Sunday School Christmas Party

We seriously love our Sunday School class. We had our Christmas party at the beginning of the month (it's hard to work around everybody's schedules!) and it was a delicious Mexican stack and hilarious White Elephant gift exchange.

And again, my pictures are from my phone, so they're terrible. Oh well.

Matt didn't get to keep the nose trimmer, haha!

Kendra and her short-lived moment with the coveted head massager

Carlos scored some fuzzy dice!

HILARIOUS. Especially the story behind it. And mostly because she regifted it the next day!

Nick ready for presents!

Ha, Janice with her light up skeleton

Because everybody needs a handmade bonnet!

I think Nick enjoyed his boa a little too much.

First choice = last choice

Matt decided to give up his Hillbilly Briefcase as his White Elephant gift

Our fearless leaders!

Mwahaha, I got the head massager. That thing rocks.

Evelyn's First Birthday

My little niece turned one at the beginning of the month! She's so precious and had LOTS of people at her party to help her celebrate! (Granted, she has a kajillion aunts and uncles, haha.)

And before you go off thinking that I became some great photographer, these pictures are all from my amazing sister at Allison Jean Photo.

Happy birthday, Evelyn! We love you!

Open House Christmas Marketplace

I went out on a limb this year and decided to host my own little craft fair. I invited six friends to be vendors, and I cleared out my living room furniture so we could have our first Open House Christmas Marketplace the Thursday after Thanksgiving.

All the hard work aside, it was a LOT of fun and we had so many people come by! It was a come and go event complete with refreshments (including my should-be-famous hot chocolate, haha) and Christmas music. Take a look at the vendor booths!

My little booth.

The other side of my booth.

Cindy with These Salvaged Hands (she is SO creative!)

Margaret with Blessings Unlimited (beautiful home decor!)

My friend Amy makes custom decorative crosses

My sister-in-law Chelsea HAND PAINTS wooden jewelry. She is SO talented!

My friend Kyndra with Pampered Chef

My beautiful sisters-in-law even dressed alike for the occasion. Okay, so it was accidental.

I was glad for it to be over, but honestly, the sales made it a worthwhile endeavor. Hopefully this will become an annual event!

Thanksgiving 2012

Why yes, I am posting our Thanksgiving in mid-December.

We had a majorly low key Thanksgiving this year, and it was awesome. My parents hosted a few of my cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents, and we had the best Thanksgiving food that we've had in the past few years!

Avery thought the food was delicious!

Nana, Pop, Allison, and Isaac

Landon discovering his love of olives playing with his food

Uncle Randy, Aunt Teresa, Avery, Mom

Landon, Matt, and my cousin Michael

Landon with Aunt "Ally"

Dad, Aunt Cristi, and my cousins Rachelle and Matthew

I've been terrible about taking real pictures since I got my iPhone (which I will totally remedy from here on out), so these are the only ones I got. Oh well. Happy Thanksgiving! Or I guess I should say Merry Christmas!

Landon: 18 Months

Landon is 18 months old now! Okay, so he's 18 months and 2.5 weeks, but who's counting??

This kid CRACKS. US. UP.

He's adventurous and silly and snuggly and WILD.

He loves to talk and sing and dance, and his favorite thing to do lately is to see how long it takes us to realize that he's taking all the ornaments off the Christmas tree.

Landon loves to repeat words and his vocabulary has just exploded over the past month.

He's become a major Daddy's boy. He loves to follow Matt around and gets super excited when he gets home from work.

He is highly motivated by food. I can't really blame him.

He loves to run and explore, and he's constantly got the bumps, bruises, and scrapes to prove it. He usually just says "Ow!" and keeps playing.

Landon loves to play with "girl toys" with his big sister (when she's feeling generous enough to allow him in her room, haha!).

He LOVES to read and is constantly yelling, "Book! Book!" and "Lap! Lap!" when he's ready for story time. His favorites are Little Blue Truck and our counting I Spy type book that has the "tractors" in it.

He still wears 18 month to 2T clothes, a size 6 shoe, and a size 4 diaper.

We absolutely love this kid!!

Sometimes

Sometimes I go on an unplanned blog break and then don't know how to come back because I don't even know where to start to catch up.

This is one of those times.

Sometimes I lay on the couch instead of working on my Etsy orders. Then I feel guilty about being lazy.

This is one of those times.

Sometimes I make big plans to do Advent-y Christmas-y things every day in December and then by December 9 we're doing good to eat a Lifesaver off our Christmas countdown tree every day. We haven't even done anything "officially" related to Advent.

This is one of those times.

Sometimes I look around my house and want to cry because I have so much laundry to do and my floor hasn't been vacuumed in over a week. (We have a hairy dog. This is gross.)

This is one of those times.

Sometimes I still feel thankful in the middle of my laziness, Christmas shortcomings, and overwhelmed state.

This is one of those times.

I'll be back with a catch up post once I can figure out where I left off and have enough energy to take you through the pictorial journey of everything that's happened since.