Christmas 2017

Hi everyone!!

We had a great Christmas and I hope you all did too. Christmas is my favorite time of year but it's also the most stressful for me. And a lot of that is stress I put on myself but each year gets better and better. I am the type of person that likes to try and make as many gifts as possible and I usually end up spending late nights working on everything. But I love crafting!

One of my favorite things to do around Christmas is baking with my mom. Sometimes my sister and Grandma are able to join too. This is just a tradition we have always done. We make lots of different kinds. Below you'll see Chocolate Crinkle Cookies, Snicker-doodle Cookies, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Molasses Cookies, Peanut Butter Cookies, Round Pretzels with M&M's, Peanut Butter Crackers dipped in Almond Bark.

What's you're favorite thing to bake for the holidays?

Another tradition we have is the Advent Calendar. This house advent calendar is the one my mom used when my sister and I were little. The girls love doing this every night before bed. Barrett is still pretty small to enjoy it like they do but next year will be even better. I usually put little candies or little toys in there.

Our first Christmas was with my husband's dad's side of the family. And it's always the weekend before Christmas which typically falls on or next to my birthday.

Here's a few pictures from that Christmas.

The cousins had a blast doing the plastic wrap game.

Another Christmas we had was my husband's mom side. We booked some rooms at a hotel and the kids got to go swimming, play in a play place and the big kids played some arcade games. The girls ended up staying the night with their cousins there but Jason, Barrett and I came home. I was running a high temp and was not feeling well.

We do my dad's side of the family Christmas every Christmas Eve. My cousin has two little kiddos and all the great grandkids has so much fun playing together.

Barrett sure loves his Papa.

I didn't even attempt to get a picture of all the kids together at the same time. So I just took their pictures individually.

We came home and set out cookies for Santa.

For Christmas my husband and I usually try to do larger gifts for the kids and keep the smaller ones from Santa. We got them this doll out and I put it all together. I love putting stuff like this together but it seriously took me FOREVER!! But it's well worth it. The girls were so excited!

Here's what Santa got for the kids.

I ended up getting these bags from Target and they work perfect! I love that they are all the same and hold all the bigger gifts from Santa. I also made this Stockings hanger. My husband cut and stained the wood and then I added the words and snowflakes. I just LOVE how it turned out.