Second 1/2 of December

This year was our first year having Christmas be with just our little family. It was sad to miss all the fun family Christmas parties back home and to see everyone but I have to say that it was A LOT of fun. Tanner and Jocie are at fun ages where it was just a blast. It was very relaxing! I won't say I didn't shed a tear missing all the family cause I might have :) Nate had two weeks off so it was AWESOME!! On Christmas Eve Nate made crab cakes, his shrimp pasta and his homemade artisan bread. It was DELISH! How lucky am I to have a husband who enjoys to cook. His Dad always makes a big X-Mas Eve dinner so he wants to keep that tradition in our family and I said HECK YEAH!! We had the kids open two presents on Xmas Eve. One was a pair of pj's and the other were two church books. I want them to remember the TRUE meaning of Xmas so I want to have some sort of gift on Xmas Eve to remind them. One of the books was the 1st Christmas Nativity story. The kids enjoyed it! Then we sprinkled reindeer food on the front lawn and set out cookies and milk for Santa. Tanner wrote a letter to Santa. He wrote "Dear Santa" by himself and then I wrote the rest and it was EXACTLY his words that I wrote. For New Years we went to a friend's house with a bunch of friends and had a great time. 2011 was such a fun year but 2012 will be even better. Many goals that are going to happen!! Anyway, enjoy the pics. There are tons but I had to remember the moments :)

YUM, thanks Babe!

Sprinkling Reindeer food on the lawn (thanks Julie :))

MUAH

Saw the cookies and wanted one NOW "I want" she says

They have so much fun together

X-mas Eve - Opened their Pj's and then I put them on

Reading - Jocie loves to try and read - love it!

Cookies and Milk for Santa

Tanner's letter to Santa (WORD FOR WORD)

Jocie got her own backpack and had to put it on ASAP

Tanner had to help his sis open all her presents and with some cool face expressions

Playing Outside

Loved how nice the weather has been to be able to go outside

Watching Mickey Mouse

HAPPY NEW YEAR (this was right before midnight) 

Jocie helping me in the kitchen with her new broom :)

First 1/2 of December

There would have been way too many pics if I added Christmas with this post so I decided to break December into two posts. This was such a fun month with a lot of good times. Take a look below for details of the first half:

Making delish sugar cookies

Beautiful boy.... (I mean handsome. He would get mad and say beautiful is for girls :))

Tanner and Addy having fun in the window with the xmas decor

LOVE this pic of Jocie. 

Drawing in their huge Xmas coloring book from Grandma

The nativity scene - Tanner as Joseph and Jocie crying in the back. She didn't like having her baby used as baby Jesus :)

So proud of his gingerbread house

Telling Santa EVERYTHING he wants for Xmas. 

Tanner and Porter and their sweet reindeer hats

This was a "FUN MONDAY"..... just a little bit of a mess

Tanner got carried away with the sprinkles but they were still so yummy!

Jocie doing a silly face

She loves putting on Tanner's socks and pulling them all the way up to her knee's.  It actually looks pretty cute

This was an early Xmas present from Tanner. He made his first ornament at preschool. We LOVED it!

Made some homemade bagels and then made yummy sandwiches

BOWLING at the sweet K-ville bowling alley - WOOT WOOT. 

"Hey Mom, take a picture"