Christmas at Allies

Last Saturday my side of the family had Christmas at my uncles house. It was such a pretty day outside for the girls to wear their Christmas dresses.

I took some of the girls pictures in front of my uncles Christmas tree

So pretty :)

My babies are growing up!

I went with silver dresses this year. I bought Jolee's dress at Jc Penny and I bought Jaina's dress at Kmart. Yes, Kmart! We still have a Kmart where we live believe it or not. I like going in there, they have cute stuff!

We tried getting a picture of all the girls but they were not interested, lol

Then we tried getting a picture of all the grandkids, lol All the kids are looking different directions

Then my sisters, cousin, niece and I took a couple

We let the kids run around outside before we ate since it was such beautiful weather

I love this little picture of Jolee and Alyssa. I wish I could hear their little conversation

Then it was time to eat. We do the traditional Christmas dinner with ham and all the fixings.

Then it was time for the kids to open their presents. Can you tell Jolee was excited!

This year we decided as a family to get all the kids presents and the adults would play the white elephant game. So we had the kids sit and open theirs first. It was fun to watch them because they each took turns so the adults could enjoy seeing what they got.

Jolee got lots of goodies including some Chubby Puppies, Paw patrol, a baby doll and much more

Jaina got her microscope! She has been dieing for one and my uncle got one for her. She was in hog Heaven!

And she got the Pie Face game. If you don't know what it is you should totally go buy one if you have children. So much fun!

She also got some Barbies, books and art stuff.

After the kids opened their gifts it was time for our 1st annual pie off! So this year I came up with a fun idea where all us women bake something and bring it and then all the men will have to judge the best one. Fun right!

We lined all the pies up and all the men gathered around the table. Each man was suppose to judge on appearance, smell and taste. And the husbands could not vote on their wives pie.

Let the tasting begin!

As you can see my mom had a pie mishap in the kitchen the night before, lol. But she was a great sport and ended up making a chocolate pie. My sister and niece made a cherry and blueberry pie, which Justin HATES fruit and was forced to taste them, LOL

My cousin made a peanut butter pie and I made a Hershey's pie

All the men had to put in 5.00 each. The winner would win the pot of money and a small trophie. We all anxiously waited and then my uncle came out to announce the winner

And the winner was my cousin Rachel!

Waaaaaah I thought I was gonna win :(

But that's okay, it was still a lot of fun.

Next year the contest will be cookies!

After pie the adults played the white elephant game and then me and Justin had to hurry off to my work Christmas party.

December Happenings

Here are a few random pictures from this month.

Rusty has made himself well established around the house. He is a very playful kitten and even hides in places that he shouldn't! Like the dryer!

Now that the weather is finally cold all the children and the animals pile into MY bed leaving me with about an inch of sleep space.

Jaina saw these Despicable Me nail stickers at Claire's when she was with my uncle. He surprised her and got them for her and sent them in the mail to her. She was so excited! Can you tell?

Earlier this month right before things got crazy around here I was able to sneak off and get my hair done. I got a wild hair and told Rosie to cut me some bangs. I love them but they are already almost too long so I have been pulling them back. It was a great change but I probably won't keep them short.

I have been soaking up my time with this girl while I can. I took a full time position at work...I actually had three offers at the same time through three different places. I was so torn whether to stay part time or go full time. I felt in my heart I should go full time. I prayed for soooo long for God to lead me in the right direction. I felt like this was a knock at my door and I should answer it. I talked things over with my boss and decided to take the position at where I work now. She told me I could always be bumped back down to part time if I didn't like it. I love that she has worked with me for so long with my schedule. I officially go full time next week. Jolee will go to full time daycare which she hates going but she really needs the structure in her life and the same routine everyday, so it will be good for her. And Jaina will start back to school next week. This summer may be a little challenging with all the things the girls have going on but I sure it will all work out just fine.

She's a mess but a cute mess!

Singing

DoDo and Pappa hanging out outside watching the girls play

Ready for Santa!

I took the girls in their Christmas dresses up to the mall one afternoon to take pictures with Santa.

They both love Santa and did SO good, especially Jolee! She's looking straight at the camera and smiling a real smile!

Merry Christmas!

A red, white and silver Christmas

Well I've done a poor job at blogging the last couple days only because our Internet provider was having issues so I was unable to blog from home :( But I have about a weeks worth of posts so I'll be posting everyday for the next few days.

At the beginning of the month when we set the girls tree up we set up our tree in the living room as well. As we all know I love changing the colors and theme of my tree every year. I wanted to do a red, silver and white tree this year. And as you can see it kinda reminded me of a Valentine tree but that's ok because I thought it was really pretty!

I used red mesh and white garland throughout the tree. I already had all the decorations from years past. I used white snow flakes, red and silver balls and silver icicles

The only thing I bought was the red mesh and the silver tree topper snow flake at the top

I also had a few really pretty red ornaments that I bought in San Antonio a couple years ago 

And I used the red hearts that the girls received from Kimbra last year

And here it is all decorated

Here is my hutch. I used an array of decorations I have collected over the years

Silver lights I found on clearance last year at Target. All of the signs I found from the Dollar store clearance last year and I filled my cake jar with red Christmas balls

The bottom two pieces hanging on the drawer were also clearance finds from Dollar General last year

Then the next two shelves and the top shelf are all items I've collected over the years

Then I set out our Nativity set

And all my light up Christmas boxes Dorothy has made me over the years

More Christmas boxes

I hung up the girls stockings

The girls all ready for Christmas!

Christmas with grandparents

Rudolph has been up to some very naughty things this year. He even brought the girls a little surprise one night. The girls love finding Rudolph in the mornings. No matter where I hid him and think I did a good job at hiding him the girls always found him

Thursday night before Grandma Do Do and Papa Richard left the girls got to open some of the gifts they brought

They got to open all of the gifts that had clothes in them

They got a lot of night pjs

and a lot of cute school clothes

 

Then the girls got to give them their gift. We gave them a little bird house to set on their front porch up in the mountains. Grandma loved it

Jaina got to give me and Justin her present she made for us at school. I LOVED it and may even display it all year round!

Then on Friday after Dorothy and Richard left to go to Wichita my parents came into town.

My parents gave the girls their presents they brought for them

My parents got Jaina a few American Girl doll things and my mom handmade Jaina some American Girl doll clothes

and Jolee  got some Paw Patrol toys

My mom also got them some pjs and clothes

and a chubby puppy

The girls loved everything and say thank you to all the grand parents!