Merry Christmas!!

As everyone knows by now we did not get to go to Virginia for Christmas, but we did have a great time being together and it was fun having new traditions with our little family.
Christmas Eve I made homemade pasta (we always have italian food at my mom and dad's), salad and really yummy garlic cheese bread. I think Wes' favorite part was drinking Martinelli's out of a fancy wine glass. I colored the pasta green so it was more Christmassy and once you got past the color it was super YUMMY!

My boys

Please ignore what I am wearing, it was so freaking hot in our house after I was done cooking.

After dinner we went to the Riverwoods to look at the lights

Wes danced to the Christmas music playing, then we went home to leave cookies and milk out for Santa and read The Night Before Christmas.

Wes woke up earlier than usual on Christmas morning and was excited to see if Santa came.

he really was excited even thought it doesn't look like it

He got tons of great gifts, but I think his favorite was either candy land or his new train tracks.

Christmas night we went to Josh's parents for dinner and more presents.

This is his Christmas outfit, I wish I would have gotten a better picture of it. He looked so handsome

This is his new trick, he can kick himself up against the wall to do a headstand so of course he wanted me to take pictures of it.

We hope everyone had a fantastic Christmas and is looking forward to the new year!

Visit with Nanny & 3rd Birthday

Since we sadly don't get to spend Christmas with my family this year (first time in 30 years :( my mom came out to visit last week. Everyone except for me got sick so we didn't get to do everything I wanted, but we still had fun and Wes loves spending time with Nanny.

We decorated a gingerbread house...well my mom did and Wes and I ate the candy.

We went to Trolley Square one night while Josh was at his work Christmas party, wow that mall is LAME. I haven't been there in years, but there honestly is nothing there. Santa wasn't even there, but at least his sleigh was.

This is what Wes wore to see Santa at the mall, since I don't have a scanner I can't show you the picture of him with Santa.

Wes had his 3rd birthday last week and it was such a huge success, he had a great time with all of his buddies!

The cupcakes I made, I'm pretty proud of them since I'm not a big baker.

All the kids made mini pizzas

Eating their creations

We also had a pinata, none of the kids could break it so we just pulled it apart.

We went to Thanksgiving Point to look at the lights one night and really it's kind of overpriced, but they had a bunch of other stuff to do and it was just so Christmassy and pretty there that I want to make this a yearly tradition. Maybe not the Saturday before Christmas though it was sooooo busy.

Our last Christmassy activity with Nanny was making cinnamon ornaments. I should have taken a picture of the finished product

This year I have been a baking fool. I was so proud of everything that I had to take a picture. The only thing not pictured is our cutout cookies Wes and I made a few weeks ago. We are having such a fun time with all the Christmas stuff this year, I can't believe it is almost over. But then again after Christmas I guess we have some other big stuff to look forward to

29 weeks

I figured at 29 weeks I should probably take a picture of what I look like, since I haven't taken a single belly shot yet. So here I am...

fun fun and more fun!

For Thanksgiving we went up to Wolf Creek with a bunch of Josh's extended family. There were probably close to 30 people there which is very different from spending time with my extended family (all 12 of us). We just did a lot of eating, hot tubbing, sledding and Josh got to spend time with his cousins he never sees.

Wes and Will are trying to build a snow man

He was such a daredevil flying down the hill. I am actually kind of looking forward to having snow around here so we can take Wes sledding.

Warming up by the fire.

When we got home we started decorating the house, Wes' job was decorating my snowman tree

Then we baked cookies

Our delicious finished product, they actually were really good even though some had about a pound of sprinkles on them.

And my Birthday!! On the 1st I turned...30, I can not believe I am that old but I really had a special couple of days. On my birthday some of my friends took me out to lunch then Josh and I went out ALONE! to Brio for dinner then did some Christmas shopping.

My sister sent me 30 gifts to open!!! Yeah she is pretty much the most awesome sister anyone could have. I think my favorite part was that I definitely did not feel 30 sitting around all these gifts and tearing into them.

The next day was the start of Josh's vacation so we went to breakfast at Kneader's then went on our search for the perfect Christmas tree. We spent the day getting the tree up and decorating it.

At night we went to Riverwoods so Wes could see Santa and all the lights. If anyone hasn't gone to Riverwoods at Christmas it is amazing, even though it is freezing out.

My Aunt Debbie made the top 2 plates (aren't they gorgeous, this crappy picture doesn't do them justice) and I was so excited to finally get to use this rack I got from a yardsale. The bottom plate was one of my gifts from Wes and Josh. I think it might just be the best gift I have ever gotten, on the front they both put a handprint and on the back Wes painted me a picture. I will have to take a better picture of both sides.

And here is our finished Christmas tree! This has really been one of the best birthday weekends ever and it's only Saturday...yes I said birthday weekend I get the WHOLE weekend :)