Happy New Year!

We stayed up...{barely}!  Toasted the New Year and enjoyed a little midnight snack...
Riesling + Gala + Colby Jack...Yum!

Super Hudson, who was still going strong way, way past his bedtime, wishes everyone a New Year full of every "super amazing super power ever"!!

Wishing you a 2014 full of sweet, unexpected moments like this...

...and blessings all around!

Bake Day {2013}

I love our annual Bake Days!

I love seeing how excited the littles get in anticipation of baking with Noonie. I love seeing them grow through these pictures...their little hands next to my mom's loving hands. I'm beyond grateful to have a HEALTHY Noonie baking with us this year. Take that, cancer!

C R A C K!
{laughter is always the main ingredient on Bake Day!}

P O U R!

S T I R!

S P R E A D!

Select your cookie cutters and G O!

Oh, these sweet little hands!!

Hi there, little Gingerbread Man!

Grace's turn!
{my two favorite girls...oh, how I love these two!!!}

The little pumpkin comes A L I V E in the kitchen!  She L O V E S to bake!

This picture is L O V E to my heart!

Mama's turn!

Hudson is so cuddly. I could just S Q U E E Z E him all day!!

She is my S U N S H I N E!

Noonie showing off her decorating skills! he he he

Oh my! And this is why we B U Y our decorated cookies - hahahahahahahahaha! But the memories, oh the sweet memories - I wouldn't trade them for the world!

Another year in the books!
Noonie-62, Jessica-35, Grace-6 3/4, Hudson-4 1/2

Maybe next year we'll be in a N E W    K I T C H E N!! *wink*

Christmas morning EXCITEMENT!

We set out cookies and milk...

We gave Daddy an early present...Superman PJs the littles picked out for him!

We had the annual reading of 'Twas the Night before Christmas...

We had a mini tickle fest...

And then they drifted off to sleep...

And sometime in the middle of the night...Santa came!

He ate the cookies, gulped down the milk...

Filled their stockings...

And left the littles sweet notes...

The elves came to their final resting spot for the year...

And Santa even brought back their wish lists and marked them both as being on the NICE list!

Bright and early on Christmas morning, two excited littles jumped out of bed! First stop...the cookie plate.

"He ATE them! And he almost drank all the milk!"

Then the craziness began. Santa kept forgetting where he had hidden the gifts and what he had for what child and Santa's elf went shopping and then one child had more than the other, and oh my...in the end two littles made out like bandits! Next year we are going back to simpler times!! But these sweet smiles and excited expressions sure made for a super fun morning!

The marker maker has been such a {messy} super fun hit around here!! Both of the littles have loved making crazy color concoctions!

Batman!

This was the year of the L E G O Christmas, that's for sure!!

Getting a kick out of the HUMONGOUS Darth Vader!! {Daddy gets the credit for that one!}

A bunk bed for her dolls! Noonie has already been recruited to make blankets...ha!

Lego, Lego, and more Legos!

And then the two top most awaited and longed for toys...

The Lego Friends Dolphin Cruiser!

And...could it be??? For MONTHS, all I've heard about is this Jabba's Sail Barge that would be the coolest-most-awesome-bestest-Lego-ever.

And Santa DID bring it! Whew...way to go, Santa!

My favorite toy that Santa brought...a LITE BRITE!!  I'm a child of the 80s, what can I say!! {best $10 Santa spent - that's for sure!!}

These superheroes have come in a close second!! I love seeing the littles play creatively! {and can I just say that Superwoman was included in there??!!!?! woo hoo!}

Superhero wellies...are you sensing a theme?

A package almost as tall as Darth Vader for the little pumpkin. What could it be??

Disney's Frozen castle!

Just as excited over the little stocking stuffers as the big stuff...and proof positive to me that for my littles they have the most fun just unwrapping!

But out of all the madness...seriously the littles need no more toys for the entire year!!!...my favorite was when they exchanged the gifts they bought for each other.

Pajamas!!! I love how this happened too. I took Grace shopping first and she picked Superman pjs for Hudson. Then I took Hudson shopping and we went to JCPenney {which by the way, I don't know why I haven't been to in ages b/c they have some super cute kids' lines!!}. JCP has an entire section of Disney stuff, that's why we went. I let Hudson pick what he wanted to get Grace within our $15 price range. He picked out these pjs all on his own!!! LOVE that!

If I can only remember one thing about Christmas morning, I want this to be it:

Proof positive that we were there too! hahahahahaha!

We finished our morning with my very favorite Christmas day tradition...singing Happy Birthday to baby Jesus.

I made a super yummy overnight French Toast casserole that was DELISH! Thank you pinterest!

And since Noonie and Papa J were in town, we made an extra special delivery to bring them some of the fresh-out-of-the-oven yummy goodness!

I hope you had a beautiful Christmas surrounded by loved ones, and most importantly, surrounded by the love of God for all of mankind manifested through His son Jesus.