Christmas!

Pardon my absence from this blog lately...we've been busy enjoying the Christmas season!

We made salt dough ornaments....(Sadie painted these)

Decorated and ate lots of sugar cookies with the Lances...

consumed tons of sprinkles....

 enjoyed receiving cards from friends and family...

Joanna and I danced our traditional Jingle Bell Rock dance for the annual Lance Christmas Eve program....

 and Sadie (and Charlotte) got Gramma Jammies on Christmas Eve.

 Sadie had a blast opening her gifts!

Charlotte too? She kinda got excited for the wrapping paper more.

 We had our Christmas morning at home and it was so nice. The girls enjoyed playing with their gifts from Santa for awhile.

 Sadie got an awesome Cinderella wooden doll with tons of clothes, and Charlotte got a fun ball that moves around on it's own. She loved it and kept trying to eat it.

Then we headed over to my parents house and attacked the HUGE pile of presents. It took us 4 hours to open them! (we open them one at a time)

We had a wonderful Christmas! Hope you did too!

silly kids

 Hello folks! It's time for another edition of "Dress up in Charlotte's clothes!" Starring: Sadie!

Here she is modeling a cute vintage number. The length is a tad short and it doesn't button up in the back, but she still can work it!

 Here she is modeling this tres chic purple number! She is always in motion, hence the blurry pic. I love her pose though.

Then the model got distracted by her cute sister and started loving on her.

a little too much.

Save me, momma!

christmas, etc.

 We've (I've) been busy wrapping presents! I love wrapping presents, I put on some holiday tunes and zone out in the wrapping zone. I look forward to it every year. Weird? eh. Anyways, I had Sadie help me move the presents from my craft room to under the tree...and this is how she laid them out. I thought it was so cute! Unfortunately I had to move them around so we're not hopping over presents every day, but I snapped a photo first of course!

We're (I'm) also working on aquiring a Christmas book collection. I want to get at least 24 someday, so that I can do this fun advent I've read about. You wrap each book up and open one every day and read it as a countdown to Christmas! Love it! I've got about 12 or so to go!

first eats

 Charlotte got her first taste of rice cereal yesterday...

 She didn't quite care for it.

 Can you blame her? It's pretty icky stuff. Sadie tried it cause she wanted what Charlotte was eating (of course), and made a face quite similar to Charlotte's.

Even Rory made a face. haha! Wish us luck next time we try some solids!

Sadie's new boots

Aren't they adorable? I love little girls in boots. Now if only I could find some for me that I like!

These have "deedle bells" on the back. lol! (jingle bells)

trimming the tree

trim trim a tree, trim trim a tree......trim trim a tree!

(sing to the tune of Chim Chimminy from Mary Poppins)

 We got out the Christmas boxes today and let Sadie go to town! Within reason. 

She loved the purple ornaments. Can you blame her? They pretty much rock.

 Proof that Charlotte and I were there. Rory's proof is this picture-he took it. 

 Pretty, shiny tree. I love real Christmas trees. They smell so good!

Afterwards, Sadie entertained us by wearing Charlotte's pants and socks. What a nerd!

Oh Christmas treee....

 playing tag in the trees is a Lance tradition...

 ...as is Jarom putting bunny ears on anyone near him. (wife is not exempt, I see, hehe)

 turn the camera around-and there's me!

 having a baby strapped to me doesn't cramp my style...

 ...as you can plainly see.

Yo! I see you Justin and Anna...and BIG knife.

 grin! our kids are so cute.

 and my sissy is too.

Aww...the lovebirds. :) (Justin and Anna)

Thanksgiving

 We held our Thanksgiving dinner at the church-and almost busted out of there too! Soo many people came-it was soo great, like a big partay!

 I made most of the appetizers and they were well-received! I will have to quadruple my artichoke dip next year-it always get scarfed down within minutes.

 This was our set up-in the Relief Society room. So much fun!

 Later that night :D

 

The girls in their Thanksgiving dresses I made them. Sadie's is a bit thrashed, sorry. That's what happens when you let a toddler loose amidst lots of food.

Charlotte and Everett dressed up as pilgrims. They loved it. Ok, not so much, but it was funny for us!
we played a huge Bunco tournament with 32 people (8 tables!) and I got the prizes-some movie night bags-including popcorn, candy and Christmas movie DVDs. (Elf, The (original) Grinch, and Rudolph) I think everyone had a good time! There was a 8 or 9 person tie for most Buncos that roll off to see who won took awhile. lol. The turkeys were all delish-my dad made one in his smoker that was particularly tasty! My Grandma made an awesome sweet potato dish....like candy! yum. Sadie didn't do so well without a nap and lashed out later by not being able to get to sleep for awhile. Poor thing. It was so sad! We will make sure to get her a nap on Christmas. I don't want a repeat performance. ;)

Happy Thanksgiving!

happy getting older day

I am now 26. So we celebrated with my family with a cake and ice cream. yum!

 it was yummy!

It was great hanging out with both sides of the family-and great for my arms to get a rest-Charlotte has been a momma's girl lately (even more so than usual) so I spent most of yesterday holding her. (which made baking and frosting the cake a bit hard. ;)

 My grandparents always enjoy my baking-I enjoy sharing the goods-that way I don't eat it all! lol

 Sadie sat down with her goodies and methodically ate them up and then asked for more. It was hard to resist her cute frosting face.

So cute!