Santa's Everywhere

This year Ella had her picture taken with every Santa she met. She loved sitting on santa's lap, but for some reason Hannah wouldn't have much to do with Santa. I got her to "stand" near him once and that was it. Not sure why. So, this year was the year of Santa for Ella. Here is the proof.

Our Festive Kids

This picture I included because it shows Ella all decked out and in her happy place. Holding her duckie and my iphone. The only thing missing is her "pauper" or pacifier. But we are trying to break her of that one.




I love picking out Christmas outfits each year. It is fun to dress the kids up all festive and cute. The sad part is they only wear the outfits about twice a year. But it is worth it. Here are this years outfits and our cute festive kids.

Merry Christmas!

I hope everyone has a great Christmas day and may it be filled with joy, peace and happiness. And may we all remember why we celebrate this season. I am grateful for the baby that was born this day and for the Man that sacrificed His life for all of us!

Painting by Morgan Weistling

Christmas Season Re-cap

We have had a lot of fun things going on these last few weeks, so here is a small recap of just some of them (the ones I remembered to bring my camera to).

I just love this picture of Jakey in his cute hat and chubby cheeks. Our version of "it's cold outside" On another side note: he is so funny these days. He loves to blow hard between his two pierced lips. it is like he has found his voice and it is in the form of RASPBERRIES. He does it constantly and when he does it you can see him take a deep breath, hold his body tight (clasped hands and all) and blow as hard as he can, over and over again. It makes me laugh so hard. Especially when he does it during church.


Hannah had her school Christmas Program. She had been singing the songs for weeks, so it was fun for her to finally be able to sing them for us all dressed up with her classmates. They sang "Dreidel Dreidel", "O Christmas Tree", "Feliz Navidad" and "UP on the HouseTops".


We went to Disneyland one last time before our annual passes expired. We met up with Uncle MIke and Brian and Aunt Wendy. It was so much fun to be with them at the Merriest Place on Earth. It made up for it being the "wettest Place on earth" It rained hard most the time we were there. We were soaked and cold, but still somehow had a ton of fun! Ella would only stand out in the rain and she was soaking wet and her lips were purple, but she wanted to be in the rain and it didn't seem to phase her at all. The good thing about the rain was that the lines were small, so we took advantage of it and stayed up each night until the park closed. It rained so much this was the only picture I got of that trip.

Bake your Behind off!

I have been baking for the last 4 days. It started with those pretzel treats I highlighted a few days ago. Then a double batch of of sugar cookies (which we decorated today) then my first attempt at English Toffee (which was a success) and finally rice krispies for our car trip to Utah. I think I am done baking and definitely sugared out!

Just so you know... this isn't a picture of all my baking... it is from Disneyland's Santa House. It looked so nice, I had to take a picture.

A few notes I have learned:

the pretzel treats: I used hugs and mint truffles and dark chocolate kisses baked at 200 degrees for 7-8 mins. The rolos and pecans were baked at 300 degrees for 8-9 mins. The regular kisses didn't melt very well, so I probably wouldn't use them again.

Sugar cookies: I used a recipe from a blog I trusted, but realized that cookie recipes are so subjective you just have to try and try different recipes until you find that one that works for you. I have yet to find the ultimate sugar cookie recipe that I love.

English Toffee: Most english toffee recipes are the same, but this recipe is slightly different and definitely a keeper.

Christmas Card 2009

I have to say it was tough getting the photos for this card. My dad took our family photos and after 2 different photo shoots and 200 pictures later, I still didn't have a decent family photo. If it wasn't one kid looking funny it was another kid looking away or eyes shut or crying etc. So, that is where my photoshop'ing skills came into play. There you have it... our 2009 christmas card!

Teacher's Gifts

I decided to make cookie mixes again for Hannah's teachers this year. I figure who doesn't love cookies and especially when they come in this adorable red square glass container. The gift is cute, easy and inexpensive and really was the cutest gift I could think of, so here is what i did.

the glass container I got at Target for $5. I love this container... I should have bought a few for myself.
The cookie recipe came from Bakerella, so you know it has to be good.
I attached a holiday spatula and holiday cookie cutters (just because).

and there you go! I hope they like it!

Born to Eat

On Tuesday, Jake had his first solid food and it was like he had been doing it for years. He lunged for the spoon and in went the food and it stayed. He loved it and on day two he ate a whole bowl. The doctor said 3 TBS would be enough, but not little jake he could have eaten a whole cup. It shouldn't be any surprise, since he has been by far my best eater gaining weight and "loving mom" (if you know what I mean :-) Here's to the next stage of our little guys life... solids!

