More Christmas Fun

I haven't been the best at doing "Christmas fun" everyday, but we have been so busy and most days there is something fun, just not too Christmasy.

So day 3, we went to Charleston Place Hotel with Nonnie and Gumpy to see the train sets they have. I forgot my camera, but did take pictures on my phone, but I'm too lazy to email and upload and whatnot so picture it in your head..... gorgeous hotel with beautiful Christmas decorations and a huge electric train set sitting right in the middle of 2 huge staircases. The girls loved watching the trains go around and around and Riley like seeing them for up on the stairs. We then went out to eat which was nice because we walked down the market and we got to have praline samples on the way back, yum!

Day 4- we went to Ben's birthday party. Of course that was fun, just not very Christmasy:)

Day 5- we went to church and relaxed at home with dad.

Day 6-- we made candy cane reindeer

Day 7- we made cracker candy... yum

Day 8- we had a visit from Aunt Candy and Meme. We made pumpkin muffins for breakfast and then made cupcakes for Riley's friend Anna. We missed her birthday party on Saturday so we had her and her mom and sister over for lunch and a mini bday party. The 4 girls had a blast playing. We told them to clean up and after about 10 min we went to check on them and I found Riley in the closet... not sure what they were doing, haha.

Day 9- We had popcorn for dinner and watched a Christmas movie... well not really on any of that, but it was what was the plan:) Riley had popcorn and M&Ms for dinner. Reagan ate 2 bites of popcorn, all her M&Ms and then wanted a waffle. And they decided they wanted to watch Toy Story instead of Polar Express.

Day 10 - The Elf brought the girls some new Christmas books!

Day 11 - Riley had a birthday party to go to... ALONE! and she did great. She even told the mom that I don't allow her to have sprite and that she needed juice... what a good girl:)

And look where the elf was this morning.... crazy thing:)

Hopefully in the next few days I can get to AC Moore so we can make some more ornaments, make a gingerbread house, a gumdrop tree, some more cookies, go see Christmas lights, and maybe make a plate for Santa's cookies!

24 Days of Christmas Fun

So I saw on a blog that they do something fun everyday to count down until Christmas and I thought it would be fun to try. Of course it's been harder for me to come up with things to do because this ladies list had tons of snow things on it and, well, I guess I don't really need to explain that, haha. We started yesterday with a surprise in the tree.

Riley was so excited to him and took him to her room to feed him and put him to bed because she was sure that he was tired. I think she is just sucking up... haha!

So then we decorated the tree which was fun, but my OCD had a hard time handling the girls putting all the ornaments on the bottom all in one spot. I was a good mom though and didn't move any of them and after Jason and I worked on the top it looks great!

Today we wrote our letters to Santa. I had them cut out pictures of what they wanted and we glued them on a paper. I keep having to remind Riley that Santa may not bring her everything she wants because she keeps changing her mind. But she doesn't really get that and pretty much told me that Santa HAD to bring her the Strawberry Shortcake Car or she would be really mad (good thing he has that already, haha).

Tomorrow we are off to see the trains with Nonnie and Gumpy.

For anyone wondering, the rest of the month is filled with making cookies, making ornaments, watching Christmas movies and having popcorn for dinner, going to see lights after dinner with our pjs on, having a frosty for dinner, stringing popcorn and cranberries, making construction paper garland, reading Christmas books, and many other fun things:)

Christmas Tree

I gave in and let Jason get a real Christmas tree this year. I love my fake one and it's soooo pretty and actually looks real (even loses it's needles, haha), but I will have to say that I really do like this tree we got. It's almost perfect and smells really good:)

The girls were really excited to go get the tree and we got there and they both took off running down one of the isles. I yelled for them to stop and of course only Riley did. I wanted to take their pictures so I snapped Riley's....

And then went to take Reagan's, but she was no where to be found. I asked Jason where she was b/c he was ahead of us and he had no idea. There were trees everywhere and you couldn't see a thing and we were yelling for her and she wasn't responding. Finally I saw a flash of pink through the trees and there she was. She thought it was funny until she went to come towards me and realized she couldn't get through the trees and then she panicked.

But I got her and we headed to another nursery where they couldn't get lost to find our perfect tree:)

Jason's Been Busy

He was off for about 5 days straight and I guess he didn't think that the rehersal dinner, Thanksgiving (getting called into work for most of the day), and a wedding were enough to keep him busy.

The before shot... Riley was seriously concerned about the toliet being in the tub!

Here is what he decided to do Friday morning before we rushed out to head to the wedding. And of course Lenar has great people doing floors!!! There were 2 layers of vinyl and mold all under it around the toliet... oh and soaking wet... NICE!!!

And he finished!!!! I LOVE it!

And he added a new faucet so Riley can now turn it on by herself... she is so excited.

He took our boring sick cabinets...

And made it fun:)

Thank You Shutterfly

So I have been thinking about Christmas cards and wondering if I was even going to send them out this year because they can be so expensive and also because we really don't have any good pictures to put on them this year. Last year I had codes for free cards with my pampers points which was nice, but this year I didn't have anything until now! Shutterfly is coming through for me and giving away 50 free prints and I am so excited... now for that picture (which by the way I got thanks to my cousin Jeanne - she's awesome).

