Merry Christmas 2010

We had a wonderful Christmas this year. The best thing about our Christmases is that we are able to spend time with both of our families on Christmas day. Another great thing about this year is that my sister, Dana, was able to spend Christmas morning with us - a rare treat!

So we woke up early on Christmas day, and feasted our eyes upon Santa's great work. He brought Noel her now most prized posession...her "big bike"! She was completely showered with gifts this year...showered! In fact there were so many toys (of ours AND hers) that we could not fit it all in our car. Noel opened countless toys, ranging from babydolls to cookware and everything in between. We received a new toaster oven and a coffee maker. Tim received an air compressor and hunting/camping gear. Dana and I both received a beautiful Pandora charm bracelet.

After gifts were done, we got dressed and headed over to Tim's mom's house for their annual breakfast, complete with fried oysters and popcorn shrimp (don't worry, they have other breakfast food too! ;-) ) We ate breakfast, opened gifts, visited awhile, and headed back to Nannie and Poppy's house for some R&R, and later Christmas dinner.

Our Pictures:

Gingerbread House

This week we headed to Roanoke for a pre-Christmas get together. Dana and I both wanted to take a trip before Christmas so that we could take a load of gifts beforehand. Unfortunately my vehicle isn't quite big enough for all of us, plus our luggage and gifts!

Anyway, we ended up getting snowed in which was SO much fun. It was too bad we didn't have Noel's snow suit though!

We also made our Gingerbread house which Noel thought was awesome. She ate most of the candy before it made it onto the house, but that's half of the fun of course :)

Here are the pictures

Santa Hugs

Last week, Noel visited Santa at our local mall. We've been preparing her for weeks, showing her pictures of him, and telling her what to expect. We weren't sure if she'd have the same reaction as last year, which was...completely terrified.

When she saw Santa she was a little hesitant at first. But he bent down to talk to her, and she gave him the biggest bear hug! It was incredibly sweet :) I wish I had a video of their meeting!

She sat on his lap for an extended period of time, completely consumed with the candy cane he gave her. She forgot what she wanted to ask for, but thankfully we were able to see Santa again this week at playgroup!

Here is a picture of her picture with Santa.

Merry Photos

This year, instead of paying someone with ZERO photography skills to click a button and then dish out too much money for said service...I had my own little photo shoot.

It included:

A fresh Christmas tree
A yummy candy cane
A holiday dress
Holiday cheer

and last but not least...an adorable little girl.

It was hard to pick out a photo for our Christmas card, but we decided on this one:


These were the other contenders:



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Playing Reindeer Games

Today Noel and I made some Rudolph cookies for playgroup this week. We're doing our annual Christmas party, complete with gifts for the kids, a smorgasbord of treats, and a visit from Santa.

Originally these cookies were supposed to be made with peanut butter cookie dough, but due to peanut allergies in the group, we substituted sugar cookie dough.

We ended up making the sugar cookies from scratch, which is better anyway. Sugar cookie mix tends to create cookies that are extremely hard to shape. We started out with M&M's (for the nose), chocolate chips (for the eyes), icing (as glue), and mini chocolate-covered pretzels (for antlers).

Noel helped mix in the ingredients, and I formed the dough into triangles. I tried to get her to help in that, but she hated the way the dough felt on her hands and asked me if she could wash her hands.

Anyway, after baking, it was time to decorate. I thought they turned out great!

Sending our wishes of holiday cheer

It's that time of year again...I've been thinking about our Christmas cards. Last year we included one of Noel's Christmas pictures in with regular cards that we purchased from Wal-mart.

Since I think we are cutting out the professional photo session this year and just doing our own (for several reasons), I am going to simplify the process and just order Christmas Photo Cards off of Shutterfly. They have hundreds of options with a range of photos, sizes, designs, and colors.

Last year I ordered calendars for Christmas gifts - it was a year in the life of Noel, showing how she'd grown throughout the year. I also ordered Noel's birthday invites from Shutterfly!

So, on with the Christmas card choices. Anyone that knows me knows that I am extremely indecisive when it comes to picking things like this. SO, please feel free to offer your opinion. ;-)

I like classic, simplistic designs (And apparently I like snowflakes!)






So many to choose from...how do you decide on one?? Hopefully I can come to a decision on the cards, find time to take holiday pictures of Noel, and finish our 2011 Calendars within the next few days so that I can get the ball moving. Only 22 days until Christmas!

In exchange for this blog post, I am receiving 50 free photo cards from Shutterfly. If you also have a blog and are interested in receiving the same, please click HERE.