Christmas Season is HERE!

Haven't got around to getting my pictures from our Thanksgiving trip to post, so I thought I would at least start posting something Christmasy and hopefully change my background soon too. :) My friend Andrea did this so I thought I would too. :)

Christmas Time's A Coming.....
1.Egg nog or hot chocolate? Hot Chocolate -- we always drink hot chocolate Christmas morning
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? Neither.
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? White, I don't really like colored lights. I like when I see something with all red, or all green, etc. Don't like the different colored lights all together.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? We have before, don't know that I have any now.
5. When do you put your decorations up? As soon as possible, this year it will be Saturday after we go to a tree farm and get a tree.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Sweet Potato Casserole
7. Favorite holiday memory as a child? I have a few, but probably the top 2 that were "constants" are that we would always go out on Christmas Eve and visit friends and take by presents/goodies, and my brother and I trying to find our presents. :)
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? I don't remember believing in Santa Claus, but my mom told me that she thought I stopped believing around 2 1/2 (after being potty trained) due to our neighborhood setting up a place for Santa and when I saw him, I was so surprised that I wet my pants. (For the record, I know longer get that excited about Santa. :)
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? Yes, but just one - well Kenny and I may just open a stocking gift and last year the girls got a stuffed animal..
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? Snowflakes, snowflakes and lots more snowflakes, white lights, and ornaments that are special to us. I used to do 2 trees, and would decorate them differently but now I don't have room. My mom still does this and I love more trees. Isabella does have her own little tree in her room. :)
11. Snow, love it or hate it? Love it -- rarely see it -- Hate ice!
12. Can you ice skate? Ha, Ha, Ha. LOL!! (In case you didn't catch that, no) I did meet a guy my senior year of high school while ice skating because I was so horrible and needed help, fell flat on my face in front of him. Went this past year with my hubby and the teens and didn't fall, that's great progress. :)
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? I do remember several, but I don't know if I have one particular favorite
14. What is your favorite holiday dessert? For Christmas, I like my mom's homemade peanut butter balls, coconut balls and her friend Barb's toffee. (hint, hint to both of you)
15. What’s the most important thing about the holidays for you? Celebrating the birth of Christ, finding ways to teach my children about Him and finding ways to teach them about giving to others.
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Again, don't know if I have a "favorite", I love getting up in the morning, reading the story of Christ's birth, drinking hot cocoa, etc. I love turning the Christmas music on and decorating the tree, watching Christmas movies and there are also several things we are enjoying doing as a family, like seeing the lights, parades, going to see the gingerbread house display, etc.
17. What tops your tree? A lighted snowflake
18. Which do you prefer, giving or receiving? giving, really, I'm not just saying that I love shopping or making things for others in anticipation of giving it to them.
19. What is your favorite Christmas song? "Mary, Did You Know?", "Silent Night" but I honestly love all Christmas music! I love getting the "older" Christmas music like Bing Crosby, and I love my Crooners CD.
20. Candy canes? Yes
21. Favorite Christmas movie? White Christmas, Holiday Inn, Christmas in Connecticut --- urrr, sorry Dad, I really mean Mom for Christmas. :)
22. What do you leave for Santa? nothing -- although I have no idea what Isabella may try to convince me of this year because Isabella has decided on her own that she is believing in Santa.....

And now, I'm off to go pick up my mom and we are going to go to a huge Christmas Craft Fair. And the Christmas fun begins. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving!! In just a few hours we are leaving for a LONG trip up north. We will be spending the holiday with Kenny's family. We are both really excited -- oh and Isabella too :) - to be going up and seeing everyone. Some of the family we saw in May, but about half the family have not seen Isabella since she was 17 months old, which also means they have not met Amelia at all. I think Isabella is going to be ecstactic to be with so many cousins. I told her "You're going to see LOTS of cousins, do you know how many?" and she said "FIVE?!?!?!" --- well it is more than 3, which is what she has nearby. She will actually be seeing 14 cousins, I think she is really excited about seeing her one cousin Josey who was here in May, so I guess the number doesn't matter to her. :) Amelia...... I think after time will have fun with her cousins too. I'm afraid that at least her uncles are going to freak her out -- not purposely of course, she still is just afraid of strangers, men especially -- honestly, she just kind of warmed up to my brother on Saturday and she sees him more often and she has chased men out of the church nursery when its a couple doing the nursery. I don't think it will take her long to climb off my lap and run around with the kids though, she'll just be sure to run around those uncles. :) If you think about it, please pray for us, its a long trip. Please pray for safey and pray for Amelia to do well on the trip. I'm really not trying to make my sweet Amelia sound difficult, she is just particular. She is really such an easy going baby, but she just has those few Diva things that she doesn't like. One of those is that she doesn't like to sleep in the car, actually doesn't love to be in the car for very long so we are hoping that she does well. We're actually going to stop at a hotel tonight to maybe break it up a little but we will still be traveling for 8 hours today. Isabella on the other hand, will take a nap as soon as we get started, wake up for dinner, watch a movie and color, and then probably go to sleep later on. Granted, she will ask us a thousand time "Are we there yet?" or "I think we're almost there" but she doesn't mind traveling as much, I'm just hoping my sweet Amelia surprises me and does fine. She's not at the age that she can be entertained by a movie or drawing so we aren't even sure how to keep her occupied.

Again, I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!! I know we have so much to be thankful for, not just on Thanksgiving, but everyday.

History repeats itself

This picture of Isabella was taken on her 18 month birthday -- I guess I should be happy that it took Amelia a month and a half longer to get into the same thing.
Yeah, she looks sweet in these pictures, I have pictures of her crying after she got caught, but then once the camera was out it was all "cheese".

It was actually rather funny because Kenny had just gotten home from work, the girls were running wild and crazy and he picked up some books and was putting them on Isabella's bookshelf. I walked into Isabella's room, sat on the bed and said "I wonder if we can hide in here" -- we talked for maybe 2 minutes and realized it was quiet and I said "I guess we should go check on them, (and added jokingly) Amelia has probably dumped out my makeup and Isabella is raiding the candy jar (she had gotten in trouble for that earlier by taking a piece of gum, and trying to hide in the laundry room with the door locked.) I really didn't expect to see that Amelia had done exactly what I said. :) I remembered that Isabella had done the exact thing and looked back at a folder on my computer full of silly pictures of Isabella with all the things she had gotten into. I already have a few of Amelia as well, I guess I'm in for it if history continues to repeat itself. :)

We've been having fun the last couple weeks so I thought I would share some pics. The first Saturday in November we went to an "Old Time" Day at a local farm -- its the same we went to last year. Isabella had a ball riding the horses, swinging on the sack swing, shucking corn (pic not shown) and milking the cow --- Ok, so it was a fake cow, but she had fun. Both the girls loved seeing all the animals and going for a hayride -- most of the pictures of Amelia are of the back of her head because she wouldn't turn away from the animals, so I am only sharing one of her from that day. Lots of fun all together.

Will do farm work for cotton candy

This picture is a little disturbing to me -- did she touch the cow BEFORE she put her finger in her mouth......

Then we had a fun dress up day last week. I got Isabella's little "princess dress" for $3 on clearance after Halloween so of course the next morning she wanted to try it on. As soon as Amelia got up and saw her "sissy" dressed up she wanted in on the action too.

I love this picture -- its like Isabella is showing her just HOW to wear that tiara.

And this is the normal everyday occurence for our poor cat -- constant hugs and kisses from Amelia -- oh who am I kidding, he's as much of a diva as Amelia so they're two peas in a pod.

She looks so innocent doesn't she..... just wait until you see the pics I post tomorrow though. :)