Pretty Darn Cute, If I do say so myself!

Gingerbread Village

Jeremy brought home a gingerbread village kit last week, so we got to work. 

Our Masterpiece... that took us literally an entire week to finish because, well, we're slow.

 And because the camera was out, Courtney insisted I take 112 pictures of her.

I have accepted the fact that my head will always look infinitely large compared to Courtney's, and yet we keep taking these pictures...

3 More Days Til Christmas!!

ChubbaChubs

My ChubbaChubs all cozy-n-warm for winter outings! 

Guess Who Wrote Back?

Christmas Countdowns!

How many Christmas Countdowns can you cram into one house?  Lots, in ours!  Every morning Courtney has 5 jobs, most of which she accomplishes before I'm even out of bed. 

Countdown #1: The Manger Scene.

Every day brings a new piece to the nativity.  There really are 25 pieces, we just have some sheep hiding under the paper.

Countdown #2: The Paper Chain

Countdown (countup?) #3: Changing the date blocks

Countdown # 4: Candy Cane Snowman Mover Along (Yes, that's it's official name!)

Countdown #5: Candy Ribbon

And on the subject of Christmassy stuff:

Daddy helping Courtney put the star on top of the tree (Yep, Jeremy is taller than the tree.  Our 8 year old Christmas tree finally gave out so we bought a smaller one for our smaller home.  Fits just perfect!)

We also bought new stockings this year.  Bet you can't guess whose is who's?

And it just wouldn't be Courtney if she didn't throw in a few poses while the camera was out:

Now all she needs to do is nod her head, wiggle her nose, and wish us into a lot of money!

So Stinkin' Cute!

 

 

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving this year was the same ole' same ole'.  Which is wonderful!  We're lucky to have both sides of the family close enough by that we're able to hit all the houses, eat several meals, and be back home in time to put the kiddos to bed.

First stop: Melina's house, where we had a delicous Thanksgiving dinner.  I loooove Melina's sweet potato surprise. SO GOOD!

Here's Oma with my Chubba Bubba

And since that's just about the only picture I took all day, that's all you get by way of our Thanksgiving travels! (except the pics below that I took before we left for the day).

After Melina's house, we went to Jeremy's dad's house for the best turkey ever.  It was soooo good.  Words cannot describe. Ah, delicious.

Onward and Forward to Shelley where we spent some time with Jeremy's mom and aunt and cousins and brother and uncle and his aunt's granddaughter and let's not forget the cockatiel, Spike, who scared the freaking crap out of me when I went in the back room to nurse Alex and I didn't see him in there...could've sworn that was an empty cage....   

And then back to Melina's, because, you know... why not?

Here are a few pictures I took before we left.  My lil double chinned chubby cheeked Alex in his 'My First Thanksgiving" outfit! Ah. Precious.  :)

And the terrified look he gets when he senses Courtney coming....

And here she is: Little Miss Photo-Posing-Genic, herself.  Don't ask about all the weird arm and leg poses that are bound to show up in every picture she's in. *sigh*

My two wee babes.  Are they not the cutest?

We hope you all had a fabulous Thanksgiving as well!

Oh So Crafty Are We

I found this idea on either..pinterest, or a crafty blog.. I don't remember.  I get sucked into those black holes all too often and many times emerge not remembering where I've been.  So the original idea isn't mine, but Courtney and I added our own twist. :)

We started out by using one of Jeremy's 24 pack Pepsi boxes.  We grabbed a few sheets of scrap booking paper, some good ole' fashion home made mod-podge (also courtesy of pinterest!), a paint brush, and got started!  First doing a layer of mod-podge on the box, then sticking on the paper, and mod podging over that as well to give it a stiff sturdy feel.

Blow-dry it dry...(oh, and p.s, i had cut a couple holes out of the box before hand)

 (in case anyone wanted to know, this is just half elmers glue and half water, shaken, not stirred!)

 Add a funny face, bling it out with glitter (because i was doing this with a 4 year old, and to her, no craft is complete without glitter!).

Fill with canned goods.....

(Ignore the sauce down her shirt, she had spaghetti for lunch.... also ignore that she's still in pajamas)

 And cute-ify your pantry shelves! (aka maximize storage space)

Since this little gem of ours is housing all the corn, we have appropriately named her "Corny".  Courtney said she looked lonely up there, so as soon as Jeremy finishes up his Mountain Dew, we'll be making her a friend to house the green beans next to her.  Perhaps we'll name him... Beaner.

My Happy Boy