Christmas Card Fashion 2014
This was the only outfit Mama Pat decided to go with for the girls' annual holiday photo shoot this year and it was a cute and casual one. As far as Brook goes, she and I decided to break the bangs out on yall again and I think she was a cutie! ;-)
The Arrival of "Maddie"
"Maddie" managed to get in position just in the nick of time the morning after Thanksgiving...guess she had too much turkey the day before...lol.
Good thing Daddy kept up with the logistics of her travel and accommodations during the holiday season, otherwise she might not have made it to the North Pole and back daily like she was supposed to.
To give you an idea of what I mean, she mysteriously made a pop-up visit over the summer in the shoe area of my closet when Brook was in there entertaining herself trying on my shoes one day...oops.
Goes to show....Santa via Maddie watches you all year long...lol!
Deck the Halls...
I was really in the holiday spirit this year and wanted it to show by re-vamping my holiday deco at the Loring Estates...lol. So, I pulled my Crafty Corner skills out of retirement briefly and "re-surfaced" all of my basics I already had with new embellishments. Pregnancy didn't hold me back at all...I think it's part of what put me in such a good motivated mood to do it. The last few of these pics are some "re-vamps" I did for Mama Pat and Papa at their houses as well...
Christmas Lane at church...
Every year our church has a huge outreach activity to the community through putting on a Christmas carnival on the church lots complete with rides, hot chocolate, kettle corn, hot dogs, nachos, cookies and more and all for FREE! Although we didn't get out there in time enough to enjoy all it had to offer, "someone" wasn't going to let us get away with not going at all. She had a great time as always!
Brooklyn's School Holiday Festivities...
The week before Christmas was a busy time at Brook's school as well complete with the Christmas program and her class party. Below are pics of her manicure she had done especially for the week leading into it as well as her speaking part in the program and her enjoying her class party. The last pic in this section is the gift she gave to each of her teacher's for their personal trees. No, I did not make that...Craft Corner retirement had resumed by then...lol.
Oh and by the way....yes this thing was breakable. I tested that by accidently dropping and breaking one as soon as I got home from the mall with it. God bless the lady who had sympathy on me and made me another one for free!
Shop Til You Drop...
I took Brook with me on a few marathon shopping adventures to get all that Christmas shopping done and wore her out. See here the before pic when I thought I was feeding her well to sustain her energy over the day...and an after pic when I see maybe it wasn't quite enough to do the trick...lol
Time with Santa...
Someone was so nervous about meeting Santa. This chick put it off for several weeks until we finally warned her that if she didn't visit with him, he wouldn't know what she wanted and might not get anything for her... So the last Saturday before Christmas we finally went and it was as if they had been good friends for years :-)
Culinary Christmas...
Old Suzy Homemaker showed up for the holidays too. Can't say I completely retired her, but let's just say she cut her hours back these days...lol. Anyhoo, I broke out the old skill set as we hosted our cousins for a dinner party the weekend before Christmas. I should have taken pics of all we had, but as you can see my green bean bundles were what I was the most proud of...lol!
Out of sequential order, there's also a pic of my New Year's Day contributions the good old greens and black eyed peas. I must say they were the best greens I've made to date...mmmm mmmm good :-)
Christmas Cookie Deco for Santa..
So I've started a little tradition as of last year to host a little cookie deco party at the house on Dec 23 to get ready for Christmas Eve by decorating cookies for Santa with all the little ones. This stemmed from hosting our cousins when they were all smaller to deco cookies but we would usually do it earlier. However doing it this way with all our little ones was so much fun last year, I wanted to keep it going and all the girls really had fun!! I hate I didn't get any pics of our cousins as they were who this all originated from. New to the bunch this year was my friend Christian and her cutie pie Kendall. We talk all the time but don't take advantage of getting the girls together at all so this was a great way to put little Miss Kendall into the fold and she kept up with the slightly bigger girls like a champ! Notice the funny shirt I bought for Brook to wear...but please disregard that hair!! Lol! Mommy had been working all day and barely pulled this party together in time...that's why you will NOT see any pics of me!
Pics from "The Big Night"...
Boy were we excited to get to bed on Christmas Eve around my house? Paid off big too...I hear Santa's elves had to work for days on that Barbie Dream House. I also hear Santa had a pregnant elf who worked really hard to get that Frozen bedroom deco done as well :-)
Although these were the gifts from Santa, it was only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to what an extraordinary Christmas Brook had in terms of gifts and toys.
Christmas Time with Family
We had a great time over Christmas Eve and Christmas Day visiting with family. I didn't snap as many photos as I should have. Just know we saw just about everyone and it was great to do so!
Bringing in 2015...with lots of food of course!
I decided to keep with tradition and have my black eyed peas for good luck and my greens for financial stability...lol. I've done greens plenty of times but this was my first stab at making black eyed peas from scratch. The greens were the bomb! I had to have a sample bowl of those. The peas...I would have preferred to be a little more brothy and less thick. I didn't take many after pics of these items. What you see is when I was pretty proud of myself before hand.
I also took New Year's Eve to make some party snacks for me and my crew at the house. So, I did some fresh pigs in a blanket and tried to make a simulated version of champagne punch with my pregnant girl champagne- Sprite...lol. Needless to say, I was not impressed and I brought the New Year in sleeping...hey...I'm not lame, I'm just pregnant :-)
The Official New Years Day Party Activity at the Loring House...no explanation needed
An Extra Holiday...
Ok this is a little out of chronological order but every year we get an extra holiday between Christmas and New Year's...our wedding anniversary. This year was 7 years for us and we can really say and confirm and double confirm....marriage is work. But hey....nobody said it would be easy. It felt like a celebration of another phase of life for us with Paxton coming and Brooklyn gearing up to start kindergarten next year. We've been through some "thangs"...together... And we're still here!
We celebrated with a brief weekend getaway over to a Grizzlies game and a nice day out kid-free on our actual anniversary. We ended it with dinner at Arthur's Steakhouse which we both had to give 2 thumbs up!! The food was amazing!! I've been there a few times for work but to actually sit down and eat and taste my food is a different experience...lol. We'll definitely go back...but uhhhhh probably only once or twice a year...cha-ching...if you get what I'm saying.
And while we were out celebrating..this is how Mama Pat let the girls entertain themselves....
Holiday Humor
I find it amusing to leave you with a little laughter at the end of my posts so here it is. First pic is the "obscene" Christmas pajama display at our local Old Navy... definitely gave me a little comic relief in the middle of a long shopping day.
The second really needs no explanation for any parent or grandparent of a small child...I was in tears when I came across that one...
My New Year's Day Text Message...
Well...let's see how behind I can be on the next post.
Happy New Year Everyone...oh and Happy Groundhog's Day too. Who knew they'd be so close together?
