Christmas 2010

We had so much fun this year with Christmas (my hubby and I)! We have been fortunate enough to have had enough money to pay cash for all of our Christmas without stress and still pay all our bills! We usually do make it but we also usually have stress, cut corners, and some credit card usage...but not this year! Yeah!!! Thanks hubby for working so hard!!! You are amazing!! It was also our year to have the kids Christmas Eve/Christmas morning (we trade off every other year with the exes) so we got to have our kids Christmas morning!! I love waking up and seeing their excitement to see what Santa brought them and opening all their presents while in their new PJ's with sleepy eyes! Love, love, love it!!!

I always have to take a picture of their Santa piles before they delve into them! Although I have learned in reviewing these pictures that I need to start pulling out my camera more! I did not get very many pictures - I will have to work on that one for next year!

Here is Bowe's pile from Santa... And Kylee's...And Kaitlyn's....And of course Dixie gets a stocking full of prizes too! :)Kylee got a bunch of hair stuff: straightener, blow dryer, 3-barrel curling iron, shampoo, conditioner, etc along with a new coat and a camera! It is so cute and completely matches her jammies she has on in this picture! :) Kaitlyn got a Nintendo DSi, a couple games, accessories, and a new coat!Bowe got a new snow-boarding coat, gloves, a new cell phone and a video game!Dixie of course got some new toys and some bones!Dixie trying to tear into her bones....And she succeeded! :)After opening all of the gifts from Santa and from Jason and me, we all got ready and headed over to my grandma's house!Emilyn in her cute little Christmas dress!My mom realy surprised Jason and got him a GPS - he said it was his favorite present by far!Emy got some new clothes and tried putting them on! Alexis got a singing teapot with cups that she was "drinking" out of! So cute!Kaitlyn got a microscope set with her dad and the second she got home, she wanted to pull it out and look at stuff! Dr. pepper, salt, pepper and sugar were among the experiments!And then Christmas was over (sad) and we ring the new year in!

Here are Kylee and Kaitlyn toasting in the new year with their favorite fake champagne!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

2010 Annual Cookie Making Party

Ok, so this is the first year that we only did cookies...we usually do candy - but thought we would make a change this year! The girls in my family get together every year around Christmas and make candy/cookies for the season! It is a good time to get together, be dorks, eat junk, and laugh!! We had a lot of fun! Emy got to come hang out with us this year! She loved the pizza...this pitcure gives new (cute) meaning to the term pizza face!! Love her!Kylee stiring up some dough!We made a mess - but we had so much fun trying out new recipes for cookies and dancing around like fools!! :)

Kaitlyn Christmas 2010 Dance

Every year around Chrismas time, Kaitlyn's dance team puts on a Christmas Dance. This year her group did a cute little dance with a kick line! They did so good and I am so proud of her and her talents! She never ceases to amaze me!!

(love the underbite smile, Kaitlyn!!)Emy just LOVED watching the girls dance! She was in awe!!And here is the video of my precious little angel dancer!

Kaitlyn's Birthday!

This December (2010) was my baby's 10th Birthday! I cannot believe it! My BABY! IS TEN!! Yikes! That makes me sad! But each step of her life has been so much fun to watch!

(this picture was taken a few weeks earlier...but it is my new favorite!!) Of course, if you follow my blog, you know that this past year all of our kids opted for a bedroom remodel as their present, so the party was very simple, family and friends at our house for some pizza and cake/ice cream!

Kaitlyn made the cake part really easy on me since she was dying to have ice cream cone cupcakes!

They turned out really cute and she loved them! I did them the colors of her new room!

She got many amazing presents for her birthday - of course clothes are the fav!

...playing Guitar Hero!

And now the room reveal...

New paint - I painted it "Clear Turquoise" (even though this picture looks light blue) Kaitlyn picked out the bedding and everything was decorated off of that! The little circles are round cork boards that I got at Ikea and spray painted to match the room! And her old PINK carpet from the 80's was replaced with new neutral carpet! It makes it look so much cleaner in there!!

As with Kylee's room, I took her old, light pink lamp and spray painted it a purple color that I LOVE!! And then just added some cute appliques to her shade

We splurged a little bit and got her a new dresser - one that she can grow with through the years! We just spray painted the handles the same purple color as the lamp! It gives her so much room for her display of trophys!! And then we added some more cork boards and some white shelves for more trophy storage!

You can see the real turquoise color in this picture! Nice white curtains now cover the window instead of the old pink blinds!

And this is her (and my) favorite part!! My mom's old vanity! I painted it white and spray painted the handles a pink color! It has so much storage for lotions, make-up, hair accessories and jewelry! And Kaitlyn spends a lot of time right where she is in this picture!! :)

Her closet before had on old hollow brown sliding doors. Kaitlyn REALLY wanted curtains to make it simpler to get in and our of her closet. So we added some pink curtains. The closet inside before was just one rod going about 3/4 of the way across and some small shelves horizontally. They did not hold very much and were very unsturdy, so we ripped them all out. Kaitlyn already had the 9 cubby shelf and we built around that! We made the top shelf up a bit higher than before and added another rod for more clothes storage!

Her room before was stripes and circles on the walls, so I already had these circle mirrors up and did NOT want to have to rip them off (that mirror mastic is a killer on the dry wall!) so I just added some cute purple ribbon to make them look like they were hanging!

I repainted Kaitlyn's name letters and added some jewels and purple ribbon to hang above her closet.

One last look! I love how it turned out and more importantly, Kaitlyn LOVED it! Happy birthday baby! Mommy loves you!!

Emilyn's Birthday

OK...so I have a little catching up to do! It has been a while! With the Holidays and birthdays I have been busy!

So let's start this game of catch up!

My little niece Emilyn turned 1 in November! She is getting too big too fast! And she is obviously learning how to give the stink eye! haha! I love this picture!!Emy LOVES Chica, so I made her a Chica cake with a little cake all her own!She got spoiled and got a bunch of cute little presents!And at the end she got to dive into her own cake! She loved it! Actually ate most of it and even dug into Chica a little bit! Happy Birthday Emilyn! Your aunt Stephanie LOVES you so much!!