Man-No Party and other Christmasness...

Yes, I know it's been nearly a month -- I swear I've been trying to post but our laptop is being really stupid -- so I fired up the ole' desktop to please you few people who actually read this blog. I've been trying to post videos for weeks but it just says they are loading forever and ever so I've given up, but here are a few pics. So one Saturday morning Reese woke up and told us she wanted to have a Man-No Party (in Reese talk that's a Snowman party). Not sure where this little idea came from -- maybe because we keep asking her what kind of birthday party she wants -- anyways, we decided to make some Snowman cookies (which looked more like ghosts), cut out paper snowflakes (which Reese also calls Man-No Fakes), and sing "Once There Was a Snowman" over and over again.

Our B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L snowman cookies. Reese loved putting the baby candies (M&M minis) on for their buttons. They sure were yummy!! Reese was so excited all day about getting to make snowman cookies.

Finally decided I better get working on my quilt for Baby "B" since he'll be here in 7 or so weeks. I've had the fabric for months, but to be honest I've been putting off making the quilt -- since sewing = mucho stress. So I made my squares a lot bigger than what I normally do and I had the quilt done in 2 nights work. Honestly the worst part is cutting the stupid squares out -- especially when you're fat and pregnant. I know it's nothing fabulous but I made one for Reese and thought I better do one for this guy.

So after Thanksgiving we got our tree (which my wonderful mother went up to the mountains and cut down) and had it decorated by the 1st of December. As you can tell we had to stick it in our dining area since there is absolutely no room anywhere else in our apartment. I had played with the idea of temporarily putting our love seat in our bedroom during Christmas in order to have it in our living room but decided that was kind of ridiculous. So instead we are unable to sit more than one person at our table. Which we really don't sit at anyways (I know we're horrible but we are meal eatin'/TV watchers). Don't you just think the electrical box adds to the Christmas decor (yeah kind of an eyesore).

So Todd and I right from the start wanted to begin some family traditions. Every year we get a new ornament for the tree. It started out as buying one for each other but when Reese came along we started just getting her a new one each year. Which we'll do with all our kids from now on -- they will get a new ornament each year from now til' whenever they move out and start their own traditions. These aren't in the right order but I just thought I would share with you our collection so far. Above is the first ornament I gave Todd -- Christmas 05 -- we were engaged then. The significance obviously is the heart and being in love...awwww!

Todd gave me a set of owls Christmas 06 (our first Christmas married) -- I may have hinted to him that I specifically wanted them. The set obviously represents us and our first Christmas -- and they also matched my country/rustic tree theme.

The first ornament Todd gave me Christmas 05 -- he helped me set up some of my Christmas decorations when we were engaged and he noticed I didn't have a Nativity (a very essential decoration for Christmas) so he gave me one in an ornament.

Christmas 06 I gave this to Todd to represent our First Christmas Tree we hiked up and cut down together. This was before children and demanding work schedules - sadly we haven't been able to do it again and my mom has always had to cut ours down for us.

Christmas 09 - This is the ornament Reese got this year. She loves Elmo! It also plays Elmo singing "Jingle Bells" so that adds to the fun for her.

Christmas 07 Reese was due the 21st of December and I had held off buying a "Baby's 1st Christmas" ornament just in case she wasn't here in time. Good thing -- because she wasn't. So I bought this I think on Christmas Eve -- since she was still a little spirit somewhere... and hadn't quite made it to our house for Christmas yet.

Christmas 08 - "Baby's 1st Christmas" nothing too significant -- just thought it was cute.

Sorry if that was incredibly boring for everyone - but it's something I look forward to every year when we start decorating the tree. Reminder for anyone doing this: write the year somewhere on the ornament because even though we've only been doing this for 5 Christmas' I had a hard time remembering for sure which year each one was from.