Christmas Wrap Up

Aahh Christmas, after all the anticipation it's over in a flash, and we are left with a huge mess of toys, way too many cookies, and some cranky overly tired kids. But we all got a lot of stuff and we are lucky to live pretty close to our family, so the drives aren't too bad- although the 1.5hr drive to Mike's Grandma's is seriously the longest drive EVER! We did decide that next year on Christmas Day we will not go anywhere, it will just be the 4 of us at home. We have plenty of other days to see our family we need time together, where the kids can actually play with their presents and not have to rush to leave as soon as they are opened.

Christmas Eve we headed to Mike's parents, we all had a great time. Mike's brother had been visiting so Rowan had a great time- he loves his uncle's and has fun showing off (constantly :)).

Eli had a little trouble opening his presents

Of course Rowan, being the excellent big brother he is, offered to "help"

Rowan and Mike playing Rowan's new guitar- one of 2 he got!!

A cute pic of Eli

Christmas morning- Eli could hardly contain his excitement!!

Rowan opening his Tinker Toys. Wen he started opening the top he said "It's oatmeal!!!"

Another present, that happened to be a box with postal tape on it, which he of course screamed"It's mail!!!" If only we knew we just needed to get him oatmeal and mail and he would've been happy!

After we opened our presents Christmas morning we headed to Mike's grandma's house. I don't have any decent pics so won't post them. Rowan got the usual kind of stuff- tractors, cars... and a really nice school print quilt. ELi got a few little toys too and a fleece fire truck balnket (well it's just fabric, but I think I might make something with it.)

Friday we headed to my mom's for lunch with her and my sister. Both boys got a lot of nice stuff and Eli got some super cute clothes- including the red sweatshirt in his 6 month pics (coming soon.) Rowan painted pics for both grandparents and his aunt and uncle- that we saw-. They turned out great, I forgot to take a pic of the other two, but here are the ones he made my mom and my sister.
He was very proud of them, I bought some canvas' at the craft store so they can be hung up easily.

Eli lookin cute (with my sister)

Of course we had to bust out the maracas and do some dancing (well Rowan did) and singing

but not too Christmas music....

to ABBA of course!

Wordless Wednesday

Christmas Cookies: Day 3 and So Much Santa

Day 3 of cookies actually took a few days, and I forgot to take pictures of the lemon poopy seed cookies I made yesterday, but trust me they look and taste good. I also made chocolate truffles, they aren't too pretty cause I had problems rolling them into balls so I won't take a picture, but trust me they are absolutely delicious!!! Hopefully they will survive the nest few days and we can share them with our family, if not oh well!!

We were going to make candy cane cookies, but Mike we decided to make more sugar cookies instead, since Mike we were eating WAY too many of them and wanted to have some left to share.

We made Gingerbread PEOPLE (we are very PC here) and faces- due to some issues with the dough.

the boys once again spent hours decorating


This one was my favorite, and I promptly ate it right after I took the pic.

Saturday we decided to go see Santa, Rowan had been asking and it was something he had never done before. I HATE going to the mall- anytime, but especially this time of the year! HQ tipped me off to the other "mall." Ok I knew it existed, but think about it for Santa, and it was great we waited 5 minutes. You do have to wait for your pic(they mail it) but it was $6 and we were in and out. They definetly have a lower budget than the big mall, but I don't care and Rowan certainly doesn't. Just a tip for any locals, don't forget the little mall!!

Tonight Rowan got a call from Santa, he acted like he knew he was calling it was so cute. They chatted about the weather- it is pretty cold here just like at the north Pole. Santa remembered seeing Rowan last week at the mall and even thet he wanted a guitar!! Ok so it wasn't reall Santa, it was my mom's boss- who apparently does this for people he knows. At first I was a little creeped out about a stranger calling my kid, but it was awfully cute!

What I get a candy cane!!! SWEET!!

Go Baby Go! Backwards and in Circles

He's Trying

Christmas Cookies: Day 2

Mike and Rowan decorating the ones we made yesterday, I'm pretty sure Mike gets WAY more into this than Rowan!

Hard at work, Rowan couldn't even take a break to look at the camera

Some of the finished sugar cookies

Coconut Macaroons, some dipped in chocolate-

I don't ever remember being a big fan of these but they are my favorite this year (so far)

they are delicious!!

Mexican Chocolate Macaroons- with an almond on top
drizzled with chocolate


and Eli looking cute practicing with his new cup

Christmas Cookies: Day 1

Today was our first day of cookie baking!!

First up were these Spicy Lemon Crescents- they have mini m&m's. I wasn't sure about them, but wanted to try something different- they are actually pretty good.

Then we just did the basic sugar cut out cookie, Rowan got to cut out the shapes-

We ran out of time to decorate so will finish tomorrow, we have all the typical holiday ones- star, tree, bell

and of course the Christmas bunny and chicken!

Wordless Wednesday: Fun with Grandma

Sew What Did YOU do Today?

Rowan LOVES to "help" in the kitchen so I decided to make him an apron to wear. Today I made a practice apron so that I would have some idea of what I was doing when I made his. I am so surprised at how easy it was. I didn't want to spend too much time on this so I took a few shortcuts-like not ironing at all-, but am quite impressed with how good t looks!! Rowan's fabric is a reddish marroon color w/ diggers and dump trucks- you know the usual kitchen stuff.

It's kind of hard to get a good pic of an apron if it's not on someone- but if he put it on then he would have known what I was doing! He actually sat right next to me the whole time I was sewing and never once asked what it was!

I also made Eli a big, soft, warm fuzzy blanket for Christmas.

It actually matches his tag blanket I made a while ago, but never took pics of. This was also supposed to be for Christmas but he got it early.


and just cause he's so cute...

Nope, Not at All!

Rejected

Well it's Christmas card time again. Last year we didn't even send one out, but we figured since we now have two kids we HAD to send a picture of the two of them. I mean how hard can it be to get a 3 year old and a 5month old to BOTH look at the camera and smile AT THE SAME TIME? We did get a few good ones, but I won't share those with you instead you get the rejects.

"He's falling!"

" and NOW he's crying.."

(I actually kind of like this- pretty funny!)

"Look I can hide!"

Food, Music and Fun

Last week we put up the Christmas tree. Rowan helped me decorate- and by decorate I mean took off every ornament to "play" with it. Eli doesn't seem to care about it, I keep waiting for him to roll underneath it and pull something. Not that we would ever leave him unsupervised or anything like that!

I love the look on Eli's face here

Rowan has been graciously (most of the time) sharing his keyboard- Eli LOVES it.
And I love that it is so freaking LOUD!!



Eli started solids last week. Something we finally decided to do. We didn't start Rowan until he was about 6.5months. Why wait? I know a lot of people start earlier, but here are some reasons to wait. I also had a lot of allergies when I was young, so it's good to be safe and hope we can avoid that. Eli has been going crazy practically begging to eat and even "chewing" at us when we eat. Here are some other ways to tell if baby is ready to start solids. He is pretty close to all of those "criteria."

Eli's first food was avocado. Are you thinking baby's first food is supposed to be rice cereal? Really have you seen that stuff? Would you eat it? :) Well I won't eat it so I won'y give it to my babies. Besides any excuse to buy an avocado I'll take, they are definetly one of my favorite foods!

1st bite

thinking about it..


uh no, that was pretty gross

He's eaten like one bite every day this week and finally Saturday seemed a little more into it, he's also had sweet potatoes- and in case you're wondering we made ourselves. Ok Mike made it, but I reheated the sweet potatoes he froze.