Christmas Morning

 Being the Mommy of two young children makes Christmas morning exciting and fun.  I love that I get to give them the first gift of the day... special PJs to wear when they open gifts.  I love the sleepy, but expectant look in their eyes.  I love how they marvel at all the gifts under the tree.  I love how they celebrate over receiving the present they really wanted.  And I love how they turn to someone and say "thank you" in a real and genuine way.  

Family Pictures

The Family is Here!

Let the games begin!!!!

We start our adventures with hitting the Festival of Lights...

Howie and Johnny are delighted with their cousins.

Finally, I've secured a picture of John.  

It's been eluding me this entire year...

Love this picture!!

Best Baby-sitter Ever

We love our baby-sitter!
She gives us love, attention, imaginative ideas, hugs, safety, new songs....
When Elizabeth is coming over, we do the dance of joy.  

For Christmas, the boys received such thoughtful Lego gifts from her.
Howie made this card as a thank you.
Do you think he loves her?
(Hint: count the hearts)

My favorite part: He wrote her name as "Elizabef".

Holiday Prep

We are gearing up for hosting Christmas 2012.  The new house has provided us with so many new party options and we are anxious to share our space with family.  As the out-of-towner family members pack their suitcases, we are packing other things like the fridge and fresh linens in the guest room.  We are expecting 7 people to share in the festivities from Rick's side and then you can throw in 4 more people from my side.  Plus the 4 of us.  

That makes for lots of meals for lots of people.  Was I up for the challenge?  Oh yes!  I love showing love with food.  After revising the menu lots of times, a few big trips to Costco and Kroger, and the puzzling together of where everything can be stored in the meantime...we are stocked.  

I wanted to make as much food ahead of time so I can enjoy more family time.  This week prior to the visit is filled with making soups, dips and bases to complex recipes.  Okay, I am type-A, I admit.  The soups were put into crock-pot containers so they can be transferred to the heat like *magic*.  My freezer is so packed that the shelf was starting to sag.  Hence, the blocks (from my kids' stash) to hold them up:

And where will we eat all this yummy food?  At our *new* Ethan Allen table.  Fortunately, our dining and kitchen table came in before the crowds, but alas the dining chairs did not.  Oh well.  I guess we will have to pull those questionable IKEA chairs out for one more year.  Sorry folks.  But come back next year and we will have fancy chairs.  I promise.  

And napkins are all set for the 15 person Christmas meal. 

(Again, Type-A)

Howie is over-the-top-giddy with the preparations... he takes first place in regards to increased heart rate and inability to calm himself.  He loves making things and our advent calendar activities have been extra fun as we throw in some crafts for making our house a special place to visit.  One things we did was make salt-star ornaments as we talked about the Star of Bethlehem.  Each person coming to visit is represented with a stamped letter from their first name....

 The bottom line: We are excited to see family and celebrate the birth of Christ with them.  We are so grateful for the abundance that God has given to us that we are able to host in this way.  

So family... pack your bags and get here safely.  We can't wait to see you!

Tis' the Season...

Hey Folks!

Merry Christmas...

-XOXO-

Howie and Johnny

Isn't my pregnant sister adorable?

Baking Cookies

Being the mother of a child of allergies, I've skipped lots of the baking and food festivities at holiday times.  But this year, Howie's preschool teacher needed a recipe for sugar cookies that was Howie-safe and she asked if I had looked at any Vegan recipes.  I had not.  In fact, I had not even thought of that idea.  Inspired, I found a four star recipe on bettycrocker.com that we altered to avoid all egg and nut products.  And we tried it.

Cooking with my kids was really fun.  And the cookies turned out pretty yummy.  

I am so appreciative of Howie's teacher for giving me the gentle push I needed to open up this world for us.  We made a huge mess (everything was sticky for days), but it was worth it.  

Trimming the Tree

We anxiously opened the Christmas decorations in the new house.  

How would they fit?  

Where would we put stuff?  

Diving right in, the boys enjoy discovering all the trimmings that have been packed away for 11 months.  Howie LOVES decorating the house, he asked me to go get more decorations while he was at school on the following Monday.  

