Traditions

Derek and I haven't set too many Christmas traditions since being married.  A tradition that we have now done for the past three years is on Christmas Eve we bake sugar cookies for Santa. This year be actually did it on the 23rd so we weren't in the kitchen all day considering we made a nice Christmas Eve dinner for just us.  We all had a blast. They are far from perfect though.

 Maeley wanted the reindeer to be Rudolph with his red nose.

Each of the kids got to choose one cookie for Santa.

Maeley chose the snowman,

Chase picked the reindeer and

Zoe picked Santa.

Maeley had to add a carrot for Santa's reindeer.

The cookies for Santa plate and milk for Santa glass Derek and I purchased at Disneyland when we were there for our first Christmas.  

As a kid my family always went to my Crandall grandparents house Christmas morning after opening presents and having breakfast. It was always so much fun. Their dining room table was filled with treats. In the center was a tiered tray usual filled with chocolates. Seriously ever kids dream.  So I got my tiered plate holder out and filled with sweets.

My favorite Christmas tradition when I was a kid was opening new pj's on Christmas Eve. The kids and Derek really enjoy it now too.

 There have been many pictures lately of Zoe closing her eyes when she smiles.

I'm making this a tradition getting a family picture in our new jammies. We did this last year too. Lola wasn't going to be in the picture but I think she wanted to be.

Projects

I would post pictures of Christmas but apparently I have hit my limit on free photo storage on my blog. I didn't realize there was a limit. So I had to purchase more storage and have to wait 24hours before I can upload any pictures. Lame.

This holiday season has been more relaxing than ever before. Mainly that's due to the fact that we had Christmas shopping done by the end of November and that we live away from family now. We have completed more projects the past two months than the previous months living here. Actually on Christmas day by the afternoon Derek and I were bored. The kids were playing with their new toys and we didn't want to watch TV. Instead we decided to paint our bathroom. That pretty much took the rest of the day.

Here's a list of what we have accomplished in November/December.

-paint balusters white (a couple more touch ups and we're done)
-paint some picture frames and hang in the family room
-hang shelves and pictures in the playroom & upstairs hallway
-paint girls bedroom
-paint the red trundle bed white
-paint two lamp bases white
-paint tree on wall in the girls room
-paint all trim and doors white upstairs
-paint master bathroom
-remove nasty "stained glass" mural on window in family room (oh happy day)
-move around some of the stepping stones in the backyard to be more functional
-fix benches to our kitchen table set
Projects we hope to finish soon
-paint half bath down stairs (same color as master bath)
-paint kids bathroom upstairs (white)
-paint kids vanity black
-paint laundry room (same color as Chase's bedroom)
-paint all trim and doors down stairs white

After listing all these things we've done I realize how much painting we do. In our defense an all beige house is quite ugly. Ceiling, walls, trim, carpet...its gets old...fast. Plus it looks dirty. We still haven't picked out a color for the family room. That's a big job as the family is open to the kitchen and the loft upstairs. Every time we go to Lowe's I just don't think about it.

Meet Lola

She is now part of our family. She's a four year old Cocker Spaniel. Getting another dog has been a long time coming. We've been to the animal control shelters here many times trying to find the right dog for our family. Derek and the kids have been way more eager for a dog than me. We've had a Cocker Spaniel before which I didn't think Derek totally cared for him. Until lately he has mentioned what a great dog Charlie was and how he would have been perfect with the kids. Unfortunately he ran away, it was a mistake on Derek's part accidentally leaving the back gate open and not noticing until the next morning. So then I said well if we're going to get another cocker I want a puppy because they are so cute. After looking and looking we never found any near by and some that were a few hours away were so expensive. Petsmart was having an adoption fair this past weekend so we decided we'd go check it out. Both of us weren't expecting to go home with a dog after all we had been looking for awhile and never got one. But we saw her, her name was Lucy. A couple reasons why we changed her name. One- because Derek's family had a pug named Lucy and two because I didn't want people thinking we were naming our Cocker Spaniels after the Peanuts cartoon. I hate the Peanuts cartoons, seriously. She is so good with the kids and the kids are so good with her.

Lola found one of Chase's bouncy balls and that is now her favorite one to play with. Chase is getting it out of her mouth to play some catch.

