January Vaca

Well, there I went disappearing again.  Sorry about that.

We had a busy January.  We drove several hours away to do a belated Christmas with the Hubster's family. We had a great time.  We spent time with the Hubster's parents, sister, nieces, Grandmother, Aunt, Uncle, Cousin, and Great  Aunt.

As always, the time flies by too quickly  We did have a very nice visit.  And we were all spoiled rotten!

It was so chaotic that I didn't get many pictures at all!  I'm hoping my fabulous In-Laws will send some soon!

After we left there, we headed to an enormous indoor water park.  This was the best family vacation we could have picked.  Our girls are water babies.  They loved every second of it, and the Hubster and I did too!  We stayed for two nights and three days and it was perfect!  Little One even slept in the bottom bunk!  No more Pack-N-Play for us!  Woot!  A funny from Big One... she insisted that she was Ariel every single time she was swimming.  She cracks me up.

See them under there?!

On our way back home, we had lunch with the Hubster's family.  It was so great!  I saw it on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives and knew I wanted to try it when we visited!  The Leaping Lizard Cafe was tiny.  They had real chickens roaming around the property!  They have their own garden and all of their ingredients are fresh (hence those chickens).  It was delicious.  The sweet potato biscuit with ham and jam was amazing!  I had the tuna sandwich and it was the best I've ever eaten!  I imagine they get very busy at lunch time, so if you plan to visit, plan accordingly.  Also, they only had one high chair; really not a super kid friendly place, although we didn't have any issues with the girls.  Their website is lacking, but I assure you, the food is not.  A must try if you are in the area!

When we returned home the Hubster decided we needed to transition Little One into her toddler bed.  I had quite a bit of anxiety about this.  Little One is a pretty good sleeper, and I knew when she could run around her room there would be much less sleeping.  She actually has done rather well.  Several nights she has decided to sleep on the floor, right in front of the door.  Pitiful.  Sort of breaks my heart, but she doesn't seem bothered by it.  She moves her two pillow pets over and her dream lite and she is happy as a clam.

Loving her Big Girl bed!

Ballet has also started again for the girls.  Big One is loving it, especially tap.  She is doing a great job learning to follow the teacher's lead.  I think one of the bigger challenges is filtering out the girls who are not paying attention.  I'm happy to see that she is not a follower when others aren't obeying.  Proud Mama moment.  Little One really surprised me.  She runs straight into class each week!  No tears!  No fighting me to get dressed!  Amazing what a few weeks of growth will do!

My girls are getting big.  I am so proud of them.

Christmas Tree with Memories

Growing up we always had a tree full of hodgepodge ornaments.  I loved decorating the tree because my mom would explain where each ornament came from.  Each year my parents would pick out the perfect ornament for each of us.  When my parents got married and had their first Christmas tree they didn't have any ornaments to decorate it with.  They wanted to be sure that wasn't the case for the three of us.  Sure enough, when I graduated and moved out, I had my memory box full of ornaments for my tree.  It was such a great gift.

We have carried on that tradition.  Each year we get a family ornament and each of us gets our own ornament.  When the girls move out and start their own families they will have a box full of happy memories too.

I know lots of people that have a beautiful, color coordinated Christmas tree each year.  It is perfection, for sure.  But I wouldn't trade our tree full of memories for anything.

I need another strand of bead garland.  But I love it!

Fake

So I went to a local warehouse store today.  You know the buying in bulk kind of stores.

It was full of crazies doing their Thanksgiving prep shopping.  My timing was impeccable, let me tell you!  I try to avoid those types of stores on a normal, non-holiday weekend.  Bad, bad timing.  But we needed milk.  So.

While I was there I decided to go down the center aisle.  If you have been to these types of stores you know that is dangerous.  And if you have children with you, you have made a grave error.  For those of you that are not familiar, these aisles are full of seasonal item and toys galore.  But I was alone!  No husband.  No children!

I made it through the toys without a single impulse buy!  Be impressed!

But then.  The Christmas items.  Most importantly, the big fake trees.  Sigh.  I grew up with real trees for Christmas.  I love the experience and the memories of going out and picking our tree.  I vividly remember one year that we dug our tree up and then after the holidays we planted it in our front yard.

However, real trees are kind of a pain, right?  Am I alone here?  You have to make sure it always has water all the time.  If we end up traveling it ends up being dead when we get home.  Heh.  It is kind of expensive.  We end up spending a good $75 each year.  We also inevitably end up with a huge tree that the Hubster has to cut a few feet off of (and boy does he get mad!).  Heh.  And they are so messy!  The Hubster gets irritated every single year because the vacuum gets clogged with needles.  But the beautiful smell....

So I got a tree.  A fake tree.  It makes me sad.  And I might drag the Hubster and the girls out to the tree farm in December anyway.  We can pretend to pick out our tree.  I can take pretend pictures.  The Hubster can pretend to cut one down.  And then we can go home and decorate our pretend tree.

Note to self - pick up those "This smells like Christmas Tree" stick at Walmart.

From my kitchen

I've been doing some baking lately.  Getting ready for Christmas.  Sending goodies to work with the Hubster.

Last week I made Never Fail Fudge.  It is the recipe that my mom always makes.  Hard to go wrong with that, right?

Today I made Salted Chocolate Caramel Pretzel Candy.  Half will go to work with the Hubster.  The other half will go to friends in the area.  Man.  It is yummy.  But rich.

And tonight I made Pizza Pretzel Bites.  Oh man.  They were awesome!  Took a little time.  Next time I'll make them ahead of time and then boil/bake when we are ready to eat.  They will keep in the fridge over night without a problem.  We will definitely have them again.  A fabulous Super Bowl recipe.

Tomorrow we've got Big One's ballet recital.  Can't wait to see her perform!

And more cookies to bake.  Presents to wrap.  Laundry to do.  Sewing projects!  Ek!