Happy Birthday Anna Claire

Anna Claire turned one year old on Saturday.  We had some friends and family over to celebrate with a little Mardi Gras themed birthday party.  The birthday girl had lots of fun, ate lots of sugar and loved all of the attention she received!  

 She loves playing peak a boo!

Thank you to everyone that came to celebrate with us!

Throw Back

One of my friends ask about these videos today and I had to repost-these are too funny!

On to MiMi and Daddy Mac's

After we spent the morning with the Bonds we headed over to my parent's house.  We had lunch over there with my sister's family and my grandmother and Bob.  I know I didn't get as many pictures here-Anna Claire was getting tired since she hadn't had a morning nap and was getting fussy.  My sister and I had gotten all the  girls Christmas outfits from Kelly's Kids, however we failed to get a picture of all three of them. 

 Emma ended up getting that LaLaLoopsy doll!

 The next day we went to the River with my parents since we had the week off from work.  We did some relaxing, tested out Bradley's new gun and watched movies.  The girls hung out in their pjs alot.  My mom brought over a lot of our old Disney VHS movies and we just happened to have an old TV that still takes VHS so Emma really enjoys watching those.

 Anna Claire enjoyed learning to ride on her new toy, with some help from her big sister of course!

Christmas with Honey and Grandda

After we opened presents at our own house we got dressed and went over to Honey and Grandda's house. Bradley's sister and her family were already there and Emma was excited to see her cousins!  Let me tell you-5 kids under 4 years old on Christmas makes for a crazy fun living room!  There was paper, boxes, and bows everywhere.  It is so fun to see all of the girls together and even funnier to see that they are in to all of the exact same things.  Princesses, dolls and dress up topped the list this year!

 We did have some confusion with whose gift was whose.  This could have been because three of the girls sat right next to each other to open gifts.  The other reason could be because this little one was stealing tags off of presents...

 and when she wasn't stealing tags she sat right beside the trash bag hoping to get paper or bows to play with.

 Three of the five playing together.

Santa came!

Emma really got into Santa more this year.  We had an Elf on the Shelf that reported to Santa about our behavior and sometimes came back from the North Pole with little gifts from Santa.  For about a month before Christmas if a commercial came on TV or she saw something at a store she would say you would like to ask Santa for that.  I told her that we would go see Santa and she could tell him but really I doubted she would agree to sit on his lap, considering she has never agreed to this before!  

She had told me that she wanted a Lalaloopsy doll and also a puppet theater and the arrangements had been made!  Well then Santa came to her school party.  She didn't sit on his lap but did stand beside him and told him that she wanted a barbie doll-no problem!  She kept asking about going to see Santa so we went to the mall on Tuesday before Christmas.  Well she jumped right up on his lap and after pictures continued to sit and tell him what she wanted which had changed.  Her list now included a Disney Princess Castle!  I was kind of afraid this was going to happen-she had mentioned the castle multiple times to me but I thought she would forget about it.  Guess I was wrong.  I talked to Bradley later that night and well you can see what happened...

 There was some switching of some presents, Santa had to work on that castle into the wee hours of Christmas Eve, and some late night wrapping took place.  In the end it was all worth it on Christmas morning!

 I loved that Emma was so excited about everything you got.  It is so special to see that excitement through a child's eyes.

 So I like this picture of Bradley unwrapping one of his gifts-not because of what he is about to see but because of what Anna Claire is doing in the background.  She is gathering up all of the food that she got in her stocking!  This describes her perfectly right now.  She is constantly eating and constantly moving.  When we eat meals she is definitely the better eater out of our two girls.

Christmas Eve

Since Christmas Eve fell on Saturday it gave me plenty of time to get things done during the day.  I needed the make dishes for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day get togethers, so I spent most of the morning in the kitchen.  These cookies are my new go to.  They are easy and super yummy.  Hot cocoa cookies-I found the recipe on Pinterest but then saw it in the Rachel Ray magazine this month.  I also made a pecan pie in a cast iron skillet for Christmas Day.  This pecan pie takes about 5 hours to make but it is worth every minute!    If you are making this pie be prepared to serve it in the skillet-there is not really a way to get it out before slicing.

 I had this cute little helper with me in the kitchen!

 We went to church at 4 and then came home for a little while before heading out to family stuff.  Emma needed to go ahead and put out her Reindeer food so the reindeer could find their way!

 By the time it was ready to leave for our family event all the kids in our house were fast asleep.  I hate waking up a sleeping kid but we didn't have a choice on this one.  I have to say that both girls behaved very well considering we had to wake them up.  We got home just in time for Emma to put cookies out for Santa and jump into bed.

Good thing those girls went to bed early because Santa had a pretty big project to work on...

Christmas Program

Better late than never to catch up on the blog.  I am working back all the way to December 13th when Emma had her school Christmas program.  It was her class and the four year old class.  We had a pretty good idea of the songs they would be singing as we had heard most of them in the car at one time or another.  I was pretty surprised to see on the program that there were about 12 songs to be performed and some I had not heard from my child yet.  Don't worry, since the program we have heard them!

  After the program there was a reception for the kids and parents.  I am pretty sure Emma shoved about 3 cookies in her mouth right before we took her back to her class for the rest of the day!  Thank you to all of the supporters we had that came-even sweet baby Campbell came and napped through the whole program!  I didn't get any great videos from the program but I got this one from that same morning.  Of course both of these songs were performed!