Christmas 2011

 This was the kids big gift and they love it! It even goes completely up our driveway...if you have ever been to our house you know how amazing that is!!!

 This is me and Asya (I hope to call her my sister-in-law some day!) we always get the same gifts from my Mom and it's just a running joke we have :)

 I made oreo truffles for the first time (thanks to pinterest!) and they turned out great!  I also used my new flash to take a bunch of the pics from Janet and Johns and it works awesome!

 Everyone is laughing b/c Bailey is so serious when she plays...she has so much intensity :)

 Pointing to Mimi's eyes!  

 The Ballard grandchildren!

 Partners in crime for life!!!!

 I am PUBLISHED!!! Well...only for one book...and it's to keep at our house! LOL.  John got my blog turned into a book and I LOVE it!!!  It is 245 pages long and that is only up until 2010! John said it shut down the web site when he uploaded it! LOL  

 The is my the kids new toy box!!!!  I could not be happier!  It is HUGE and best of all...John made it. 

 Grandma and Grandpa's!!  I made the kids shirt and Bailey's bow :)

 Playing with his new train set

 John's big gift from his parents, my Mom and Dex, and Maureen and my Dad...oh and me too! He was so excited!  You can tell when it is a true John smile :)

 I made ornaments for all the Grandparents and my brother...they turned out great!

 The kids are always spoiled rotten by their grandparents!

Princess Bailey Boo ran over and took a book to Grandpa for him to read to her...melts your heart!

We all had a blast...but sadly we are all nursing colds right now...ugh!!!  Jackson woke up about 15 times last night from coughing and choking on his mucus..yuck, poor little man.  We are all trying to get back into the swing of things while trying to feel better.  At least John is off until the 3rd!!  It is so nice that he has such a long break!  Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas too!

Grandma and Grandpa's!

 Bailey pointing to Grandpa & Grandma's Elf!

 Playing sneak attack with Grandma!

 Copying everything Grandpa was doing!

 Grandpa got out some of his tools for Jackson ;)

 Yep, you can tell we were there!  This is pretty much what our house looks like too on a daily basis before we clean up for bed!

My Girls Christmas Dinner

 Alijeh hosted this year's Christmas party for our whole group :) She had decorated beautifully!  Everyone brought something for dinner and it was so good!!

Still can't get over that we are as close as we are :)  I am very blessed to have theses girls in my life!

Elf and Jackson's Christmas Program

 Bailey finds Elf on the Shelf everyday and it's sooo cute!  She yell's "ELF...ELF!!!!" all day long! I kinda feel bad I didn't do it for Jackson at a younger age, I had no idea how much Bailey would be into it too! :)

 Jackson had his school Christmas program the other day and the above picture is when it all started going down hill.  If you notice...he sees us.  Then the picture below is how he spent the whole program. Unfortunately, he SCREAMED in front of everyone (the only one in the whole bunch that didn't at least stand up there) and threw a fit and just had to sit in Dad's lap.  Needless to say, it was hard not to be disappointed and completely embarrassed that we missed seeing him singing with his classmates.  He preforms for me daily.  In fact, he did the Christmas performance on his bed that very afternoon when he was supposed to be taking a nap (see the pic below of his monitor).  

 This is how cute all the kids in his class looked! Love it!

The Pink Pig!

I road the Pink Pig as a child and I remember loving it! In fact, they have the old one on display inside too.  It is now like a train ride and still very small, but no where near as small as it originally was~thank goodness! The kids had a good time and we got to meet up with Melanie and baby Isabelle, who couldn't have been any cuter!

Christmas Party

 Here is a picture of all the kids...poor Gavin holding a not so happy Bailey!!!

 Can you tell Jackson LOVES to do crafts!!! 

 Bailey checking out sweet baby Hogan!

 "The wives"

 Bailey joined in on crafting too :)

Here is Brooke with Hogan and John.  He is just beautiful!

  And here is "the boys"!  We had a blast at the Christmas party this year! Jennifer & Gary did an awesome job hosting it and we all had a good time!

Breakfast with Santa

 This picture says it all ;)  They were pretty scared of Santa this year!  Jackson actually did better this year.  The next sequence of photos is him getting up the nerve to even look at him ;)  He actually even whispered that he wanted a "mon-mower". I was pretty proud of him for doing that.  It is sad to see other children so excited about seeing him and sitting on his lap, but I totally understand~I never wanted to sit on his lap as a child and was very afraid of him for a LONG time :)

We also took our Christmas card picture today and it about looks like the one above...we are all almost looking at the camera and NO children are smiling...in fact Jackson even has an angry face! LOL  But, its real life folks!  On a plus side, we also took our church directory pictures and the kids were AWESOME! I couldn't believe it after the day of bad photos we had!  Go figure!!

Bye Bye Paci~a little late!!

I forgot to post that we took Bailey's paci away right after she turned one. So it has been over two months now and she did great!  She has never gone down quite as easy as she did with the paci.  She is just at the point where she needs something to calm her down before she sleeps~so we are super glad she finally lets us read to her and it doesn't make her MORE hyper! It actually calms her down a lot :)