So now onto the really hard part of deciding which card. I always use Shutterfly for all my cards, Christmas, Halloween, Valentine's Day, birthday party invitations, and I normally don't have a problem picking them out. It's like one just pops out at me, but not this year. There are so many to choose from and this year I am excited to pick from the 5x7 cards. I really like them all and I'm going to have a hard time making a decision. Shutterfly has so many new cards and it's awsome because there is something for everyone.

Some of my favorites...

You can go basic

Or I like this

Or you can get a cute picture card that has a fun alternative to a letter with it

So now I will be heading over to Shutterfly and spending a few hours uploading more pictures, making some cards, and maybe a few other projects like a calendar, mug for daddy, notepad for me, and who can't use another book:)

Allergy Test

So I took Riley to the allergist to see if they could help us with her cough.... come to find out, she is allergic to nothing!!!!!! Blah! SO, good news that she's not allergic to anything and doesn't have to take any meds... bad news that I have been giving her meds for nothing and she still gets this cough that hangs around for months on end and we have no idea why. Back to the drawing board:(

She was a trooper though.... said it didn't hurt a bit, but we still went and got a brownie for her being so brave.

Big Girl Bed!

Reagan is finally in a big girl bed and Riley in and even bigger girl bed! Soon they will be in the same room and bunked, but for now we are making sure Reagan is "cool" with it in her own room. So far.... she loves it! She sleeps all night and has been taking 3 hour naps!!!! I think I love it too:)

Riley's Bigger Bed (not supposed to have the box spring on it, but for now have no where to put it, haha)

Helping daddy to put it together (I didn't get this much help when I put Riley's together by myself!)

Reagan loves it!

For some reason she thinks this is how she has to get in her bed:)

Taking a binky break... I told her she could only have it in her bed now that she can get in and out of it alone so we got home the other day and she said she would be right back... she was just taking a break, haha!

1st Haircut

It was time for Reagan to get her crazy haircut even though I wasn't sure about how it would all work. We went to this really cute kids place and the girls had so much fun. There was tons to play with while we waited and there were tvs everywhere so they watched Alvin and the Chipmunks the whole time and thought that was the coolest thing ever!

Riley started us off and was so good and looks so much better now with a real cut!

Reagan played while Riley got her hair cut.

Then it was Reagan's turn... before

During

After... so cute.

I know it doesn't look that much different, but it's all laying down (we are using a spray gel) and the lady gave me tips on how to control it for the future (she will always have to have very long hair!).

Trick Or Treat

We had 2 sets of neighbors come over Sunday afternoon to eat and play before we headed out to trick or treat.... Jonathan, Leighton, and Haley (little boy and babysit) and Tyler, Lily, Angie, and Jake (Riley's new bestfriend... or boyfriend if you ask Tyler!!). We had a lot of fun especially trying to get all of them dressed at the same time... that was just a mess!

My mummy hotdogs that the kids loved!

Riley asked to hold Leighton and I really thought it would be a mess b/c she cried everytime I sat down, but I handed her over to Riley and she sat and rocked her for a good 5 minutes and Leighton just sat and smiled the whole time.

Leighton.... Little Deva!!!!! Check out those shoes!!!!

Tyler... the cop

Jonathan the pirate

My puppy and kitty cat!

The little lost puppy... she kinda stayed a step behind everyone else, but she wasn't shy or scared... she got up there and said trick or treat and then thank you!

Attempt at a group shot... Riley wouldn't stop hugging the pumpkin

Family picture

Group picture..... all the kids and Jason, he was dressed as Leighton's "Baby Daddy" since Jon is deployed! Haha!

Halloween Party

We went to Rolly Pollies for our mom's group Halloween party. The girls love going there and had sooooo much fun. This was the first time Jason has been able to go with us and he was amazed at how much Riley does by herself. I got second place in the cooking contest with my buffalo chicken dip. Everyone said it was the best, but I couldn't win because I didn't make it halloweeny... I think that's a crock of you know what:)

Recipe for Buffalo Chicken Dip

3 whole chicken breast cooked and chopped (i have become lazy and use 2-3 cans of chicken)

12 oz of Ranch dressing

1 5 oz bottle of Frank's Hot Sauce (sometimes I just less and some people I know use more.)

2 cups shredded marble cheese (I just use cheddar)

2 8oz pkgs cream cheese

Melt cream cheese. Mix in hot sauce and ranch dressing. Stir in chicken and cheese. Bake @ 350 for 20-30 min. Eat w/chips or crackers or whatever you want.

Nana Butterfly's Pumpkin Patch

This was a very strange pumpkin patch. We went with the mom's group and it was supposed to be educational, but the guy there decided most kids were too young to understand and decided not to teach us anything. But, we went on the crazy nature walk through the put-put golf course and then got our pumpkins.

Reagan's shifty eyes... waiting to get things started.

Then we finally got to learn a little and went into the butterfly house where we saw some caterpillars.... that was all... no other teachings... pretty sad.

They got to hold leaves with small baby caterpillars on them.

So then we ate lunch and the real fun began... the jump castles. I had to drag them out kicking and screaming. They had so much fun and made it all worth it. Now I did go down this slide and can say that I have no idea how they did it time after time because it was scary and it made me a little sick it went so fast!

She decided on her own to go down backwards and head first!