For The Love of Christmas Cookies

If there is one thing that we have learned about Lily over the past 2 weeks it is that she LOVES a good Christmas cookie!  She has even started to say "Cu Cu" when we open the pantry door.  If she even hears the word "cookie" while she is eating a meal she will toss all of her food on the floor and again say, "Cu Cu."  So silly and so darn cute!

Decking The Halls

December is flying by and one thing I have discovered is that I don't have any time to update this blog.  But...after some begging from my parents here I am.  We put our Christmas tree up a couple of weeks ago ... Christmas music blaring and egg nog flowing freely.  We had agreed earlier that morning to wait until Lily Kate took her nap to decorate the tree but I could not stand it...the tree was standing there all lit up.  I pulled out the ornaments and laid them all out, ready to get started.  About 5 minutes in to it...after pulling Lily Kate off of the ladder about 20 times and after watching her toss Christmas ornaments all over the house we packed everything up and waited for a "calmer time."  As soon as she went to sleep we got to work and had a fun time looking at all of our memories as we hung them on the tree.  Cole is an excellent tree decorator and was a very big help.  After Lily woke up she was all over the tree, pulling things off over and over.  It was stressing Cole out, after all he had worked so hard on it.  We were constantly telling her "No." and wondering why in the world we even decorated the stinkin' tree but after a few hours she forgot about it.  That cute little destroyer has not touched the tree since.  The two of them love to get right up on the tree and look at everything on it - Cole asks questions about all of the ornaments and it is so cool to be able to share those stories with them.  It really is the most wonderful time of the year!

In A Word...Blessed

Time With Grammy and Pops

Since my mom planned on doing all of the cooking for this holiday my parents ended up coming over several days before the rest of the gang.  The great part was that they got to spend a lot of time with Cole and Lily before they had to share time with their other grand children.  Cole has become very attached to my dad and wanted to be with him 24/7.  I believe my dad was totally worn out by the time they left but he did learn a lot about transformers and star wars and taught Cole how to build a cool fort.  They napped together every afternoon...something they both enjoyed!  Lily loved the attention as well and truly remembered my parents on this visit.  She never seemed to have a shy moment with them which made them feel great I know.  Since the weather was nice they got to go on walks and play outside quite a bit.  Although it was busy, it was a great visit.

"The Boys"

Rhonald has a really cool office in our house...straight out of a movie.  My dad had this crazy idea to buy cigars and take a picture of him and his grandsons in Rhonald's office.  The craziest part was that the 2 little boys had no idea what they were so we had to keep telling them to "put those things in your mouths."  It was a memory for sure...

Family

"When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses."

---Joyce Brothers

Thanksgiving 2011

 Samantha (16), Luke (15), Tyler (12), Matthew (13)

 Grammy, Pops, Paw Paw, Lily Kate (1), Kylie (5), Leo (6) and Cole (3)

Rhonald and myself; my brother, John and his wife, Patty; my brother, Mark and his wife, Laura

This was the first year that Rhonald and I opened our home to our family for Thanksgiving.  It has always been a holiday that we traveled away from home for but our house worked well for everyone this year and we were so happy to host.  I will say we "semi-hosted" because we provided the house and my parents provided the food.  My mom did all of the cooking and cleaning since we are so busy with work and the kids.  It really was nice.  We had a house full but that made it all the more fun!  Cole was beside himself with excitement over having his cousins here for 3 whole days!  Wow!  He got to stay up late, skip naps and by Sunday he was totally worn out (I think both kids took 5 hour naps on Sunday afternoon).  Rhonald and I have always spent Thanksgiving with my side of the family and Christmas with his but this year we were really thankful that Paw Paw made the drive up to be with us.  The one thing that saved us was that it was about 65 degrees outside so we were able to be in and out and let the kids run their energy off outside.  I felt so blessed as I looked around our home and saw so many people that I love.  What a truly wonderful feeling...something I will always be thankful for.