Christmas Extravaganza!

We had such a great Christmas! We started out with Christmas Eve for Josh's side at our house on Christmas eve, then we always have Christmas morning to ourselves followed by a family breakfast then off to my parents house for Christmas night. Here is our Christmas extravaganza!....

Christmas Eve...

then... I always take a Christmas eve picture of my kids... I love them, they are so sweet.

and.... they begged to open a present .... I thought Ok... I will let them open one I didn't think was all that great but... they loved it.

and now... dun, dun dunnnnn..... Christmas morning..

and the presents of the year... Will with his Kingdom's lego set and Kate got her first Pink .22!

and on to the last of the Christmas celebrations......

We are so blessed...... I love Christmas and most of all... I love love my family!

Kate's first annual Ornament exchange party!!!!!!

My mom's best friend Kay always had and ornament exchange party for her daughters and I thought it was such a fun idea so I decided to copy. So this year was Kate's first party! We started out by baking some cookies to decorate...















icing in jars>>>>>>>>>






We were missing a few of our dearest little friends but all the girls (and Will) had a great time. Will wasn't suppose to be here but Josh had to work out of town so he ended up being my helper.

after everyone was finished having as much fun as they could stand decorating.... we moved on to the ornament exchange! In years to come we will play some games along with it but I thought the girls might get their feelings hurt if someone kept stealing their ornament. So this year they each drew a number and got to pick out in order.

And here they are as a sweet group........

a little bit of baking...

Every year I try to make my gifts to my friends, neighbors and family. It usually consists of toffee and lots of other goodness, but this year I was wanting to mass produce faster and not have to take all day doing it. Well it still took all day but at least it's something new. With the help of my sweet Kate we started baking....

I got this idea from my friend Jami's blog... you should go check it out! And here I am trying to figure out what the heck I am doing.... anyway... I loved spending this sweet time with Kate. It's a memory I will cherish and maybe just maybe it's a memory she will pass on to her kiddos.

But I will say... our chocolate fudge filled cupcakes with peppermint icing turned out divine! and I am in love with these little jars, I can't believe they are just now making their entrance into my life. I have already found lots of uses for the left over jars.... you will see in my next blog post. Look how they turned out...

Oh our big big tree.....

Every year we have bought a real Christmas tree at The Troop 80 Boy Scout lot. Every year since we have been married in fact. We get bundled up and to get us in the mood Josh has his favorite song "Is that You? Santa Claus?" by Garth Brooks (and no, we do NOT like Garth Brooks other than this song) that he has played every year and danced around the room to. It is a sight to see. I have an ocd problem when it comes to picking out the perfect Christmas tree..... It has to be the biggest we can fit, really full and fat and almost without any flaws.... sometimes hard to find.  But oh I WILL find my tree.

and.... this year. I had to have this enormous tree because none of the others were sufficient to be in my house! Lets just say to put it lightly it was a difficult tree to get in the house, to get in the stand, to keep it from falling over, and to be straight. In the bottom picture is after a battle Josh had with the tree, and lost. He was now cutting off about a foot of the tree and saying not so cheerful words. Don't worry I sent the kids out of the room for this event..... and it was an event. But it always ends up working out even if we have to wire the dang thing to the wall! And it's glorious!

elf yourself!

Go pause my music before you push play so you can get the full enjoyment of these videos!!

or you could do this one!

and my favorite....