Christmas Shinanigans

The kids decided to have a little get together to exchange their gifts with the "BFF's".  We did all kinds of crafts and fun stuff. We started off making little Christmas trees out of pine cones and glitter.

 This is Shelby and her friend Justine working on theirs.

 I honestly didn't think the boys would want to do the crafts, but they actually came over and decorated a tree. Now granted, the girls took a good 25 minutes to decorate theirs and the boys took a good 25 seconds...but Hey, they did it!

 After our first little craft, the suspense was KILLING them, so we had our gift exchange.

 Shelby gave Justine a matching Aeropostale shirt. Justine was quite stoked about this!! Shelby was pretty excited for the 5th Diary of a Wimpy Kid book!

 Preston and Zac! Preston got a bunch of plastic bugs and animals. He really liked those but he wanted to make sure that I understood that the plastic lizard wasn't gonna cut it for Christmas...he wants a real one!!

 I just love these 3 girls!!! Tatum is the one in the green socks and Ryann is in the teal. You know how 3 is usually a crowd with little girls? Well these 3 work perfectly. They can all play for hours with ZERO bickering or leaving one out. They all like each other equally which, let's face it, generally doesn't happen.  We got quite a kick out of Ryann and those socks. She's very tiny, so the knee socks covered her ENTIRE leg with a little extra at the top!!

 I even made home made cookies...from scratch..not pre-made dough....I KNOW, RIGHT??? Stop the presses!!! I'm not a baker! I can cook..but I can't bake to save my life. BUT these cookies were dang good if I do say so myself!

  

Next we did another craft.

The boys weren't at all interested in this one though. They LOOOOOVE to play the Wii together. (Preston wanted to stay with "Jana Miwwett" while the rest of us went to Disneyland this summer so he could just play Wii with Zac all week!)

 What would a Christmas party be without a snowball fight? Well....the weather hasn't exactly been cooperating with us lately on that front, so we decided to have an indoor snowball fight. By snowballs I mean white foam craft balls! (For the record:those suckers kinda hurt when you get smacked in the face with one!!!!) This was towards the end of the fight and Justine was on sensory overload, so she had gone into Shelby's room to play.


The kids had a GREAT time!!!!

Christmas Recital

The girls had their dance Christmas Recital last night. I think they both did such a GREAT job! And were BY FAR the prettiest ones there...(Ok so maybe I'm a little biased... (Oh, before you say anything about Shelby's costume..I know,! Trust me, I'm thinkin' the same thing!)

 A couple of Morgan's friends came (to watch their little sister dance). This is Brylee and Aspen (you'd never in a million years guess they're twins would you? YEP! They are. And their personalities are just as different as their looks!)

 Here's the video. Morgan is front and center and Shelby is front row on the left side (or you could just watch the girl that the video is focused on. HA!)

TANGENT!!!!!

Ok, I'm warning you all there's a tangent coming on... (insert the southern accent that returns when I'm annoyed lol)
People.....If you're gonna put Christmas lights in your front yard, DO IT RIGHT OR NOT AT ALL!!!! It doesn't matter if you live in the dumpiest neighborhood or up on "Snob Hill", if your Christmas lights are done halfa$$ed then your whole darn house just looks T-A-C-K-Y!! And likewise, when they're done right, you're house can look great no matter what neighborhood you live in.
EXAMPLES:
"Snob Hill" : These people went and bought the fancy LED Rope lights (not cheap). The point of the rope lights is so that they're all in a perfect line, correct? So, you're gonna go spend all that money to have perfectly straight lights and then you can't even pull 'em tight so they look decent??? Seriously?

"Snob Hill": Is it just me or does it look like someone T.P.'ed their front yard with Christmas lights?

 REALLY?.......REALLY????????

Now, I'm a firm believer that with lights, LESS IS MORE!!!! I LOVE this house. It's a cute house all on it's own, but I just love the way they do their lights. It's simple and elegant! Kudos to you "Non tacky light hanger people"

 I'm not a fan of colored or ice cycle lights, BUT these are pretty decent looking. (the picture is kinda crappy, but trust me they looked good in person) This house is in a much older and smaller neighborhood but the lights are done neatly and they look good!!!

You know the saying, "If it don't look good, don't put it on the front porch"?   Well, don't put it on your trees, roof, steps, driveways, or anywhere else either!!!!

Merry Christmas!!

The Christmas decorations are FINALLY up!! 

We added several new decorations this year. I'm soooo in love with all of them:

Morgan wanted to know what this saying meant and I explained it to her. She said, "I still want presents though!" HA!

 Next is my new shelf. I love this cause I can use it year round for all kinds of stuff!! Oh the decorating possibilities......

 

So there's a sweet story behind the little Willow Tree in this picture. When I first started collecting these, I saw this one and randomly told Chris that I wanted it when we got a house one day.  It's called

Mi Casa su Casa. So a couple days after we closed on our house (close to 2 years later), he came home from lunch with a wrapped present and it was this Willow Tree. He'd remembered after all that time!!! And it's not as if he shops at places that sell Willow Trees either, so he had to make an effort to go get it! Not gonna lie.. I GEEKED! OUT! over this one! I'm a sucker for things like this! It's seriously my all time favorite gift that he's ever given me!

I picked up this little shelf at my co-workers consignment shop... I flippin' LOVE this thing... don't know why, but I do.  It wasn't even for sale. She was using it as a display, but I made her clear everything off of it so I could get it!

  

 The whole living room. Yes, the Nativity is still my FAVE decoration overall. I only get to put it out for 1 month a year, so I got all kinds of excited about it!

 I love how Morgan snuck that bright shiny "M" right there in the front. I didn't notice it until I was adding these pics....she's a dead woman HA!

 Does anyone else get tired of trying to sort through all the presents to find the neighbor, friends, or extended family gifts? Well this year, we got these cute little trees for those! They're off in their own little corner so they're easily accessible whenever those people pop by or we're going to be seeing them! Plus it keeps the kids from handling them during their daily plunder through the gifts. I swear, every year, my kids fiddle with these presents as if they're hoping that the name on them will just magically change to theirs or something.

Christmas is my favorite time of year.  Despite all the chaos and things going on, there's just something about the season that makes you want to smile.

ALL SHE WANTS FOR CHRISTMAS IS....

HER 2 FRONT TEETH!!!!