 Maeley giving some loves to Lola.

Sunday right after we got home from church I went upstairs to put Zoe down for a nap. I was trying to keep Zoe from waking up so I didn't close the garage door and apparently Lola nosed the door to the garage open and escaped. Maeley saw it happen and told Derek. Derek saw her running in front of our house ran after her. He was still in his church clothes but in dress socks no shoes. He finally caught her after about a block. Now we know she's an escape artist. Growing up I had a cocker that did that too, all the time.

Monday afternoon the kids wanted to take Lola on a walk. Maeley insisted on holding the leash. I showed Maeley the best way to hold it and told her whatever you do, do not let go. She knew it would be hard to catch Lola if she did. All was going well until Lola spotted a cottontail bunny. Lola ran so fast Maeley tripped and fell to her belly being dragged by Lola. Luckily to got a hold of the leash and helped Maeley.

Maeley says...

"Sorry, the snow is all melted."

She insisted that I add this to the blog. I love that little girl.

On a side note. I lifted both Maeley and Chase up on our balcony to see all the snow on the mountains. Chase sure felt heavier to me. I put them both on the scale. Maeley weighs exactly 1lb more than Chase. However Chase is about 6 inches shorter than Maeley. I just thought it was interesting.

Sneak peak

When Derek's parents were here we mentioned how we knew what we wanted to do to the girls room.  We weren't planning on getting that started until January though. They gave us the push we needed and Blaine and I painted the ceiling, trim and walls before the shutter was installed. This blue is not the color we chose. The color we chose was much lighter, this however was the color Maeley wanted. Lucky for her the lady at Lowe's gave me the wrong color and I didn't notice until we were halfway done with the first coat. On a blog months ago I saw a little girls room with a tree painted on the wall. I loved the idea. Derek hand drew the tree on the wall with pencil and then came back with the paint brush. After seeing how it was looking painted he made several changes. I was in charge of the leaves. We are still deciding if we want to add a bird to the branch on the left where there is an open space. We still have touch ups to do but we probably won't get to it until after Christmas now. I love how the girls room is coming together. The hardest part is waiting to get it finished.

Fun with a box

Derek's parents came to visit a couple weeks ago delivering Christmas presents. While Derek and I are enjoying the shutters in the dining room and the girls room the kids loved playing with the boxes and packing materials. It was Maeley's idea to prop open the top with the long pieces of styrofoam.

Maeley and Zoe rolled up like tamales.

Zoe is smiling so big her eyes are closed.

Winter Wonderland

Yesterday morning it was raining. The clouds were so low and thick you couldn't even see the mountains from our house like you normally can. While Derek was home for lunch it started snowing and didn't stop until after we went to bed. It's even lightly snowing this morning. I had a lot of running around to do yesterday and Albuquerque didn't get snow until late in the evening. But where we are its just covered. Its so beautiful. Yesterday was the first time in my life I have seen falling snow. How sad I'm almost 28.

This was about 4:30 in the afternoon. We had just got home after Maeley's dentist appointment.

Maeley is loving the snow. I wanted to take some pictures off the balcony but when I opened the door this is what I saw.

Maeley liked how we had icicles like our gingerbread house did.

After the girls woke up I got them dressed so they could finally go play. They are all wearing many layers as we don't have snow pants for them. Zoe was hungry and has a cracker in her mouth.

Long after Chase, Zoe and myself came inside Maeley was still having a great time in the snow. I would have stayed out longer but I had to help get Chase and Zoe out of their shoes and coats to keep it from tracking too much into the house.

Gingerbread house 2010

We had such a fun time decorating a gingerbread house last year that we did it again. We bought another kit this year but I think next year I want to make it from scratch and use more candy. The kits don't give you much to work with. Derek's parents were here last week so we decided it was a great time to do it and include them.

 

Girls

We have been in full swing getting the girls room finished.  I am loving the way its coming together. A couple weeks ago Derek took a few pictures of the girls in our backyard during lunch. Just some snap shots of the girls so we could frame them. I just love these sweet girls.

Maeley and Zoe have so much fun together. I love watching them grab hands and dance around in circles.

