Ugly Sweater Christmas Party

Well this is super late, but better late than never!
So this year I hosted the 1st Annual Ugly Sweater/White Elephant, Christmas Party. It was an absolute blast, most people showed up in some hideous sweater they had conned one of their loved ones out of, or fought old ladies at the DI for!! There was a prize for the ugliest sweater and Brigg took that one hands down!! Thanks Granny B, lol.
The best part of the night was exchanging the white elephant gifts!!!!!!!!!!!! There were the silliest things ranging from almost empty bottles of liquor to bags of trash, dirty diapers included. The pictures below have most people with their white elephant gifts. Yes that is a vibrator that girl is holding. Thanks Shalyse, that was hilarious!

SANTA

Every year My Aunt Sarah and Uncle Mike have all their grandchildren over to decorate cookies, well during the cookie decorating celebration Santa comes to visit.
The last two year we have been able to share in their holiday tradition with Taylor. She is fearless, not afraid of Santa at all. She was bopping him on the head with a balloon that he gave her, wanting to sit in his lap while other kids were taking their turn and telling him no, no, no! She was cracking everyone up!
Here are some pictures from the festivities!

The little things matter the most!

So I am just gonna brag about how cute my honey is!! The other day I had a horrible day at work, I hadn't eaten lunch just a late breakfast, the people driving home from work with me that day were absolute idiots!! I was cursing and honking so much, thank goodness Taylor wasn't in the car, or she would have learned so new words ;) I walk in the door and Taylor is all excited to see her mommy, which I absolutely love coming home to that everyday!!!! Cody looks at me and says "rough day?" I proceeded to dump my days woes on him for a few minutes. I walk into the kitchen to set my purse down and notice that he had done the dishes!!!!!!!! Between Taylor getting excited to see me and Cody doing the dishes my bad day had disappeared! I love my family, I am one blessed individual!!

Sharpies

So as Cody and I were cleaning up dinner last night, we were under the impression that she was watching cartoons. OH BOY we were so wrong!!!
She was upstairs with a green sharpie!!! The sharpie ended up on the carpet, paper, legs, arms feet, tummy, calfs, bottoms of the feet, fingers, toes, arm pitts....no need to go on!! I wanted to be upset, but all I could do was laugh.
Here are some before and after pictures.












This was while we were cleaning the carpet.


























I "googled" how to remove permanent ink from childrens skin. found out that soap and warm water is a good place to start.
So these are pics of her after that....


































...Then it told me to take a cotton swap and use rubbing alcohol to finish the rest. I applied lots of lotion so that her poor little skin wasn't all dry and chappy after.
It actually did quite well, there are just traces of it left on her skin.














This is her showing you where she colored on herself.

Christmas is here...

So this year I was able to schmooze Cody into setting the tree up earlier than the week before Christmas!! So Monday night during the football game us three set up our cute tree. I love the ornaments because they are all the different ornaments that Cody's parent had given him over the last 25yrs!! His theme was Santa, so there is any kind of Santa you can think of, Skiing (of course), bbqin', baseball, etc.
Taylor had so much fun!! This year is going to be my fave Christmas to date. Tay has no idea what is in store for her! I cannot wait to see her over exaggerated excitement for gift she opens!!






































Tuesday night Taylor and I decorated a gingerbread house. I am not a baker so I opted for the kits you buy at the grocery store, no brainer right? Not exactly. So I followed the directions on the bag, but decided that those weren't the best!! Next year I will buy a icing bag and I will heat up the icing so that it comes out more smooth. Well here is our gingerbread house, not the most perfect but pretty dang cute.




















Taylor was so funny, she would stick her fingers in the icing as she was putting on the candy and say "nummy mama, mmmmm" It was so funny and every so often I would look up to see what she was doing and she would have candy in her mouth. Pretty sure she ate more than the put on the house!!



Here is the proud architect of the gingerbread house!!!