Christmas... Only like a month ago!

 So, I had been trouble uploading pics to my blog, so it took me quite awhile to get around to posting about Christmas.  It certainly didn't help that my maternity leave ended...  Adios any spare time... 

On Christmas eve, we celebrated at Lee's parents' house.  Above is a picture of the TEN grandkids.  Barring any surprises, I think the family is done making babies.  It is kind of strange to think about since we've had a baby or two almost every year for the last 8 years!  All the kids got scooters for Christmas and took them down the basement to ride.  Taryn broke some ground speed records...  Not really.  She may be the slowest scooter rider ever! 

 On Christmas Day, we started off at our house.  Taryn woke up to find that Santa had filled their stockings and left each of the kids a gift.  She is fully into "Santa" mode these days and has about a million questions about him.  Sadly, I realized one day when she had been questioning me on multiple topics that I knew far more about Santa than the movement of the earth, moon, sun & planets...  Hmm. 

 Santa's gift to Taryn was a "walking baby".  She was thrilled.  The doll asks you to hold its hands and then let go and it walks by itself.  One time the baby asked Taryn to hold its hands and Taryn replied "Sorry, I have to go to work."  Another time she got annoyed with the doll and said "No, you can do it yourself, you don't need my help."  I pointed out that Lee and I say that to her sometimes and that really made her think. 

 Another of Taryn's favorite gifts was a guitar.  It really doesn't stay in tune, but come on...  It's not like she can really play it! 

 Cole slept through Taryn opening all of her gifts.  We got him up to open his gifts.  He got a racecar and an activity cube.  (Taryn had told us that Cole asked Santa for a racecar.) 

 After opening gifts at our house, we went in to my grandma's.  We started off with a small crew, but later had my other uncle and his 3 kids, their spouses and a few more grandkids show up.  Taryn and Cole got spoiled properly by their "Gamma", of course.  Good food and family fun! 

Four generations of ladies.  It is funny, we used to have pics like this where it was me, my mom, my grandma and my great-grandma.  We missed pulling off the 5 generation picture by just a few years. 

Cookie time!

Every year my family gets together to decorate Christmas cookies.  This is a tradition from way back when my mom was a kid.  Then, we continued it when I was a kid.  It took a hiatus while we had no kids in our family, but now...  IT'S BACK!  (We did it last year too, but it was just Taryn then.)  This year we added Rue, Maya & Macy to the mix. 

 Taryn and Rue in their aprons. 

(Note:  In this picture Taryn is pretending to be shy because Rue was being shy.  It was quite the ridiculous show since Taryn is almost NEVER shy.  Sometimes I really wonder how much of Taryn's life is spent acting...  I might be scared to know!  We're in for it when she's a teen.) 

 Of course many many many of the cookies ended up pink...

 And a decent amount of frosting was consumed sans cookie. 

 Another tradition is that we always make cookies that look like each other.  Here is the Cole cookie.  Pretty spot on... 

 The Taryn cookie.  If only I could have somehow made the cookie talk non-stop! 

 Our masterpieces. 

Always clean up before leaving Great Grandma's house!!!

Christmas Photo Shoot

I usually try to get some pics by the Christmas tree on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day.  However, this year we will be at Lee's parents' on Christmas Eve and will be a little rushed to get to my grandma's house for lunch on Christmas Day...  SO... Random Christmas photo shoot!!  

 

 Taryn kept demanding to have MORE solo pics than Cole. 

 Good thing Daddy stopped home to get Cole smiling while I took the pics!

 Can't wait to tear into some presents!

 Serious Christmas pose.

 "Santa please come fill my stocking!!"

"Wish I could blame this belly on Christmas cookies!"

Ho Ho Ho

 The holidays have definitely arrived at our house...  The tree is up, the outside is decorated...  And we just had the Holiday Stroll in our town.  Santa's little helper Taryn has been DYING to do everything holiday related. 

 While Taryn's "baby brudder" has been sleeping through most of it.  Except for when I forced him into this reindeer outfit and made him cry. 

 This weekend was especially busy with Taryn's ballet recital, dress rehearsal, and the holiday stroll.  Here she is ready for her dress rehearsal.  Hair in bun, CHECK.  Makeup (on a 3 year old), CHECK.  Ridiculously cute and ridiculous holiday ballet outfit, CHECK.  Remembering the dance, er, not so much. 

 Taryn chose her & Cole's outfits for the holiday stroll.  Very holiday-ish!  We started the day with a trip to the craft bazaar at our church.  It is HUGE and I was able to get gifts for Taryn's teachers and a few things for myself (beer bread, yum!).  Side note:  I told Lee I was going to buy Taryn's teachers some small gifts.  I'm a teacher, hello!  I know how nice it is to get a little something.  He said "Teacher gifts are overrated."  My response...  "Really?  How were your grades in school?"  Bazinga!

 This picture just cracked me up.  Taryn trying to throw the stocking over the "chimney"...  The lady's face...  The tinsel getting caught up in Taryn's ridiculous holiday dress. 

