Christmas Eve 2010

We had a pretty easy gong Christmas Eve. Aaron went and picked up his little sister Nicole and she stayed a couple of days with us. The girls were so excited because they love their "Cole". I was happy to see her too, we are so much alike and she is always at work so we don't get to hang out like we used to.

My boys lounging.

He looks super excited doesn't he? hehehe

Nicole worked at Lush and so she brought me and Anthony bath stuff. yay!

She also works at Build-A-Bear, so guess what the girls got?!

It's an MP3 playing bear!

I got Nicole at mad-lib for adults book. Funny stuff

She got Aaron Longhorn Yahtzee!

I thought she would like this henna kit. Secretly I wanted her to use it on me! hehe I didn't have any black tea though, otherwise we would have!

The kids got to open their presents from Nicole and one from us. We got the kids each a book. I think books are the best presents!

Emma got a cool paper airplane book. It has all different kinds of paper airplanes for you to make. I had no idea there were so many possibilities!

And both Anthony and Emma apparently can't just smile, they have to be dorky.

Sara got a dinosaur encyclopedia. Awesome.

My pretty present from Nicole.

OMG! I love bath stuff! My favorite is the Snow Fairy shower gel. But the Twilight bath bomb and the sugar scrub are pretty awesome too!

Every year the kids make reindeer food (oatmeal and sprinkles, sometimes glitter too).

They also decorated their cookies for Santa.

Distributing the reindeer food.

The girls made Santa a note.

I love no stress holidays and we really did have a laid back Christmas this year!

Holiday Baking 2010

This year I decided to give baked goods as gifts to our family and friends. That was a lot of baking!

I found this at Central Market and had to have it. I love making whoopie pies and Stonewall Kitchen always has the best kits! I made carrot cake whoopie pies this past Easter.

Emma was my helper for making Zebra Kisses. Other people call them Zebra Nipples, but I prefer the name Zebra Kisses. It's just pretzel snaps, Hershey's Hugs and M&M's. Pretty simple.

Here is what went into each gift bag. My rum cake (the best ever!!), homemade chocolate chip cookies, fudge, peppermint bark, zebra kisses, chocolate peppermint whoopie pies and a pkg of Snowman Soup.

I love the holidays and baking but now I am so ready for spring and fresh fruit and veggies!! No more heavy baking, just light and fresh.

My Christmas Decor

I have always loved Christmas. Growing up, I spent my Christmas breaks at my Aunt Ruth and Uncle Jim's house. She is my dad's great aunt and quite possibly my favorite relative of all.

Every Christmas Eve our whole family would go to her house to be together. The adults would go play cards in the garage and I would make money bringing them whatever they wanted...drinks, food, etc. There weren't any other cousins or kids close to my age so I made out pretty good.

I want my kids to feel like I did when I was a kid. That Christmas is a time of excitement, wonder and love. A love for Jesus. A love for our family and friends. I want them to look back on Christmas at our house and have an instant warm and cozy comforting feeling wash over them.

And I think that having our whole house "in the Christmas spirit" helps give that feeling. Next year I plan on having a tree in every room and a wreath on every door! It does help that my mom makes beautiful wreaths and she let me borrow a bunch of them!

Okay, so on to the Christmas decor. This is our main tree in the living room. I went with a new color scheme this year and I wasn't a big fan of it. I will be changing it up for next Christmas. The ornaments are brown. hot pink, teal and a little bit of orange and lime green.

This is my kitchen tree. I have a bunch of Mary Englebreit stuff in my kitchen and last year on clearance I found Mary Englebreit coffee mug and teapot ornaments! Other than that, I just stuck a bunch of cookie cutters and a couple of Christmas cards.

I LOVE NUTCRACKERS!! Really, I do. When I was nine years old I saw The Nutcracker Suite for the first time. I've since taken Emma to see it twice at Christmas. It was too busy for us this year with packing, moving and unpacking.

I've already planned on putting this in my bathroom next year. The Nutcracker will serve as my inspiration for that room. I can't wait to see Sara's face when we go to the ballet. Emma has been to Bass Hall in Fort Worth a few times, but Sara never has and it is a really beautiful place to watch the ballet.

My favorite tree of the house! My guest bath tree is obviously snowflake themed. Just a tad.

I wanted it to look like it had been attacked by snowflakes.

The cat follows me around during the day. I think he misses Emma when she is in school.

So that is pretty much it for this years decor. Hope you liked it!