The wait is over!

Finally we get to see Jingle Jack! The wait is over and we are all so excited to see him again this Christmas season! He will be here sometime tonight and we made a welcome sign for him to make him feel right at home! Welcome Back Jingle Jack! You are the best Elf on the Shelf ever!

A new Christmas tree for my Christmas baby!

The girls share a room...and up to this point they have shared a Christmas tree. The tree is beautiful...and covered in pink boas. It is the pink, little girls tree I always dreamed my little girl would have! But it is now all Lila's. Sarah Kate came to me.... and from her heart...asked me for her own tree with her own ornaments and she is my Christmas baby... and she is practically an angel.... so we figured out how to make that happen.  Gran Gran and I took her to Garden Ridge and she picked out a 7 foot hot pink tree..and got silver tinsel to go around it. She picked out a pink bow for the topper and the ornaments on her new tree are all hers...her Clara ornament from her first Nutcracker...her purple ornaments from her purplicious party...her beloved pig ornaments...the tree is hers from the bottom to the top...and it is beautiful just like her. I love you Christmas baby!

Sophie turns 3!

Today the girls attended Sophie's Christmas Cookie Decorating Birthday party. They were so excited! When the party started the girls found their boxes at the table with their name on it and tied with a cute Christmas cookie cutter.  Inside each little girl found a Christmas apron with their initials on it...special just for them
and for their cookie decorating!  The table was covered with icing of every kind...homemade, store bought, yellow, white, red, yellow, black and green...and sprinkles, chocolate chips and red hots too! The cookies...in shapes of snowmen, trees, and circles lay undecorated and ready for little hands to work their magic!

They had so much fun decorating their cookies!

My little American blondies were the minority at this party. I am so happy Sophie has little girl cousins but I am also thankful for all her China baby friends!

Sophie made her birthday wish...and was cute as a button! I hope her wish comes true...I know she is a dream come true for Cam and Katie

 

The Magic evening brings to Christmas...

You get out and rearrange....and decorate...and fill your house with Christmas cheer but as night falls the decorations take on a new life. The first time I see it every year it always takes my breath away...the magical glow that fills the house. It's all around...and even though the decorations still have some fine tuning..tonight I believed in the magic....I can't help it...I love, love, love, Christmas!

Oh Christmas tree....2010

I put up the tree and none of the lights worked this year....our prelit Christmas tree had given up on us. Jeremy couldn't believe it...and so an hour after plugging in the strand individually and checking bulb after bulb.....Clark Grizwald took the scissors to it...and our prelit tree was hopeless. And with a tight budget that doesn't include a new tree this year...and four littles waiting to decorate the tree...I just added more light strands to our non working, cut up, pre lit tree...and no one cared a bit. I unwrapped each ornament and handed them to who I thought would most like to hang each one.  I adore our tree..it's nothing special...has no theme, but it is truly a scrapbook of memories from our lives...ornaments from my childhood....ornaments from Jeremy's childhood...first Christmas together, wedding bell ornaments, baby on the way ornaments, baby's first Christmas ornaments, princess ones, soccer ones, and more to add this year!I have ordered a runner ornament for Riggs! When you open the ornament box, the memories just flood into your heart...our tree tells a story...a story of love. 

The finished product was beautiful in our eyes...even though it has 900 lights on it that don't work!

Christmas Brunch at Verbena

So it was really a late birthday brunch for me but Christmas as in the air..as we sat in our warm sweaters..with our hot teas and coffees and talked about family and what the kids want for Christmas..it was a great way to start the day with my girlfriends! When I got home Jeremy had the Christmas music playing through the house and the decorating spirit wanted to put Christmas everywhere...so that is what I did!

Christmas is here!

As we walked out the door toThanksgiving I took down my Good Food Sign that hangs above the fireplace in the kitchen...beneath it lies a treasure that I look forward to year after year....my wall words that say...Christmas...it's the most wonderful time of the year...and it is!  I wanted it to be waiting for me when we got home from Thanksgiving. Oh how I've missed you, Christmas...I'm so glad your're here! I can't wait to decorate!

Happy Thanksgiving, Friends!

 Can you say blessed?  Oh I can say it a thousand times...and I certainly thought it so many times today. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving...full of family, food, and memories. Truly it was perfect. There is something special about Thanksgiving...it feels good to walk into a kitchen with the smells of delicious foods in the air and to look around and know these people love me.

 and oh how I love these people.....

 It's cousins coming together to be together...boys watching football on the couch and the littles... running and laughing...playing and making memories all their own!

Hiding.......

and seeking.....

 
and playing in Gran-Grans's shoes........as they dream about being big...and how I look at them and want them to stay little forever..thinking they will never be cuter...more precious than this moment right here...

It just feels good, you know..... and you feel the connection of family all around you. It's a day to take time to be thankful in your heart...for what you have....who you have.....and the love around you. It's a day to enjoy the presence of food and of  family...a day to eat off the Wedgewood china just because.


 It's sitting around a table and knowing you would do anything for every person sitting there to keep them safe...to make them happy....

 It's hands...big and small .....folded in prayer.....

 And spending time, while you have time to spend......with people you loved and have loved you all your life...

 It's Bumpa in an apron and candles at every table because the meal is special...the day is special...

 It's Grandpa at the head of the table where he belongs...and a tiny tug in my  heart because I still miss Papa....so very much....

 It's perfected recipes made with love.......

 And wish bones to share with someone you love more than life..............

 It's blowing out the pumpkin candles and saying goodbye to the season of fall ......and after a nice warm bath...putting on new Christmas jommies.....and starting to feel the magic of Christmas as it builds....

 It's looking outside at the Christmas lights that have been there all week but for the first time allowing yourself to really see them...and sweet Sarah Kate wishing you a Happy Crisgiving...her way of saying goodbye to Thanksgiving and hello to Christmas...

It's a day to reflect on the good in your life...because there is good all around you...so open up your eyes and see it.... feel it in your soul. It comes once a year and it is always worth the wait. It's Thanksgiving.

Thankful for this

This Thanksgiving I find myself, down to the bone, thankful that mom lives closer to us now. Having her closer has opened up a new door...that goes both ways...of helping. Dropping by for a visit and going ahead and giving baths before we come home so we we walk in the door we are ready for family time...impromptu sleep overs...and one on one time for the kids with mom in her space. They are getting to know her in a new way and I love this. We are able to stop by to rake leaves, plant tulip bulbs, or have her over to our house for supper.I am so, so thankful for this....

oh Lila!

I can't count how many times a day I say "oh Lila"...today alone from spilling Garlic butter all over the carpet, pulling the whole toilet paper roll, spilling a glass of tea, not wanting to get in her car seat...and everyone brings me to "Oh Lila!"  But today this one tops the cake...she walked up to me and to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star...sang "Can you see my butt, butt, butt!" over and over as she danced and shook her naked booty! She is so cute...and so sweet, but she is so spirited...and funny. I shook my head and said "oh Lila" and escored her to a pull up and told her Little girls don't sing songs about butts.....but inside I was laughing!

Thanksgiving Eve

As the feast draws near, we start to get prepared...getting out the recipes, bringing all the groceries in, and we get ready to cook. Mom and I have cooked together every Thanksgiving eve for as long as I have been a wife and mother...it is something I look forward to. This year, in her new space, she had all the kitchen she needed but still I came over for my Thanksgiving eve Moma fix. It ended up that my naked Lila, who refused to put clothes back on after her bath shares my love for cooking with mom.