Outdoor Christmas Decorating!

Daddy, Charlie and neighbors decorating!

The finished project!

Cameron and neighbors, Emily and Jada helping decorate a tree

Charlie and neighbor, Will, helping Daddy with the lights in the yard







Now that the inside of our house is fully decorated for the holidays, Daddy has completed the decorations for the outside as well. Cameron and Charlie really had fun this year helping Daddy with the decorations and kept wanting to add more lights! Even the neighbor kids joined in the festivities and helped decorate, too! For some reason, we tend to attract all of the neighborhood kids to our house! Well, at least they helped with the work and we think the lights turned out great! As always, Daddy did a fabulous job on the lights! I tease him that he reminds me of Clark Griswold from Christmas Vacation because he gets so into the lights and thinks "more is better"! I think he secretly wants to win the neighborhood lighting contest, since his co-worker up the street won last year! Maybe Daddy will have a good chance of winning this year! Good Luck Daddy and thanks for all the beautiful lights!

Weekend Wedding!

Charlie & Dannielle...he thought she was a real princess!

Blake and Cameron dancing away!

"Mommy, quit taking my picture"

Charlie and Jada 

Charlie and Cameron dancing

Daddy the videographer

Jodi dancing with the kids

Buddies, Blake and Cameron

Mommy and her boys!

The whole gang...Jada, Blake, Cameron and Charlie 


We attended our friends', John and Dannielle's, wedding this past Saturday night.  Daddy actually filmed the wedding and reception, so Mommy was in charge of the kids all night, except Sophie, who Grandma Kathy was nice enough to come and babysit her.  John and Dannielle's daughter, Mackenzie, is the same age as Cameron and they went to daycare together since they were two years old!  Also, our neighbors Craig, Jodi, Jada and Blake were there, too, so Cameron and Charlie enjoyed partying down with them and dancing the night away.  This was Charlie's first wedding so he thought it was pretty cool, and asked when "Mommy and Daddy were getting married again" because he wanted to see it!  Jada and Blake's mom and dad were in the wedding party, so I actually had four kids at the wedding to occupy, who were really good and well behaved, so it worked out well!  We had a fun night and the kids are ready for another dance party soon!

 

Oh, Christmas Tree!

Our Personalized Christmas Stockings...Had to get Sophia one this year!

Our banister

The tree!

Sophie's first Christmas...she's thinking...wait until next year I'll have my hands into it, too!

Charlie and Cameron loved hanging the ornaments!

We all love the new red lights!


Since the boys have been pestering us for about a week now to put up the Christmas tree, we finally gave in and did it this weekend.  They love, love, love to decorate it and open up all of the boxes of ornaments and remember them from years past.  Our tree is filled with ornaments from when I was little, ones I bought when I was in college and ones our family have collected over the years, so there is lots of meaning to each and every one of them.  So many of them I can remember when I got it or who I got it from.  We now have several from Cameron and Charlie that they have made at school and we carry them over year after year.  It is so fun to see the boys put the ornaments on the tree and talk about them and remember making them.  We changed our lights on our tree this year to red ones (we've always had white ones every year) and we love the new look.  Our tree is very eclectic with tons of different ornaments and none that really match, but that's what makes it our own personal Christmas tree with much tradition of remembering ornaments of past Christmases!

Grandma Max's "Crispy Cookies"

It is another very cold day here so I decided to make my favorite cookies, which are from my late Grandma Maxine's recipe. I remember them from when I was younger and started making them on my own the last few years. My kids love them as much as me and even my hubby eats a ton of them, considering he doesn't eat many sweets. They are super easy to make and are yummy, yummy! They are made with oatmeal, butterscotch chips, rice krispies and lots of sugar! My Grandma was an excellent cook and this will be the first holiday season without her, so we all will deeply miss her. She always had something delicious at her house or if she came to visit she always brought homemade cinnamon rolls, pie or rolls. Everything she made was delicious and I especially enjoyed everything she baked! We all miss you Grandma Max!

Charlie and Sophie!

Charlie has really enjoyed his schedule change! He now only goes to preschool part-time, which is only for 2 1/2 hours on Mon-Wed.-Fridays instead of all day, every day. He says he loves being home before Cameron gets home from school and especially loves to be with his sister Sophie much more! He can't get enough of her and wants to hold and kiss her as much as I let him! He has actually been a big help to me during the day, with fetching diapers, pacifer, blanket, etc. when I need something for her and my hands are full! It is quite the change for me being home all day with two little ones now, but I am cherishing every moment, because before I know it, Charlie will be in kindergarten next year all day and Sophie will be walking all over the place!