 But, despite the trow, she still got a treat in her stocking! 

 Taryn and Gramma decorate a cookie!  Yum! 

 And Cole chilled in his pea pod and got fussed over quite a bit by random people.  And only got mistaken for a girl twice.  Hello, dudes can totally wear red overalls with a snowman on them. 

 We managed to get one of the best Santa pictures we could ever ask for!  Taryn had a letter to Santa.  I wrote it (obviously), but I wrote exactly what she said.  It was pretty funny.  A 3 year old's train of thought is pretty scattered. 

After visiting Santa, we headed home for a family nap before getting Taryn ready for her big performance.  Here is the star of the show post-performance. 

Cookie Makers

Back when I was a kid, every year I would decorate Christmas cookies with my mom, uncle & grandparents. When I hit my teenage years, this tradition kind of fell by the wayside. But, after inspiration from Mich's blog, I decided to rekindle this tradition and introduce my little mini-me to the art of cookie decorating.

Taryn's favorite part of the project was her access to large amounts of frosting. "Taryn, have you been eating blue frosting?"

One of our family traditions regarding cookie decorating is really to think outside the box. Yes, you'll find a few green Christmas trees and gold stars, but in the past, we have had double decker cookies, ones that say "Eat Me" and even seductive angels (that may have been my uncle). This year, we had cookie portraits of each of us, a couple fish, a whale, a Jamaican black man and a Kilroy. And you could definitely tell which cookies were Taryn's by the copious amounts of frosting piled on them. Yum.

Christmas Day 2011

On Christmas Day, Taryn woke me up at about 7am. I am relishing this time when she doesn't really get crazy about Christmas and wake me up at 5am to open presents! Lee had worked the night before until 3:30am, so he would not be waking up until about 10:30am. I waanted to be able to do some "Christmas morning" stuff with Taryn that didn't involve her opening her presents without Lee. So, when she woke up, we got baby Jesus out and put him in his manger. She was pumped about this because she had been rather upset that Jesus was in a drawer all this time. Then we went to see what Santa put in her stocking.

Originally she had been a bit hesitant about Santa and the idea of him coming into her house. But, she LOVED all the things Santa put in her stocking. Even though they were all $1 buys at Target, you would have thought they were priceless gems! The first thing she pulled out was a mini candy cane. Her eyes lit up and she said incrediously "Santa brought this for ME?" She was, however, a little bit upset that I didn't have any gifts in my stocking. She told me "I buy you gift mommy." Little sweetheart.

Taryn and I got showered. The entire time she was in the tub she was having a birthday party for Jesus. I kept having to leave the bathroom to take him pieces of birthday cake. (She is obsessed with birthday parties for some reason.) Then Taryn and I headed in to my Grandma's house to help them prepare for the festivities. This is when it got difficult to delay the gift opening. Taryn had quite a mound of gifts that she couldn't wait to dive into!

Finally Lee was up and ready and we could let T loose on her gifts. She loved the toys... Loved a few of the clothing items. But she seemed overwhelmed by the quantity of gifts and how much unwrapping she had to do. I am guessing this is another quality that will not last long!

Our family kind of celebrates Christmas in shifts. First shift was my family, my mom & Gma. Then people started to roll in from there. Then Lee had to leave to go back to work at 5:30pm, more food and presents, etc.

All in all, I think this may really be one of my favorite ages for Christmas. Taryn loves EVERYTHING. She is happy whether the gift cost $1 or $100. Whether it is a Dora toothbrush or a Thomas the Train set... She loves it all! I am concerned for the future if Lee continues to have to work the same shift that he did this year. Somehow I don't think we will be able to hold Taryn back from the gifts in future years. We may have to just wake him up!

Puetz Family Christmas

Saturday was our first Christmas celebration of the year at Lee's Grandma Puetz' house. I must say, this particular celebration is much more convenient now that we live only about 10 blocks from her!

Taryn got to love on some Baby Brock! He is such a happy little bald guy!

There are about a million kids that all need to open presents, so it definitely takes awhile for everyone to get their turn. Taryn decided to take the bull by the horns and do some sucking up to Gma Puetz. Apparently it worked because soon her wait was over and she had a gift to open! She has been waiting SO long to open a present this holiday season!

Family pic time! With the addition of Ella, Lee's immediate family is up to 19 people! 10 adults and 9 kids. We just barely outnumber them. The pics of Lee's parents with all the kids did not pan out. It was a little too close to some of their nap times.

One of the perks of living so close is that I was able to bring Taryn home and put her down for a nap. I may have taken one myself. The downfall of living so close to Grandma Puetz is that all 19 of the Klemme's came back to our house afterwards. I spent all morning cleaning and in about 5 minutes the whole house looked like a tornado went through it!

After the Klemme's packed up and left, we cleaned the house a second time and set up our extra bedroom for Jamie & Garret who came to visit! We went to The Local and had some awesome karaoke. Lots of beer later, we got a ride home in the back of Lee's cop car. Talk about a perk! He even breathalyzed us!