Christmas decor

This year Derek was extra kind and let me decorate for Christmas the first Sunday in November. I have never decorated that early. I absolutely love it! I will definitely be sad when its time to take it down. Its been so long since we've been able to put everything out.

 This is our big tree. And please ignore that ugly painted stain glass looking arched window. I really hate it.
This tree is decorated with a woodsy, rustic theme with a few other ornaments on there too. Such as our bride and groom Mickey and Minnie that we got at Disneyland where we spent our first Christmas. Also family photo ornaments of every year since we've been married.

This is the kids tree. We bought this tree last year while we were in the apartment because we couldn't fit our big tree. We knew we wanted to turn it into the kids tree later. We try and buy the kids new ornaments each year. They love this tree and while they can touch some of the ornaments through the railing they generally leave it alone. All the presents under the tree are just empty boxes. Derek thinks it looks like a department store. But I don't really care I needed to fill the space.

The majority of our Christmas decorations we've had for years, many I bought before we were married. 

These are Derek's International Santas. His family collected them when he was younger.

I love the Christmas countdown we made last year.

While this has nothing to do with our Christmas decorations my mom wanted to see. We finally hung pictures up in the family room. Initally we wanted to paint the room first but because of how huge the room is we're waiting a bit longer.

Chase Face

Chase face has been one of his nicknames since he was a baby. It just has a nice ring to it. However a few weeks ago he started making this face. It all began at breakfast one morning, he was mimicking a face daddy was making at him. Now this is called the Chase face. It cracks me up everytime. He is so silly.

The week of Thanksgiving

We've had a wonderful week and are bummed to be getting back to the normal routine. We've been busy this past week and a half. I'll highlight some of what we did.

I kept trying to convince Derek to take the week of Thanksgiving off work. He would only have to use 3 PTO days and get 9 days off counting weekends. He needed a break and me too. Once Derek's sister Kim decided to come see us for Thanksgiving Derek took the time off. It was so wonderful having him home all week.

To begin our time off we finished up the painting of the banisters. There are still a few finishing touches and then I'll post pictures. Late Saturday we picked Kim up from the airport.

Monday we went to the Museum of Natural History. It was okay and had we not got in for free we would have been disappointed. There were a ton of little kids there on a field trip.

Tuesday evening we met up with Derek and Kim's Uncle Troy. I think the kids are now warmed up to him. We got to see him just a couple weeks before this too.

Wednesday we had a surprise for the kids. We went to the movies to see Tangled. Maeley had been talking about this for weeks. Even Chase was convinced it was going to be his new favorite movie. Disney did not disappoint and yes its their new favorite movie. Silly kids. I just love how when we do take them to the movies they sit through the whole movie, including Zoe. That evening Derek and I went on a date while Kim watched the kiddos. Derek and I don't get date nights very often of this was exciting. We ended up doing Christmas shopping. And guess what we are done Christmas shopping! Now we can really enjoy the season.

This is the only picture I got with the kids and Aunt Kimmy...and her head is cut off. I'll have to get some pictures from her. Zoe makes me laugh.

Thanksgiving morning we woke up to snow. It wasn't much but it was snow! I think I might be able to tolerate the cold better without the wind but its breezy most days which makes it feel colder. We prepared our first Thanksgiving meal which of course took a lot of preparation and clean up. More reason for Thanksgiving to be my least favorite holiday.

 Thursday night Kim and I took a short nap before heading to the mall because I wanted to go to the Disney Store which opened at midnight. I was thinking that because the store was in the mall we would be able to wait inside the mall. Wrong. We got there at 11:30 and the line was outside and already pretty long. As we were waiting I realized that my face was going numb. I have never experienced that before. I am a born and raised Arizonan. This is my very first time living in the cold. Granted I could be somewhere far colder than Albuquerque but this is brutal. Finally we got to the store and got exactly what I needed. We got back home about 1:30. We needed to take Kim to the airport at 4:15. Luckily for me Derek was willing to take her.

Saturday we got some more pictures hung on our walls. We painted the red trundle bed white and put it in the girls room so it wasn't taking up space in the garage. We also repainted a couple frames and bought new mats so we can get pictures hung in the family room. Its so nice getting things off our to-do list.