Christmas Celebrations

It's hard to believe that Christmas has already came and went. We were fortunate to get to spend the holidays with most of our family members! Lucas of course is still too young to understand Santa, and as you saw before I'm sure he wouldn't want him coming to our house anyway this year. However, he really enjoyed the Christmas tree, and of course the neat new toys he was spoiled with this year. I'll warn you now... there are a lot of pictures to come! :)

I tried to get some neat pictures of Lucas with the tree... I really need some lessons on my camera! These are a bit blurry, but I like the glow.

Oh Christmas tree, oh Christmas tree!

How could you not love this little guy? His smile is the best!

Christmas Eve morning Lucas helped me make pancakes...

Later that day we met up with the Ramos's and exchanged gifts for the kiddos. Lucas LOVED his trucks and he played with them all through church that evening. We then went to church with my family, and then dinner and presents with Matt's family. It was a busy night and Lucas was up way past his bedtime, but we all had a great time.

He got a truck book, and this boy loves his trucks!

My niece Mackenzie and her Rapunzel doll and matching dress we got her. She insisted on putting it on right away. Too cute!

Christmas morning we were up bright and early! Lucas was into pulling everything out of his stocking, and once he found his new cell phone he was thrilled!

I think this is my favorite picture from Christmas! And yes, he got some goldfish, and had to open them right away. :)

Playing with his new train table from Santa...

Stoli girl enjoying her rawhide snowman treat... poor snowman. He didn't stand a chance.

Daddy taking the bug for a ride in his new wagon from Gammy and Papa.

He loves climbing in out of the wagon all by himself. He's becoming Mr. Independent these days!

Playing some music. I played with this toy a lot... I think I currently like it more than he does! :)

We hosted Christmas dinner this year and both of our families came over. I love having everyone over and getting to be with all of our family. Of course since I was in the kitchen most of the day I totally failed at taking pictures once everyone got there. :( Next year I swear to do better! Here is a couple of the only pictures from the afternoon and evening. An attempt at a family picture...

:)

The best it's going to get!

Here is last years...

Haha! Besides Lucas's size, not much has changed... it's almost impossible to get these two to cooperate.

Okay, since I'm already on overload of pictures I thought I'd go ahead and throw in a video as well! :) This is from today of Lucas playing with his trains and doing a little talking. I can't believe how fast he is growing!

Hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a great day celebrating Jesus's birthday with family and friends!

xoxo

Christmas Baking and Candy Cane Place Card Holders

Lucas and I spent Sunday afternoon and Monday morning doing some Christmas baking. We made three kinds of cookies and Rolo pretzel bites. Baking with an almost 18 month old can be a bit challenging which means I didn't pick up the camera once, so no pictures of all of our (my) hard work. However, I did want to share my mom's recipe for peanut butter Hershey Kiss cookies. I love this recipe because it doesn't call for very many ingredients and these cookies are delicious! They were always my favorite growing up. Even Lucas, who usually tends to not like sweets, ate the whole thing and then asked for more.

Mom's Peanut Butter Hershey Kiss Cookies

1 14 ounce can of sweetened condensed milk

3/4 cup peanut butter

2 cups Bisquick

1 teaspoon vanilla

sugar

Set oven to 375 degrees. Mix sweetened condensed milk and peanut butter until smooth. Add Bisquick and vanilla, mix until dough forms. You may need to use your hands at this point. Shape dough into 1 inch balls, roll in sugar, and put on cookie sheet. Bake 6-8 minutes. Press Hershey Kiss into center of each ball immediately after baking. Let cookies cool completely and enjoy!

Cookies made with Bisquick?!? Yup! These are the best peanut butter Hershey Kiss cookies I have ever tasted! After we were done baking we delivered them to our neighbors and Matt's office. I left very few for Matt and I because I know neither of us have great self control when cookies are around! Now onto Christmas dinner...

We are hosting Christmas dinner again this year and I'm super excited! Last year I made place card holders using pinecones and glitter and this year I wanted to do something new. I saw a cute idea on Pinterest using mini candy canes and decided to go with it. You can find the tutorial on this cute blog, Sew Many Ways. You just need mini candy canes and hot glue. Simple, simple! 

Here is how mine turned out...

I can't wait for Christmas! Only 2 more days! :) 

xoxo

Scenes from a Fun Weekend

My poor little bug had a bit of a traumatic weekend. Well really it was just a traumatic Saturday afternoon. The rest of the weekend was wonderful. We kicked off our weekend by having the Christman and Ramos families (two of my favorite families ever) over for dinner Friday night. I was so excited to see little Avery, and Lucas was thrilled to see his girlfriend. Long distance relationships can be tough... especially when neither of them can talk on the phone yet. ;) It has been since August since these two love birds have seen each other. 

