On Christmas Eve, we go to my mother’s house and open presents. Both of my sisters and my nephew all go too. We usually open presents late afternoon or early evening, but the earlier, the better since we have kids now. Here’s just a few (yes I said few) of the 162 pictures we took (that’s minus blurry pics).. lol.

Leala and Sean

Sarah and Sean (Mommy and Son)

Me and Leala

She had a blast opening presents.. this was a wonderful loud noise that my mother said had to go home with us! haha…

Daddy opening presents with Leala.

Sarah and the kids looking at the photo album we put together for Sarah. It has pictures from everyone’s cameras.. pictures all the way back to when she was pregnant with Sean. We made a DVD music video too..

Sean posing with the photo album.

Mom and Dad.. They are redecorating their house more vintage like.. That’s some old prints that my dad bought for my mom to put in the spare bedroom.. I love them!

Aunt Am helping Leala open more presents..

Leala showing off her clothes.

MeMa helping Leala put on her new shoes. (Yes, my mom is wearing shorts.. it snowed that day and she wore shorts… she even went out in the snow wearing shorts… she does this every year.. lol)

She loves them!

She absolutely loves her baby stroller! She carries Holly (her baby.. she names her too.. lol) around in it all the time!

Eating tomatoes with MeMa

Eating something else with Aunt Am.

“CHEESE!”

Sean and his new scooter!

Me and Mom.. we never take pictures like this, but this year I was determined..

Good picture of my mom and Leala.

I think she was saying, “Where’d he go?”.

haha.. Sarah was trying to get in a picture with Leala… and Leala elbowed her instead… hmm..

The Girls

Leala getting restless and posing.. lol

We didn’t take many Thanksgiving pictures at all this year.. but we got a few good ones of the kids together.

This blog will be a mixture of lots of things, with recently taken random pictures sprinkled about.

Birthday Party:
Sunday was my nephew’s second birthday party. It was really great. I love having the entire family family together. It doesn’t happen as often as it should. Not that we don’t want it to, but that we are all busy and get caught up in the daily rush of life, that we forget to make an effort to do the most important things. Thankfully we have the holidays coming up and then Leala’s birthday shortly after that, so we will be all together again real soon.

Anyway, Sean loved his presents. He held onto his guitar that we bought him the entire time. It was so cute to see him rock out with it. It even plays “Bad to the Bone”. I thought it was priceless watching him play with it.

He loved the Spiderman theme.. That’s all he kept saying the whole day. “Spiderman this. Spiderman that.” Too cute.

Huggable Pooh:
Leala has a big Pooh bear that says lots of things about hugging, when you push it’s belly. It is really cute. Well today she was playing with it and she kept throwing herself at it, hugging it. It was tooooo cute. So of course I grabbed the camera and started taking tons of pictures. She was just adorable, and the Pooh bear kept saying stuff like, “Thank you for the big bear hug.” and “That’s the friendliest of hugs.” and “That was a cozy sort of hug.” and “Let’s snuggle together.” Leala would hug the bear. It would say something. She would stare at it and smile. Then she’d hug it again. lol, it was so cute.

Christmas:
Today we went out to get more Christmas shopping down. I feel pretty good about it all. We still have to get a few more gifts, but we have gotten a lot done. I think tomorrow I will actually be wrapping up some stuff. Yay! I’m so excited. I love Christmas time!

Working Out:
Kevin and I have set up a schedule for me to be able to work out. I am super excited about this, and so far it is working out great. Of course it just started today.. haha.. We figured it all out yesterday and started today. I enjoyed myself, and it was great to have a little bit of time actually to do something for myself, that has nothing to do with anyone else, but me.. Well, actually it indirectly has to do with anyone I come into contact with, because today after my work-out, I was much nicer and friendly to everyone… haha.. I don’t normally get to do anything for myself, so this is a great start. Plus, it gives me a little break from Leala, which I never usually get. And I think it makes me a better mommy. So yay! As long as we can stick to it, I think it is good all around.

Oh and Kevin even helped me figure out what I should be doing during that time. I am a list person, so we made out a list of the exercises that I needed to do. I love it and I am looking forward to tomorrow’s work-out!

This will just be a real quick post.. to sum it up.. Motherhood is busy! I haven’t had time today to even breathe, let alone blog.. but I’m putting blogging ahead of my breathing.. haha.. I have been busy getting things ready for my nephew’s birthday party tomorrow. I am so excited. The whole family will be together again, which hasn’t happened since July, when we first got back from South Carolina. I’m super excited!

I’ve also been trying to get some Christmas presents made in my shop. I want to order the stuff this weekend, so I’ve been super busy.. I’ve made 2 pillows.. (need to upload one of them)… an ornament… coasters and a calendar.. It’s been fun. I have a few other things to make tomorrow, and I will be ordering some stuff that is pre-made in my shop too.. Tons to do!

My little girl had another first today. Kevin was holding her hand for me to take a picture of her, and she loosened her grip on his.. He let go, and she was standing there alone by herself, without holding on to anything… And to top it all off, I caught it on camera! She did it several times today, which is great. She makes me so proud!

Ok, I really should get off here now. I’m beyond tired. I need to roll into bed and get some sleep. I have a 2 year old birthday party to go to tomorrow! Whoohoo!