Christmas 1.0

We celebrated Christmas with my husband's family this past weekend and Lilah got her first real dose of holiday. She was excited about opening the gifts and even more excited about playing with them! We took her to see Santa and I think she was more into it than he was! And as a bonus, one of her favorite foods is turkey, so she had a great time all-around.


Her aunt Kimbrey made a huge platter of chocolate covered pretzels and peanut butter balls that she couldn't keep her paws out of. I don't know how many times we caught her at the dessert table reaching up for a couple more. She's pretty sneaky, too!


And these are some adorable little Santa cookies that my SIL Micah made - might have to try that soon. They are made with Nutter Butter cookies.

Lately.

I've been doing a little bit of Christmas crafting and baking and wanted to share:

These are pages from some books that I am making for my neice and nephew for Christmas. Each page features a letter of their names and an animal/word that starts with that letter. I got the idea from Etsy and fell in love with it. One book is done an the other still needs quite a bit of work...





And Lilah and I made some sugar cookies tonight - well, mostly she just licked the beaters and ate the cookies with her bedtime milk. Still, a sweet partner for sure :)




And this project isn't for Christmas, but in preparation for our newest little one, we've been trying to reorganize rooms, etc to give everybody their own space. Lilah's toys are all downstairs in a spare bedroom/toyroom now. Anyways, I made some canvases to tie it all together. I probably should have taken a shot of the rest of the room so you can see how it all came together (plus see the great quilt that my aunt made us as a wedding quilt and is now on the bed in that room) - another post sometime... Oh, I must say that I did not come up with these all on my own - they were inspired by these.



And, last but not least - I had to share this because I think every woman should know this recipe. It's the easiest, quickest way to get a couple dozen warm cookies on a plate in a pinch. Just three ingredients:

Easy Peanut Butter Cookies
1 egg
1 cup sugar
1 cup peanut butter

350˚ for 10 minutes.

Made some for my thanksgiving because my brother-in-law always appreciates them. And when it's that easy, why not?



And, I leave you with this:

I cut Lilah's bangs myself today. I decided that they grow way too fast to be running her into a salon to keep up with them. All in all, it didn't go too bad. She sat pretty still (because of the handful of M&Ms) and it came out pretty straight. But, I don't think I'll be quitting my day job any time soon!

Say Cheese.

For my folks' 30th wedding anniversary, we gave them a photo session to have a family picture taken of all of us. Besides the weddings four years ago, we had never even done that! So, we finally got into the photographer's schedule and just got the proofs back.

Made for walkin'.

Lilah's new pink boots. Can't get enough of her wearing them. Whenever she sees them, she immediately wants them on her feet and lets us know by repeating "butz" over and over. Pretty stinkin' cute.


And here she is looking through photo albums. One of her favorite activities - which she refers to as "wread-ing". She absolutely loves seeing herself in photos, even baby pics. She thumbs through the album of the day of her birth over and over. Do you think she really understand that the tiny little baby is really her? She sure seems to. She points to the the little swaddled sweetie and says "Li-lah!". Wonder what she's going to think of this new little baby...

Trick or treat.

How much would you love to open your door up to this?


Lilah was a candy corn for Halloween this year - and boy was she sure sweet. No pun intended :) I actually made her costume, which turned out to be no big deal. Pretty simple.





We finally got to carve our pumpkins a day or two before the holiday. My creative juices weren't flowing that night, so the designs were pretty simple.





Lilah was not too sure what to think of the pumpkin guts. I couldn't even get her to stick her hand in.

And a couple cute ones to top it off.

Sweet Punkin Pie.

Along with my brother and SIL, we took the kids to the pumpkin patch this weekend. The guys complained because I told them to get used to it because two years in a row means that we are starting a yearly tradition! Anyways, we took lots of pic while the kiddos played around in the piles of pumpkins and I couldn't help but look up last years photos to see the difference.






I actually think the kids were less squirmy and easier to get to pose for pictures last year. You could just plop them down on a pumpkin, make a goofy face and poof - beautiful photo. Not so much this year - we had to work much harder for them.

Big difference = none of this last year:

Miss Eva Mae Krehbiel

And definitely no girl-on-girl action last year. Lilah's favorite thing to do with Eva is give her kisses. If Eva has her pacifier in, Lilah pulls it out, kisses her, and plops it back in. (She learned that from Jak.)

Greens and yellows and browns, oh my.

Went with my friend, Michelle, to a great quilting store, called The Button Hole, in McPherson, KS this weekend. She has never quilted before and was very curious. I am a beginner who pretends to know what she is talking about. We make a funny combination. Anyways, she bought an awesome bunch of fabrics to make a friend a baby quilt, and I, as usual, bought a few mismatched, but beautiful fabrics - and an overambitious quilt pattern. Mostly just came home with some inspiration and motivation to actually get something made.




Also put together a cover for what will be a baby book for the new baby. Kinda boyish, I know. But don't the floral patterns help girl it up a little?


And, on the family front - here are a few pics of my nephew, Jak's, 2nd birthday party.


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The Cars cake was made by my SIL's sister, Kathleen. She has quite a knack for cakes and gets more impressive ! So pretty we had a hard time cutting into it.

And one to prove that I am truly pregnant :)