Gingerbread houses

A friend invited us over for her annual gingerbread house decorating party and I simply could not not go! We'd never been to a gingerbread decorating party and actually, had never decorated gingerbread houses before. I knew I'd have my hands full with Stokes and William there and wouldn't be able to devote much time to helping Ryan with hand-over-hand to decorate his gingerbread house, so I left him in school and picked up the other two to go to the party, since it was during the week. Stokes and William were so excited when I picked them up in the middle of the day. I, unfortunately, had to go back to work that afternoon, so the dropping back off at school wasn't quite as eventful and exciting as the picking up. Ha!

I didn't get any pictures of our wonderful hostess, Kahla (the boys' former soccer coach) or her boys, Brody and Maddox, but Stokes and William had a blast, nonetheless. Food, gingerbread house decorating, playing in Brody and Maddox's massive and awesome playroom....what more could you ask for?!?!

Notes: always get a pre-assembled gingerbread house (or condos, in our case LOL). The ones that aren't assembled don't stick together very well, and you may end up having to use a hot glue gun. Also, the box indicated that these contained eggs...I wasn't sure if it was in the gingerbread itself or if it was in the candy decorations that came with it, so I had to be careful to try to not let Stokes eat any of it (very tough). He got by with a few little pieces of candy but did not have a reaction, so I was thankful.

I failed to take a picture of the finished products, but let me assure you, they were 100% works for art. Not. :)

In the end, they made cute Christmas decorations in our kitchen during the holiday season...and no, we never ate them!

Pictures of the decorating:

William doing his "picture smile"

time to decorate

Initially, I was the only one piping icing on to the houses and the boys were just adding the candy. Well, it got challenging to maintain that level of control and within minutes Stokes had the icing and was insistent upon putting it on by himself. I lost that battle. #rollingwithit

Stokes with the icing bag = trouble

More kiddos decorating!

Such a cute party!

Ryan's School Christmas Program

Ryan's school did a little Christmas program a few weeks before the holiday. Thomas and I both set some time aside from work to be able to attend. It was amazing. I loved seeing Ryan and all the other kids there just enjoying the program. Some participated more than others, but the whole thing was just absolutely heart warming.

The parents were told to dress the kids in red, green or some sort of Christmas attire. Pre-school pics on the morning of the program were basically unavoidable in our house!

I mean, look at this handsome fella!

Performance pictures

Music and dance moves

Singing songs

Post-event, meet and greet with Santa

With the big man

heyyyyyyy Santa!

not sure why I did this so crooked.
artistic allowance?!?!?

Picture with our boy. We are so proud of him and love him so incredibly much. He doesn't lack for kisses and snuggles. 

Merry Christmas!

Work Christmas parties

Both Thomas and I had work Christmas parties downtown this year so we got a babysitter and made a night out of it!

I loved this holiday decor at my work party

We rode downtown with Stacey and Van and met up with Stephanie and Clark to get a drink before the parties started. Then we became a crew for the rest of the night!

We went to my work party first - had a great time and enjoyed some really good food....and my party had this AWESOME band..., then went to Thomas's work party, which was much, much bigger with a lot more people that we knew, which is also so fun.

Girl power! haha
Stacey, me and Steph

Thomas and me at his work party

Clark, Steph, me and Thomas

It's so nice to be able to dress up and have an adult night out. We danced, we ate, we talked and laughed - all good stuff. Holiday parties are such a fun excuse to get out and have some fun. We're thankful for companies that allow nice "extras" like that and for great friends that we can always have fun with. 

Ho Ho Ho, part 2

Remember this post from last year?

Well I decided that this needs to be an annual picture...at least as long as it's still cute. ;)

And....here are some outtakes, because you know I love the outtakes! Pictures with kids is hard, y'all. Shout out to professional photographers that get cute pictures. I don't know how they do it. For real.

And then this pretty much ended the photo shoot. LOL!

