marek opened Mommy and Daddy's presents - a really cool ice tea maker that we can use all year long (we do love our ice tea)!

Sissy checking out the presents

Marek opening his first present

McKenna opening her dolls

As you can see he is very happy to get his Thor action figure

McKenna playing with the box while her dolls lay on the floor

Marek with his "wolf" - which he named Werewolf Puppie.

McKenna playing with her new crayons and coloring book. Yes she wiped it all over her face.

Werewolf Puppie came with a really cool house that Marek got to decorate with stickers and such.

McKenna and Suey coloring.

All of use working on our projects.

McKenna getting in on decorating Werewolf Puppies house.

Nice job Marek - the house looks great!

Christmas Craft

I found some really cute foam Christmas shapes at the dollar store that came with a ton of stickers, and I thought that it would be a fun activity for Marek. I was right, he really enjoyed decorating the shapes! His favorite sticker for some reason was the gingerbread man sticker. Literally he only wanted to put the gingerbread man stickers on the foam shapes. I really had to talk him into intermixing other stickers. What a funny one he is! I think the craft turned out really cute!

Carefully placing his gingerbread man sticker on his tree.

Taking the backs off of his sticker all by himself.

Oh wait, another gingerbread man sticker.

Funny pose in front of his work! :)

Silly!

The finished product!

Just a Normal Monday

All of our Christmas decorations are up and wouldn't you know that four little hands can't seem to leave anything alone! Marek is 3 so he does pretty well, but McKenna cannot contain herself and tries to touch EVERYTHING!!! Needless to say, today we spent a lot of time downstairs so as not to tempt their little hands, and also to keep me sane! They were being really silly today as well, so I managed to get some cute pictures. Like the title says, this is just a normal Monday in our world!

What, this stocking from my fathers childhood? I'm just admiring it!

Yep, sunglasses in December! Super cool!

They seriously wore their sunglasses all morning.

Just looking mom! I am definitely not going to try to pull these window clingers off and eat them!

Marek coming over and saying, "No, no, no Sissy". And then putting what she pulled off back. :)

Literally posing for this picture! I told him to smile and he put his hand to his cheek all on his own!

Shopping in style! :)

Seriously, this little hand held vacuum is a life saver sometimes. They love to play with it! Yes, he is sucking her face with it, but she loves it...weird I know!

She just shoved a big grape into her mouth and is pretty proud of it!

Tree Time

Let me start by saying that in years past we have headed out to tree farms in Green Bluff to cut down our trees, but last year we just decided that it was getting way to expensive! Although I love the idea of trekking out into nature to find a Christmas tree, my more practical side did in fact agree with my husband when we decided it was ridiculous for us to pay that much for a tree that would eventually end up being thrown in the back yard in a matter of weeks. So, we made the trip to out local Home Depot and picked out a great tree for a fraction of the price! The kiddos enjoyed being pushed on the flat bed cart, and they were absolutely entranced by the tree shaking machine (the one that shakes all of the needles off and then wraps it). Now onto decorating it and the house!

Big girl standing on the cart like a pro.

Looks like he's surfing doesn't he!

Best picture I could get of the two of them sitting together. Marek is in a phase where he just doesn't like to take pictures, and McKenna won't sit still long enough for me to get a good one anyway.

 Watching the machine shake the dead needles off of the tree.

Yep, it's a real tree daddy.

Both excited to ride home with the tree.

She kept trying to pull the branches through the wrap.

Headed home!

So cute Miss McKenna!