Another wonderful season comes to an end...

Little Elly was very sick on Christmas... but doesn't she look so cute in her  polka dot long johns??

Just baking up some cookies.

I'm basically a chef now.

Some cool new shades to add to our collection.

Mmm!  I love my Pez.

Oh Christmas... you come and go so very quickly every year.

We enjoyed so many feast and festivities this last week!  We began with Grandma and had some major fun getting started on the presents.  Unfortunately, little sis became sick and was throwing up all night ALL over Aunt Anna's and Uncle Bryan's floor.  She seemed to still enjoy herself though.

The next morning we headed out to Grandpa Strain's house and had a blast and a very yummy breakfast Aunt Lindsay prepared.  And then more presents. And Elly still throwing up and then crashing in her little pack n' play back in Grandpa's room... so sad.  

We went home for a few hours to rest and then...

On to Grandpa Albrecht's house for a feast and yep, more presents!  And a train which I could not get enough of.  Elly was still not feeling too well but no throwing up, just lots of cuddling with Mommy.  I have to say that tends to be my favorite place as well when I'm not up to par.

Finally home to sleep!  And little did I know what was going on out in the living room.

My Daddy... the greatest guy on earth in my eyes (and I'm pretty sure Mommy's and Elly's as well!) was constructing my new kitchen!  Oh it's so lovely and wonderful.  

I bake cookies.  I make soup.  I wear a chef's hat.  And make lots of tea.

No one in my household will ever go hungry or thirsty thanks to this gift.

It's wonderful.

I don't know too much that happened after I saw that kitchen, but I know at some point over the next few days I saw Great Grandma; my Aunt Judy came to town with Uncle Kyle, Steph (who is getting married next Summer and I'm in the wedding!) and Mitch; I had some good Mexican food and some good family time; and yeah... more presents to open.

The festivities finally ended on Tuesday night when Grandma came over to watch us while Daddy and Mommy spent some good, quality time together celebrating eight years of loving each other madly!  And that was pretty wonderful, too.

Daddy's been home all week; everyone seems to be sick-free for now; life is pretty lovely right now.

Oh yeah... one more thing...

Mommy is

HAVING A BABY!!

Loveliness!

A Note From Mom:

This is what these little lady hobo princesses remind me of... their hats just need a little more pointy-ness. 

ILLUMINATIONS!!!

Watching the little train which I believe was the Polar Express.

Elly was wondering what exactly was going on... she didn't mind, just wondered.

This is the kind of beauty we saw that night.

And this is the kind of fun we had.  Running through the dimly lit forest!

Grandpa, Haley, Riley, Uncle Wes, Mommy, Elly and I (Daddy was having his own fun hunting) enjoyed a lovely evening out in our local gardens that had been illuminated with lots of twinkling lights.  It was definitely my kind of place to be.
We also had hot chocolate AND cookies.
So, it was basically one of the most perfect nights of my life thus far.

A little Christmas prep...

Helping Daddy pick out the perfect one.

Here's our perfect little "Charlie Brown" tree.

Elly felt Daddy needed a little assistance trimming the trunk.

And of course, we both needed to assist him in putting it up.

Later that day, we enjoyed a local Christmas parade.  There's a district in our city that needs no excuse to put on a parade but when they have a  reason to, they don't disappoint.  And this one was no different.

A manger on wheels and an angel spreading the good news!

And the wise men following.
I believe two of them are women.

Some Mexican Christmas dancers.

A man riding a double bike with Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.

A Christmas Viking.

Clowns.

Star Wars characters... because no one does Christmas like Darth Vader.

Santa in his convertible.

And the police to break up this fun.

Like I said... they don't disappoint.

Taylor's first dance recital

Spinning around and around

And falling down

Taylor's dance recital was very exciting to watch.  She has some great moves!  Afterwards there was a reception where A LOT of cookies were served.  And they were delicious.

Who doesn't have fun in a pile of leaves??

If it's you, then don't continue reading because there's nothing here for you to enjoy.

Throwing leaves in the air is fun.

Finding baby gnomes in leaves is fun.

Making leaf angels is fun.

 The only problem with the leaves today...

They were a little damp and they kept sticking to us.

So, I had to pick them off of Elly before...

...taking our afternoon stroll.

Taylor's birthday party

Taylor's birthday is next weekend, so we celebrated with a PRINCESS PARTY!

And it was a BLAST!

Fluffy dresses, crowns, jumping, cupcakes, presents...

yeah, I wasn't joking when I said it was a BLAST!

Princesses!

Cinderella was there!

Jumping... of course!

What a wild little princess!

Grant got in on the fun, too, by eating the princess wand.

He's baaaaack...

Wyatt hasn't been over lately, but...

last week he was back.

And ready to celebrate!

I'd like to think it was because he has missed all of us ladies that he's become accustomed to seeing every week, but I have a feeling that it had nothing to do with that at all.

His birthday was a few weeks ago and we had planned on having a party for him,

and he remembered this.

And to say he was excited would be quite an understatement.

So, we got to it and let him open his present (which he LOVED) and eat his cake (which he also LOVED). 

We ended the time with a little couch jumping and Looney Toons.

And then sent him home... full of sugar and SUPER WILD.

We soon found out that Wyatt was quite the knight. In our quest to get to the front of the castle, we stumbled upon a dragon, which Wyatt slayed, but it apparently had babies.  I was quite fond of one of the babies and was going to keep it as a pet, but Wyatt let me know that he did NOT trust dragons... even baby ones. Mommy and I did not feel the same way, so we saved the baby dragon and hid it from Wyatt. Obviously, Wyatt was not happy about this decision, but thankfully I had the Queen on my side.

Mmm...