Craft Night Christmas!

We had our annual craft night party a few weeks ago!  So much fun!

Our group changes a little every year.  Meagan is our most recent friend to move away, but she came all the way from North Carolina to party with us!  Christina, the girl to the left of me, is our newest crafting friend.  I met her through Lydia's ballet class.  

Ashley got everyone a personalized ornament.  Meagan made everyone JOY letters customized with special pictures of each of us!  My mom made beautiful Christmas bouquets!

Rachel made super cute trees out of felt and wood.  Heather painted everyone an adorable woodland creature ornament, and Amanda made some delicious spicy hot cocoa!

Cathy painted deer mason jar luminaries.  I personalized some cups using my cricut machine.  Jessica made several different cute Christmas pillows.  Christina made really cute angel earrings for everyone.

And after all our crafting exchanging was complete, we had a little baby shower for Meagan, whose baby is due in January!

It was so much fun to be together!

Cousin Sleepover!

The Christmas cousin sleepover is about to take place!  Lydia has been counting down the minutes all day long!  We are going to eat pizza, make a gingerbread house, and have a holly jolly good time!

To Grandmother's House We Went!

Christmas cousins!

Anna Kate was not in the mood for a photo shoot!

We headed over to Grandmother's fellowship hall for the Christmas meal and presents.

And Santa came!!!

Lydia was so excited about her gifts!  She said she had always wanted a glass doll, and she couldn't believe Santa knew Cinderella was her favorite princess!

Anna Kate got a sweet little baby doll that she loves!  She calls it her Santa baby.

Here's the whole group!  The 12 children were running a wee bit wild, but it was fun to be together!

When it was all over, we put the girls in their pjs and headed home!

Christmas 1 of 6 was a wonderful one!

Little Turkeys!

Although we are already deep into Christmas festivities around here, I thought it'd be fun to look back at my sweet little turkeys.

They are just so cute!

Lydia and I had been shopping at The Dollar Tree for a church project, and I found a pack of pink sponge rollers.  I told Lydia all about the joys of those little puppies, and she said she'd like to give them a try.

I was surprised they worked pretty well on her hair.  She wore her curls proudly to church.  

Here are the girls showing off their beautiful locks.  

We are heading to Grandmother's house tomorrow afternoon!  So excited about our first Christmas celebration of the season...besides Craft Night Christmas and an AWANA Christmas party for Lydia last night.  So much going on!  Everyone hold on to your hats! :)

Cousins!

I had the privilege of watching the Shibley children yesterday evening while Chris and Jessica went to a fancy dinner.

Thankfully, a movie held their attention for a good portion of the time, because when that movie ended...sheweee!  The cousins were very excited to be together!  They're planning on a cousin sleepover in the near future. :)

P.S. Ignore the mess on the table...craft night Christmas craziness going on back there!

Yights!

This girl loves to walk around with her "yights" on!

Also, she said her first three word combination today..."here ya go", but she says it super fast and all smooshed together.  She kept saying, "hereyago baby, hereyago," as she gave her a bottle.  Oh that's four words! What a talker!  Anna Kate is a ham...a feisty little ham! :) So glad she's mine!

Happy December!

New Table!

A few weeks back, we got a new table for our back porch!  I found it on our local buy, sell, trade page online, but it just happened to belong to our next door neighbor.  Easy move!  It is kind of large for the space and may, at some point, move to the front yard to be enjoyed while the girls fish and catch craw dads in our currently dried up creek.  But for now we've decided to try it out on the back porch and were able to have fun eating at eat it twice before it got too cold.

On this particular day, Joel came home from work with pizza, sweet tea, and even flowers!  Not sure what got into him, but it sure made for a quick, easy, delicious (though definitely not healthy) meal!

But our newest addition to our home is not actually this table, it's our beautiful Christmas tree!  We got it yesterday, and the girls and I - actually just Lydia and I...much easier when Anna Kate is asleep! - have got it decorated.  We've also been working on the whole house.  It's fun to decorate a new space!  And with five Christmas bins, there is plenty to go around!  :)

Kitchen Progress!

Here's a super blurry before picture....

to compare to this!  I am loving the transformation!  Not sure why there's a missing drawer, but I couldn't wait any longer to share.  It has been a very dusty mess.  Yesterday I had to wash every dish, pot and pan that were in those cabinets.  We're not even half way finished, so lots more dust to come!  

Now I'm feeling inspired to go sew the curtain for the pantry door.  It's been on my to do list for months, so it's probably about time I get to it!

Halloween Costumes!

Thought I better squeeze these Halloween pictures in before it's Christmas time!

I like this one because Anna Kate is squished down like a little dwarf. 

Snow White and her prince.

The whole gang.

Happy Halloween! :)

Pumpkin Dresses!

These are my current favorite dresses!

Aren't they beautiful?!

They made me late to church yet again.  Just too cute to skip a quick photo shoot.

Thanks, Aunt Terry!!!