Christmas 2013

Merry Christmas, hope everyone had an awesome holiday!  Unfortunately ours was a little sickly with my niece Mikayla having a fever & Melanie becoming deathly ill with the flu on Christmas day.  I started to feel sick late last week & it definitely kicked in by Christmas, but luckily it's only a cold & not the flu.  I'm actually home with Cameron today since he woke us up at 4am with a 102 degree fever.  Lets say that it wasn't exactly the Christmas we pictured, but we still managed to have fun!

This year for teacher's gifts I baked these amazingly tasty chocolate peppermint crinkle cookies.  Click here for the recipe; they're like a moist cookie paired with a brownie, living in glorious bliss together!

I jarred them & packaged them with a yummy red velvet cupcake candle from Target & bagged them with a picture of each kiddo that I used as a thank you/Merry Christmas card.  I would love to do more for the teachers since I'm so incredibly thankful for all they do for my kids, but the budget was tight, so I did what we could!

 

To help stay in budget, I made some of Christmas presents, like this brown sugar lavender, peppermint body scrub.  It was so easy to make & left my skin amazingly soft & smooth!

Brown Sugar Scrub
makes 3 mason jars 

3 cups brown sugar
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup + 2T honey
1/2 teaspoon lavender essential oil, optional
1/2 teaspoon peppermint essential oil, optional

So much less expensive than a store-bought version & just as good!



We hosted Christmas Eve & it was a gloriously beautifully cool day, so we took some time to feed the ducks.

 

The cousins always have such a blast together; I'm so thankful that they have each other!

The kids had a blast opening presents!  It's sooooo much fun watching their excitement, I love it!

 We got Reese the exact same doll I got when I was two years old on Christmas... I still adore her & have to admit that I sleep with her to this day.  Yes, yes, I am aware that as a 34 year-old, this is absolutely not normal! 



Anyway, my dad found the same doll nearly ten years ago & gave it to me on Christmas in hopes I would have a daughter to give it to.  Well, that time finally came & Reese seemed pretty excited about her "new" doll (that was made in 1979, the year I was born!)

And we took our annual picture of the grand kids in front of the Christmas tree. Both years, we've managed to get them all to smile with the help of Mike & Dempsey!

 Despite the sickness, I've loved the extra time spent with my family & all of the new memories & traditions we've continued to create!