Making Cookies with my Boy and Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we pretty much do the same thing every year, and i love it! We attend our Church's Candle light service and then head over to my in laws for sandwiches, gifts and usually a movie. This year we skipped the movie because we all had to get up for church in the morning! We started off the evening with my mother in law opening a special gift... it would reveal the gender of her soon to be grandchild. Matt and Cammie are always so clever when it comes to finding out whether it is going to be a boy or girl. I'm way too impatient! My sister in law Amy is just as impatient as I am, we didn't have to wait to find out that she is having a GIRL! So here is Sherry opening up her gift...

its a GIRL! Yay! She will probably hate that it posted this pic but i love it! Sorry Sherry!

an excited Grandma

We have ham and grilled cheese sandwiches every year... and the' re awesome

Earlier that day Noah and I made some Christmas cookies... originally we were going to make the cookies with my friend Jenn and her girls... but we never got to baking them... just to the dough. Here are some of our creations

Those were mine

here is Noah working on his...

Not too many sprinkles!

Merry Christmas everyone!

Lights of Christmas

The week before Christmas we went to the special event called the Lights of Christmas. It is done at a christian camp and conference center in our area. They were running a special promotion where for this one day you could go and only pay what you could afford. What a deal, a family of 4 would have to pay well over $30 to get in, but because of the special we didn't have to spend nearly that much! We decided to head up there and met some friends there too. The traffic was terrible... TERRIBLE! Everyone must have the same idea as we did, it took almost 2 hours to get there when it should have taken under a hour. It was worth it, my kids had a blast.

My sister in law Amy and her boys Caleb and Landon. We could not get Caleb to open his eye... he was being a pirate.

I love this one of the kids, looks like they are having so much fun!
Faith, Landon, Noah and Grace

And Caleb finally joined the fun..

The lights were just so beautiful...

Joshua loves Christmas lights

Noah is in this stage where he hates having his picture taken... too bad for him!
Thank you so much Lance and Jenn for the invite!

Christmas Wreath Project

I just wanted to share this with everyone, mostly because my husband kept saying there was no way that this project would turn out...and it DID! Beautifully I might add! I made this wreath one afternoon from branches on a tree in our front yard. HA! So much prettier than one bought at the store!

Noah's Christmas Program

This year is Noah's first year in our church preschool, he loves it! His class had a special Christmas program a few weeks ago. It was very short, which is perfect for him... he doesn't pay attention for very long! They sang some Christmas songs and said a short poem, then we had a time of fellowship afterward. Thank You to Amy, Kayla and Michele for all the work you do!

Singing " this little light of mine..."

and " away in a manger..."

and " jingle jingle little bell"

Noah giving his uncle Brendan a hug after the show

Micah and Joshua

Me and Joshua

Birthday fun

I am so far behind in my blogging! What a busy month it has been... and now it is almost over! I can't believe it is almost 2012! I celebrated my 27th birthday on the 6th. This was a tough year for me, and honestly I was not looking forward to my birthday at all. It turned out to be a great day, and was filled with so much love from family and friends. The day before my Birthday, on Monday Micah surprised me with tickets to the Michael W Smith Christmas Concert. It was amazing! I had a great time with my one and only! Then on my Birthday My friend Jennie surprised me at home with a hot, delicious coffee! Boy does she know how to make my day! Then later that night I had a special dinner at my brother and sister in laws house. My mom made my favorite, fried chicken and mashed potatoes. and my brother made lettuce wraps... mmmmm. That Saturday my mom and I went up to Leavenworth on the Christmas train. It was so much fun! I cant wait to do this again, It was that fun. The train ride was great, filled with great food, and even entertainment! Plus it was great just to have that time with my mom. When we got to Leavenworth, we stepped off the train... and it was FREEZING! There were people everywhere, literally everywhere. There were lines waiting just to get into the shops. We had lunch at this cute little restaurant, and ate authentic German food, ( delish) of course we had to wait for like an hour to even be seated... it was well worth it. We did a little shopping, and got to watch the tree lighting. We even ran into our friends Alan and Marnie in the crowd. Then we hopped on the train and went home. It was a wonderful Birthday!

Some of the lights in Leavenworth.

Me and my Mom just before the tree lighting

My mom while we were waiting for the food

What a view we had on the way up

The staircase at the train station

My mom and me before we left her house

I got this super cute camera strap from my friend Jennie. Love it!

A gift from my brother and his wife Angela, wrapped so beautifully

Amazing meal

Brendan and Angela

My goofy brother

Christmas Tree Farm

Every year our family goes to the Christmas tree farm together. Its one of my favorite days of the year. Thankfully it wasn't raining this year, so we didn't have to deal with muddy, wet kids! It was freezing, so we made it a quick trip, and headed to my in laws for a big brunch. I am working on the pictures from the brunch part of our day so I will post those later. Here are some pics of our time at the farm. Both of my boys were super crabby so I didn't get many good pictures... and our family picture of us in front of our tree before we cut it down did not turn out... I was the only one looking!

Micah and I got this quick shot after we put our freezing boys in the car

Micah and Joshua

Noah before he got too grumpy...

My sweet Joshua

Our day at preschool

Last week I had the opportunity to help out at our church Preschool with Noah's class. It was our " Friendship Feast" day where the kids make a special snack for a friend during class. I had such a great time, although Noah didn't really like having Joshua there with him

Joshua wasn't quite sure about class time

Noah making a turkey cookie

I snapped this one of Noah with the help of his teacher, ( also his aunt Michele) writing his name! I love it!