Merry Christmas to All and to All a Goodnight!

After a morning filled with present opening and lounging in our Christmas PJ's. we went to see Nana a Poppa for a dinner of homemade lasagna.  Then on the way home a we made a special stop with the boys to fit in one more Christmas season tradition.  Each year, a local park sets up a drive thorough "Fantasy of Lights".   It's spectacular and something we love to do as a family.

We hope you had a wonderful holiday!

Merry Christmas!

I have about 1 hour before the kids wake up from their nap and it will be time to start cooking for Christmas Eve at our home, which we host for my DH's family.  We will be us until the late hours and then after the Christmas morning frenzy will go over to Nana and Poppa's for Christmas Day.

I'm not sure I will have a chance to wish you all a Merry Christmas until the big day is over, so MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!  I hope you all have a safe and happy holiday, filled with family, friends, good food and maybe even a few presents from Santa!

Here's a few layouts from the 2009 holiday season!

Neighborhood Lights

We took a walk around our neighborhood to see the Christmas lights.  The boys love doing this.  Actually, so do Dan and I!  Here are some pictures of the boys enjoying the lights!

The boys are getting super excited to be visited by the Big Man.  Every night they ask if Santa is coming!

Check out the Giveaway at Pretty Ladies Scrapbooking!

Awesome giveaway, read about it here!

Christmas Baking

When I was a kid, my Mom used to bake at least 10 different kinds of Christmas cookies and give everyone she knows a huge pile wrapped in colored plastic wrap.  She also used to complain the entire time.  Now I understand why.

I made 5 different kinds this year.  It's a lot of work.  But when I'm elbow deep in chocolate, walnuts and coconut, with flour in my hair I am truly happy.  I may not realize right then, like when I can't get the macaroons unstuck from the cookie sheet and have to throw most of them in the trash, but when I look back, I am happy.  I think my Mom would be proud that I bake these cookies, using the same recipes she used.


Here's a few pictures:

My 36th Birthday

I celebrated my 36th birthday over this past weekend and at 36 I still get a birthday party complete with decorations, cake and presents!  I think it is so fun and I have decided that I want little girl themes for my birthday celebrations.  This year I had Disney Princess decor with a Tinkerbell/Fairies cake!  My MIL is so awesome that she does these parties for all the "kids"!  She makes you  meal of whatever you request!  I love her sauce so I requested a pasta dinner and it was delicious!

Here's some pictures of my party!

My awesome MIL and me!

My 2 SIL's and me:

A gift from Mark and Mel. I'm going to use to hold some of my camera peripherals:

A purse from Adie and Mike in one of my favorite colors:

Some sexy boots from my MIL and FIL:

A Disney Fairy cake:

Blowing out my 1 enormous candle:

 

The Disney Princess party decorations:

It was so much fun!  My hubby also took me to Miami to see the Nutcracker Ballet which was fantastic and made me wish for a little girl to take to see it!  My work Holiday Party was also this weekend, so I did a lot of celebrating!

The Tale of the Christmas Fish

Last night my hubby took me to see the Nutcracker Ballet and Aunt Adie and Uncle Mike came over to watch the boys for us.  Mike and Adie will be traveling for Christmas so they spent last night having their Christmas with the boys.  They decided to take the kids to pick out beta fish as their Christmas gifts.  Here are some fun photos of the outing.

Meet Tyler's Fish "Glowy".

Meet Carter's Fish "Pickle".

They put the fish tanks in the boys' room and the boys were in heaven!  Merry "Fish"mas!!!

I haven't posted any layout in a bit, so here is some of my recent creations.

The first three are pages about a recent trip to the Miami Children's Museum with the boys.  They had a lot of need exhibits and their "special" exhibit day was all about dinosaurs.  I haven't scan that layout yet, but the kids were just in awe of the enormous creatures!

None of the pages were made with any specific products, just a mix of what I had sitting around in my stash.

This layout is about Carter and how he stays up for hours after we put him to bed.  He doesn't usually do anything but lay there and talk to himself our his stuffed friends, but I thought it would be fun to capture this piece of him in a layout so that I don't forget when he is older.  Most of the product is from the Sassafras Lass "Bungle Jungle" collection from a year or two ago that I had hanging out in my stash.  I converted the photos to sepia to better coordinate with these papers.

I thought Bocce was present enough in our scrapbooks so I decided a new layout was in order. This was made using the Echo Park "Life is Good" line and the sticker houses gave me the idea for the title.



I hope you like seeing these, once the holidays are over hopefully I can do a little more scrappin!

These People Totally Get Me!

I don't know of a scrapper that won't love this video made by Scrapbook.com!  Enjoy!

Deacon Jerry

My FIL was ordained as a deacon on December 4th.  This was a huge undertaking for him and we are so proud that he heard his calling and put forth the commitment and effort necessary.  You Go Dad!  Here are a few pictures of the special event and the celebrations that ensued that weekend!

I made this poster for the gift table.  It was pretty easy to do and I think it turned out great!

My FIL making a speech.

My MIL and FIL cutting the cake.  Almost like their wedding all over again!

Here our us "kids" making a speech.  I was of course taking the photos!

 MIL and FIL cutting a rug.  The party was so much fun, they had a DJ!  I did the Electric Slide and the Macarena!!!

This is my FIL trying out the gift from his kids.  It has little children embroidered on it.  My SIL Melanie did the leg work on finding this perfect gift.

Melanie, Mom and Adie.  Aren't they three pretty ladies?

FIL and MIL

 

Here we are the next day at my FIL and MIL's church.  He performed his first service as an official Deacon!  In this photo he is giving communion to my BIL, Mark, and blessing his son, my nephew, Jason.

My FIL, doin' his thing.

FIL and MIL.  My MIL was beyond proud.  Can't say I blame her!

It was a really special event in my FIL's life and we were all so happy to be a part of it.