 Johnny spends a particularly long time unwrapping the ornaments from tissue paper and hanging as many as he could on the same branch:

And Homer Simpson makes his appearance...

Note: This Homer has kept Johnny company during many of "rest times" since he came out.  

Hearing Homer's voice over the iPad monitoring systems is a common occurrence through this blessed month of December.

Happy Thanksgiving Y'All

We went down to Nashville to celebrate Thanksgiving with the Stevens family.  Hence, the title of my blog entry.  Well, no one in our family actually talks like that, but it's fun to say anyhow.

It was a lovely weekend with lots of love and hugs.

We did the annual stuffing of our bellies with an amazing turkey meal made by Gamma.

  

We took some group photos while telling knock, knock jokes. 

*These photos are top secret for now.  

They will be revealed after Christmas presents are opened.*

For the grand finale, we went to the Christmas Spectacular show at OpryLand.  

What a treat!  

The boys were dazzled by the singing, lighting effects and dancing.  

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

New House

It was like climbing a mountain, and then climbing another one.  

A week filled of moving stuff was enough to make me want to trash it all and 

go live in a hut with a fire and blanket.  We have so much stuff!

There was a lot of this:

 And this:

By the time the movers arrived over the weekend, the majority of our little possessions had been moved and it was a matter of getting the big stuff over there.  After moving everything myself for a week, it was strange to let these guys come in and do the lifting.  And emotional.  Walking through the empty house at Creekwoods brought some hiccups of sadness to me.  And driving out of the neighborhood was enough to make me sob.  I'll miss those stinkin' nice neighbors of mine!!  

All the hard work does reap benefits.  

We are settling in to this new, amazing home and enjoying the extra space it provides.  

BTW, the house was immaculate when we came to move in.  Susie- if you are reading this: 

THANK YOU for the amazing shape you left it.  What a gift.  

We are starting to create spaces that reflect our stage of life as the week wears on.  

Here are some of my favorites...

The coloring station for the boys in the kitchen...

 My area of luxury: pillows on the stairway's bench, overlooking the pond.  I thought the boys would tamper with this area and throw the pillows about, but so far they see the space as sacred as I do...

Howie's collection of paper airplanes to throw from the second floor balcony...

Of course, there is still much to be done.  

Don't let me fool you into thinking that every box has been unpacked. 

But the important things have been unburied.  Like the BoBo's, our winter clothes, Mommy's chocolate stash, etc.  And the most important part is that we are starting to fill the space with friends and family. 

A new adventure has just begun...

Trick-or-Treating with Superheroes

Halloween 2012 was like a last hooray for our family at Creekwoods.  It's the one night of the year that we can guarantee to run into about 90% of our neighbors and it's such fun!  Sadly, the weather did not cooperate with freezing, cold rain.  But we made the most of it and said some goodbye's to our swell neighbors.

The day started with a Fall Party at Howie's school.  We made some neat lanterns, played some games and ate lots of sugar.  The perfect preschool party, right?

Our night of candy-collecting started by putting on the Superhero costumes and running around like mad.  You don't even need to give my kids candy to make them crazy, just mention the possibility and their adrenaline sky rockets.  

Howie created his own mask by gluing pieces of the cape fabric to some felt and painted the shirt with matching colors, to write Super Howie in his adorable preschool handwriting.   

 We hit the streets of Creekwoods with the other brave trick-or-treaters.  Brrrr... it was cold!  Johnny started shivering about 10 houses in so he doubled back with Nonnie and Sarah while Howie hit the pavement like a marathon runner.  Being 5 years old, this is prime age for trick-or-treating.  He wasn't going to let a little cold come between him and the candy out there.  

Alas, there is a limit to Howie's dedication to sugar and we found it.  Around 7:15 pm, he suddenly stops and says, "I'm all done.  Too much candy.  I think I have 100," and we head home.  

The next morning, Johnny wakes up asking for "Halloween food, please," pointing to the candy.  

Gotta love November 1, the crankiest day of the year.  

All You Need is Love...