Happy New Year

I don't know if I'll do a year in review or not, but I at least wanted to post our first and last photos.

I don't have a good sitting still picture of just the three of them, so had to do a family pic. Still, look how they've grown! :) Happy New Year and hope for a blessed 2014!

Merry Christmas

We shared a great Christmas morning at home then went to my parents that afternoon for a Christmas celebration with my side. It was a great day.

 Poor Maggie was sick but still had plenty of Christmas Spirit

 Jake was more interested in running around than opening presents, but we did get him to open one

Merry Christmas to all!

Ornaments and Decor

We took our annual trip to the mall for our family ornament and did homemade ornaments again. This year, we tried salt dough ornaments and really enjoyed decorating them. One may think you can have too many homemade (or otherwise) ornaments on your tree, but we're pretty likely to do these again so we will eventually overload the tree. But then the kids will grow up, move out and I'll send them with all their ornaments for their own little tree. Let's not think about that though.

that's a banana, not an ornament

Daniel only decorated one ornament. But he did so meticulously

As for the rest of the decor, I just love it. I realize decorations is not what the season is about nor does Christ care about how much tinsel I hang in my house. But I just can't help it, Christmas decorations have always been one of my favorites. I would like to have more homemade items, but I'll probably have to start in July if I ever really want that to happen.

 this clock "sings" a Christmas song every hour...I've come to enjoy this 

announcement and will likely miss it when Christmas is over

We have some other things out and about, but these are the highlights, I think. I hope you enjoyed setting out your seasonal decor this year!

Mary Kay Party

Our good friend, Jenn, from Birmingham offered to host a Mary Kay sale for Maggie and donate 100% of the profit to Maggie's fundraiser! She volunteered to do both a web sale and drive up from good 'ol Magic City to host a party at my house! I feel so blessed to have such a good friend willing to go to those lengths for us. The Friday after Thanksgiving worked for her schedule, so Jenn sent the invites and I prepared the food! I took all of three pictures of the party, once meal time was over I guess I got caught up in trying on the products that I forgot to continue with the photo documentation. I didn't even take pics of the food setup! Not that it was a huge deal...I just always do. Ugh. Fail again.

Daniel stayed for the lipstick

Black Friday was Pink Friday at our house! Many thanks to my family for coming out to the party, whether or not you bought something, we appreciate you giving your time! My Aunt Karen and cousin Megan even came on their way out of town- headed back to St. Louis when the party ended. Thanks also to my Aunt Rose and some friends who couldn't be there but made online purchases. We appreciate your support! We really enjoyed ourselves and another BIG THANK YOU to our friend Jenn for so generously giving your time and commission (that's the profit) to our little Moosie girl! We love you all!!

Thanksgiving

So it's a week before Christmas and I'm just now writing about Thanksgiving. Here's hoping I can write about Christmas before the year ends! I'm off my game a little this year where pictures are involved...I just haven't taken as many. My parents had a really nice setup that I took zero pictures of and I didn't take any during the meal either- because everyone loves pictures of themselves eating. Everything was delicious- turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, rolls, vegetables, applesauce and then of course, dessert! I made several dishes for Maggie that mom and Daniel enjoyed as well. I made an asparagus casserole that used mushrooms and parsnips as the "cream" rather than your usual soup, plus homemade applesauce, sweet potato casserole with a hint of grade B pure maple syrup and cinnamon as the sweeteners plus pumpkin cookies and a pumpkin "cheesecake". Then at the last minute Will asked me to make an apple pie. I thought someone else was bringing cherry, but much to our disappointment, there was no cherry pie for Thanksgiving! Plenty of pumpkin, though. I managed to take a few shots after our meal on Thursday:

 playing hide and seek with Uncle Jimmy

That evening we went rollerskating. Here, I finally took a reasonable amount of pictures. Everyone had a great time! I wasn't comfortable putting Maggie in skates, but she didn't let that stop her from getting on the rink with everyone else! Love that girl. :)

We had a great night! The rest of the weekend was busy busy busy as well; Friday I hosted a Mary Kay party at my house to raise money for Maggie's therapy. And Saturday we went to the farm in Carthage to visit with Daniel's family and had chili, hot dogs, stew, cornbread and I heard there was dessert, but I somehow missed that. I suppose my waistline will thank me. Hope you enjoyed a your Thanksgiving!