December 23 - Christmas Cookies

Icabod Update:

We've been having fun every day this month with our Christmas countdowns!  The "Beary Merry Christmas" one is Andlie's favorite.  She moves him every day.  (This is secretly my favorite countdown too.  I used to be just like Andlie and move it every day.  In fact, I think this countdown is the exact one that hung in my house when I was little.)  We also have the magnetic tree (that's Hazey's favorite) and we have chocolate Advent Calendars from Grama!  The first things the kids do when they wake up is find Icabod and then we work on our countdown calendars!

Christmas Calendar Day 23: Visit Santa's Reindeer!  We got to see Comet & Sven today!  The kids got to pet them and touch their antlers!  We thought it was pretty cool!

Christmas Calendar Day 23: Make cookie dough & bake cookies for Santa!  We had lots of fun doing this tonight!

Andlie's Cute Hands

Hazey's Cute Hand

Nora's Cute Hand & Daddy's Cute Hand

Another favorite tradition in our house is to collect our Christmas cards and tape them to our closet door.  We've done this since me & Bryan celebrated our first Christmas together in 2006 in Las Vegas.  We love looking at all of our cards!

December 22 - Snow

Icabod Update:

We got some good, wet snow today so we finally got to make our snowman!  We named him Jake.  Because "we already named our snowman Snowy last time."  When I asked for a picture, Haze said, "Andlie hold his hands for the picture!"

"Mom, take a picture of my perfect snowball!"

Hazey & Andlie loved making & throwing snowballs.  Especially at Daddy!  He took one to the face and found one in his pocket after he left to do some shopping.

"I made a snow chair!"  (I'm telling ya - the snow was so easy to roll in to balls.  It was so fun!)

Kisses for Santa.  All on his own.

Christmas Calendar Day 22: Eat dinner by the Christmas tree.  Another fun one!  I love our tree.  I wish it could stay up all year.

December 21 - Painted Nails

Icabod Update:

A couple who works out together stays together.

Haze & Bryan spent most of their day playing with Hot Wheels cars & the track.  But, as Bryan told me, they have been "using gravity and not launchers like when I was little."  They've been having so much fun.  (Side note: Bryan gets to stay home with us until January 4th!)

Nora got her toes and nails painted today and she was so proud.  She kept saying, "Look like a pin-cess.  No-ah's a pin-cess."

 Christmas Calendar Day 21: Watch a Christmas movie together.  We had so much fun watching "Pretend Grinch" (cartoon Grinch) first.  Nora would not stop talking.  "Grinch.  Cute.  Doggie!  Doggie walking!  So cute.  Look at!  Grinch.  He has a Santa hat.  Take a toys.  Grinch.  Got stuck.  Look, Momma!  Grinch.  Singing.  He's happy."  It was the cutest.  She's such a little jabber-box.

Then we watched Home Alone and Andlie & Hazey were laughing so hard!  Which made Nora giggle.  It was fun to be snuggled up together laughing.  We have the best family.  We had a great night together!

December 20 - Christmas Sunday

Icabod Update:

Christmas Calendar Day 20: Dress up for and attend church for Christmas Sunday. I think our little gang is so beautiful!  I feel so blessed to be a Mom and a wife - especially to this crew of people.  Merry Christmas Sunday!

Haze has sure been having fun with our Christmas tree countdown!  Today he got to put the 20 on the tree!  Only 4 more days until Santa comes!!!

I was looking at Andlie tonight and I wondered - when did she get so big?!  She is so grown up and so, so beautiful - inside and out!

Everyone looked so cute in their jammies tonight.  So - picture time!