This was back in August... my how they have grown! 

Here are a few pictures of them catching up... 

Reading some books together...

Playing... this is right before Lucas made her cry for I think the third time that night. He has been pretty crazy/high energy/shrieking like a wild banshee lately. It's enough to scare anyone... I even want to run and hide sometimes.

It was so good to see Jamie, Justin, and Avery. Avery is such a doll, and I miss you guys already! Phoenix is too far. I vote you come back to Cali! One day... I can only hope! 

Saturday we headed out to see Santa... Lucas didn't mind him at first. He even gave Santa a wave, a smile, and a high five... all while I was holding him... once Santa reached out for him it was all downhill from there. The result is this priceless photo that I hope he will look back at and laugh one day and not need years of therapy because of this experience. 

He is really hoping Santa does NOT come to our house this year.

Saturday night we went to watch the Santa run that the fire department puts on. I know what you're thinking... "You took him to see Santa AGAIN after the poor kid screamed? What kind of parents are you?" No, well yes, well kind of. We didn't make him actually see Santa this time. Instead we just watched the fire trucks, and stayed far away from the man in the red suit. Lucas LOVES trucks, and points them out every time he sees one saying, "Truck, truck!" So he really enjoyed seeing all of the fire trucks and eating a huge sugar cookie!

Lucas and Daddy checking out the firetruck.

He says "cheese" now when you ask him to for pictures. It's beyond cute!

My bug and I

Watching the firetrucks, and making sure we stay far away from Santa.

Our family

Tonight we closed down our weekend by going to a well known street here in Rocklin to look at Christmas lights with our neighbors. The people on this street do a great job of decorating for everyone to enjoy. Lucas especially loved the three houses with Mickey displays. Surprising right?!

One week until Christmas! Where has the time gone? I have SO much to do this week! Time to get busy! 

Hope you all had a great weekend!

xoxo

Christmas came early... again!

For Christmas I wanted to make Lucas a little fort, and of course once I made it I couldn't wait until Christmas to let him play in it. I had found a few ideas I really liked, but decided to go with this smaller, simple tent that can easily be taken down when needed. You can check out the tutorial here. I think you could easily use a twin sheet if you have one, but since I didn't my mom and I found this western fabric which turned out super cute. My dad helped out by drilling the holes in the moulding (since Matt was out of town for a golf trip... rough life, I know!) :) Thank you mom and dad! Needless to say, Lucas loves it. He has been really into crawling under things and playing, so I knew it was time to make this for him. No need to wait until Christmas to bring it out, he'll get enough gifts from Santa and grandparents! 

He picked out some books and we laid in his tent reading for a good 20 minutes. I think this will be our new quite time spot.  

Just reading some books... I love that he loves books already!

Nothing is better than cuddling up with my little guy and reading! 

xoxo

Felt Christmas Tree and Ornaments

I feel like almost every one of my posts starts off with, "I saw this great idea on Pinterest!" haha, so here I go again... I saw this super cute idea on PINTEREST a couple days ago for a felt Christmas tree that kids can decorate and un decorate over and over again. Check out the original idea on this cute blog, Johnny In A Dress. Here is the tree I made for Lucas.

I used hot glue to glue the presents and star on so they can't be removed. I used command strips to attach it to the wall. Then I cut out a bunch of circle ornaments to decorate and some lights.

I was super excited for Lucas to get up this morning and try it out since I had finished it after he went to bed last night. He was more interested in his ball popper though! 

Eventually he decided it try it out. 

He liked to take the ornaments off and throw them at the tree, and then crumble them up. Good thing felt is pretty indestructible. I totally had this image in my head that he would gently decorate the tree... haha, WRONG! However he played with it throughout the morning, and seems to be more and more into it!

Merry early Christmas to my little guy! 

Happy Friday! 

xoxo

Simple and Delicious

I found a recipe on Pinterest to make delicious, but simple, sticky buns. I'm all about simple, especially in the mornings! I decided to give them a try on Thanksgiving morning for the family and they were a hit! So super easy to make and so yummy! Why do sweets have to be so bad for the waistline??! If they weren't we would be having these weekly. I plan on making them again Christmas morning, and I already can't wait! You can find the recipe here.

Don't they just look delicious?

via

I might just have to make them once more before Christmas...

xoxo