Christmas 09'

What an amazing Christmas! Aaron and I joked about how we can't believe we are in a recession because this was our best Christmas yet. On Christmas Eve Aaron's family came over and we had an awesome dinner and opened a ton of gifts with Aaron's parents and sisters. On Christmas morning while I was getting ready, the girls went ahead and moved all of the presents from underneath the tree onto the ottoman. They did this in the 2 mins. it took for me to throw some clothes on, brush my teeth and pull my hair up...silly kids! After the terrible blizzard we had, we were afraid that Chrismas dinner at my sister's house would be canceled. Thankfully, everyone in my family has at least 1 vehicle with 4-wheel drive and we were all able to make it over to her house. And thankfully Aaron was willing to help my brother in law shovel out her driveway so everyone had a place to park when they arrived. Both of the girls got everything they wanted for Christmas, and Santa was pretty good to Aaron and I too! Cecelia's favorite present...I think it's a toss up between her Easy Bake Oven and her DS. Kiley's favorite present was probably her DS and accessories. Stanley loves his milk bones and new toys. Yeah, he opened probably 5 presents this year for Christmas too

Building a snowman

My best friend Rachel and her boyfriend Clinton are in town from California for a few weeks over the holidays. One of the things they said they really wanted to do while in town was to build a snowman with Cecelia because living in California obviously doesn't give them an opportunity to do this kind of thing. Cecelia loved it! We had been trying to get out and build a snowman since we had our snow days from school, which occured back in early December but the snow hadn't melted enough to make a quality product. Stanley even enjoyed our creation. Every time Stanley went outside to go potty he would bark at the snowmen, this went on for days. Then, once Stanley was comfortable with them, he began to use them to pee on...needless to say, our creations are very yellow now.

Baking & Decorating Christmas cookies

I love to bake and Cecelia is really beginning to enjoy it too. Cecelia and I really went all out this year in the kitchen. We found an amazing recipe for chewy sugar cookies...they were so good! In addition to the sugar cookies, we made chocolate chip and peanut butter kiss cookies. Yes, we cheated on the peanut butter kiss cookies. We used the pre-made mix. In my defense though, I had a lot of different kinds of cookies going at once and I needed a little help. We bagged them up and gave them out with Christmas presents. I think they were a hit.

Yay for snow days!!!

Cecelia and I were lucky girls today...school was cancelled! I was scheduled to be at a Bellevue daycare today, working on art projects with Pre-schoolers. Although it would have been fun, I had more fun playing in the snow with Cecelia and Stanley. We were going to build a snow man but when we tried, we realized the snow was still a little too soft. We are planning on going back out tomorrow, once the snow has gotten a little harder and trying again. Stanley loves the snow! When we try to get him to go outside through the back door and down the back deck steps (to go potty), he refuses to go. However, if we take him out front, either through the front door or through the garage he does just fine. And once we were outside today he was running and jumping around in the snow like he had never seen it before. After we got done playing we came inside and Cecelia put on her bath robe to get warm and I made her some hot chocolate. We most likely will not have school tomorrow either. The forecast is for at least 8 inches of snow to continue to fall until late tonight, possibly early tomorrow morning. Hopefully we will get another snow day, we will see.

Decorating

The Christmas tree went up two days after Thanksgiving. I love the soft warm glow of the white Christmas lights on the tree. I like to turn off all the lights in the house except the tree and snuggle on the couch with Cece and Aaron. It's so peaceful. Cecelia really enjoyed helping me, she especially liked to eat the candy canes we hung up. We are planning on having Aaron's immediate family over on Christmas Eve. It's a Culver family tradition to deviate from the traditional holiday meal and have Manicotti for dinner on Christmas Eve. I love that tradition. Then on Christmas day,we will open presents with the girls in the morning and then we will be going over to my older sister's house in the afternoon. Kiley will be with us for over a week on Christmas break. We are all so excited to spend the holiday with her.

Naughty Squirrels!!!

I decided to host Thanksgiving at my house this year. My side of the family is very large...I have 5 sisters. So once you add my sisters, their spouses and kids it can get pretty chaotic. My intention was to bring in my patio table and chairs, clean them off, throw matching table cloths over my kitchen table and patio table and have a few more seats for guests. So, I go outside to assess how were going to get the patio table in, and low and behold 2 out of 4 cushions have been destroyed! I was at an absolute loss. I had just been on the back deck less than a week ago and the patio set was fine. No one could really fathom what in the world could have done that to the chair cushions. My mom thought that since I don't bring the set into storage during the winter that maybe the elements had caused the cushions to split. Okay, it was the most logical explanation we could come up with. Not the case at all! Aaron and I have both witnessed squirrels coming onto the deck and leaving with a mouthful of stuffing. After we realized what was happening, I suggested we go out together and put the cushions in trash bags and take them out with the trash. Aaron said we should just let the squirrels have what they need for they're winter nests, they were already ruined anyways. What a kind husband I have. So as of now the cushions are still on the chairs being picked at by the squirrels. Looks like I'll be getting new cushions next spring :)