A Spaulding Christmas

Our friend, Carole (aka Mimi), hosted a family friendly Christmas get-together for her family, friends and clients back in December. She had a delicious spread of hors d'oeuvres, plenty of wonderful people, and a big highlight of the event was that SANTA was there!

Heading up to the party

Just chatting away

Ryan loved it

With Mimi's granddaughters -
Molly, Marlowe and Kate!

William was so funny. He kept wanting to talk to Santa and so if no one else was around, he would just wander over there and chat him up. Santa was a great sport. 

Pow wow

Carole had actually hired a professional photographer to take pictures of all the kids with Santa. The photographer did a FANTASTIC job! Check out these pictures.  I love them! I was so pleased with how they turned out. 

A special shout out goes to Carole, Kem, Margaret and all the Spaulding Group ladies that are so successful, inspirational and most of all FUN! We were so appreciative to be invited and to get to attend this holiday drop-in. It was so wonderful! 

The Great Snowfall of December

We had the most PERFECT snow in December! These are the reasons why it was so incredibly great:

1. It was relatively unexpected. Meaning that the local news wasn't covering "the potential winter storm" for 99% of all airtime for 3 days leading up to it.
2. No one was freaking out and running to the store and buying all the bread and all the milk
3. No one was really even talking about it
4. It was just snow - not ice - so the roads didn't get terrifyingly dangerous and the power stayed on
5. I can't even remember a time that we got snow before Christmas! Usually if we get any, it's in Jan/Feb. It was especially neat and beautiful to see snow accentuating everyone's pretty Christmas decorations - twinkling white lights and snow. So magical!
6. It snowed on Friday and continued on through Saturday with snow still on the ground to play some more! Two snow days for the price of one. It was like a fun weekend bonus!

Add all these things up and then the white stuff started coming down and it was magical! All the kids were in school so notices started going out that school would end early. That's cool. No freaking out though. I was working and kept remarking to my co-workers about how cool it was that it was snowing. At first it wasn't sticking but as the day went on, everything was turning white. 

When the snow first started to fall - not sticking yet!

The white stuff!!

I picked the boys up from school a little early and brought them home to play and enjoy it while it lasted. They had a BLAST!

It's so funny but we totally end up having to piece everything together, attire-wise. We are completely unprepared for snow/ice whenever we get it. Every. Single. Time. Oops. The boys wore hats that are close to being too small (EEK), their gloves that I think are meant for gardening (not water resistant!), layers of clothes, rain jackets and rain boots. HA! Don't worry though, Santa helped them out this year so we'll be ready if it snows again this winter...or next...and probably the one after that, too!

Sweet brothers helping Ryan to stand for my pic!

Uh oh!!!! :)

Playing!!!

SO MUCH FUN

Snowball in the hand

Snowball fight!
Pure joy

Sweet angel boy

They started ganging up on me...

Stop throwing snowballs at your mama! LOL

Precious, precious

Taking a little break from standing

That's all for Friday night...but the fun continued on Saturday! And this time Dada was home to play with us! We spent the whole morning outside playing in the snow and just enjoying it while we could. By Sunday late afternoon/evening, most of it was gone and it was back to business as usual. Snow is such a fun distraction from day to day life. 

William checking out the snow at breakfast

Come on! Stop taking pictures so we can play.

This is another series of... "boys stand there and hold Ryan's hands - yep, hold him up! Don't let him fall down! Make sure you're supporting him and stand really still. Just like that! Great job, brothers!"

Stokes and I went on a little walk on our street. It's so fun to just be outside during the snow! Stokes loved playing in the snow in people's yards that hadn't yet been trampled (those without young kids at home). There's nothing like the sheer joy of walking through new, untouched snow...and then promptly laying down to make a snow angel! He made 3 or 4 snow angels just on the short walk back to our house. 

fresh snow!!!

My angel making a snow angel!

When we got back from our walk, Dada, Ryan and William had made a snowman, which William named Kevin (hilarious!). Kevin used pretty much all of the snow in our yard but he was strong and stayed alive well after the snow melted. 

The snowman!

William and Kevin

Awesome snow day(s). It could not have been any better!