Easy Holiday gifts

Let the gift giving begin. I am always looking for easy, but yummy and cute gifts to give to friends and neighbors. Here are a few I have seen over the last few years that I love and are super duper easy.

1) just package up hot chocolate mix, candy canes, chocolate dipped marshmallows and waa-laa.
2) these are marshmallows dipped in chocolate and rolled in crushed candy canes. So, pretty and festive.
3) pretzels with kisses on top, melted and then a m&m to top it off.
4) more pretzels with rolos melted and a pecan to top it off.

HINT: My friends and neighbors might be seeing some of these this holiday season.

Family Fun

While we were all together with family over thanksgiving, I took some pictures of my sister and her cute little family. I just wanted to share mostly because I love pictures of happy, cute families and thought you would too!

Itunes is Nice!

So, iTunes is giving away for FREE 20 holiday songs this week only. And these are good songs performed by popular artists. Click here to download this Sampler Holiday album for free. What a nice gift from Apple. (I would insert a mean comment about PC right here, but it is the holidays :-)

My Seasonal Favorite

My favorite thing this time of year are all the different versions of peppermint bark you can find in the store. Here are just a few I have tried and here are my favorites in order of best to worst.

Costco Peppermint Bark - five stars
ghirardelli peppermint bark squares - four stars
Andes Peppermint Crunch Mints - three stars
M&M mints - two stars
junior mints peppermint crunch - 2 stars

I haven't tried William and Sonoma's version, but i hear it is very, very good! So, I need to get out there and try some.

And while I am on the subject, I came across Peppermint Bark Brownies! I love it. I am making these for sure. Just take your own favorite brownie recipe or mix and melt white chocolate chips and spread over the top of the baked and cooled brownies and then sprinkle with crushed candy canes. I can taste it now!

Jake's Tummy Time photos

Around 5-6 months, I take pictures of my kids on their tummies. I have done it with all of them so far and here are jakey's photos. I love tummy time photos.... they make me so happy!

Photo Randomness

Not much to report these days. I can barely keep my head afloat. But here are a few pictures of the kiddos. Just because!

busy, busy, busy

Sorry for the lack of posts these days. Between traveling for thanksgiving, coming home and getting ready for Christmas, i am overwhelmed. I love this time of year, but until I get the decorations up, laundry done, house clean, tree decorated, cookies made and all the gifts made... other things fall off to the wayside. But at least I will have lots to share after the holidays! So, stay tuned! And I hope each of you are having a great holiday season!

Last Weekend

We headed to DIsneyland last weekend to check out the opening weekend of Christmas decorations. It was great. Nice weather, low crowds and christmas spirit along with the Disney spirit... what could be better.

Some highlights of the trip:

We walked Sleeping Beauty's castle and the girls loved it. We have never walked through the castle and this trip it was all Hannah talked about and they probably walked through 3-4 times.

One of the best parts was during the fireworks, Ella held up here stuffed duckie to make sure he could see the fireworks (like she was being held up) on shoulders. She said "here duckie, fireworks" and you could tell she was very concerned duckie could see the fireworks show. How cute is that?

We saw the evil Queen from Snow White and Hannah has very concerned about being near here and wouldn't let me get a picture of her with the Queen. She had a bad dream about the queen many months ago and she is still traumatized about the dream and does not like the Queen.

It was fun, the whole Alice in Wonderland crew was out in Fantasyland interacting with the crowds and Hannah got picked to play charades. She was supposed to act out Pixie. She did her best and most was just awe-struck to be "playing" with Alice, the Mad Hatter and Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum.

Holiday Wish List

So many fun items out there right now and with Christmas coming up soon, i thought I would put my wish list up on my blog (mostly to help my hubby as he looks here for christmas gift ideas) and maybe a few for familly (if they need help)... And fun ideas for all you out there. So here you go:

Rachel Ray Bubble and Brown Dishes

Department 56 Kringles High Heels Cake Stand

Cuisanart Food Processor

Eddie Bauer pajamas

Colorblock Waffle Henley from Eddie Bauer

Ruffle Neck Sweater

These old fashion hooks

Cricut Tool Kit

Martha Stewart 24 pack of Glitter (I believe you can get it at Walmart for $20 or so)

CameraBag for my iphone and my mac

Market Tote PDF

Vidalia Onion Chopper

Sure Cuts A-lot

VT-Preserving a Mighty Change

As you know, this month's visiting teaching message was "sister's choice". I chose the talk Preserving the Heart’s Mighty Change by Elder Dale G. Renlund. And this is the little gift I gave my friends. I loved this talk because we can all strive to preserve our heart's mighty change whether it is big changes like repenting major sins or even the smaller effort to commit more and be more obedient to the small commandments.

Here are the tags if you want to use them. Enjoy.