Christmas traditions

When I think of holiday traditions, one comes to mind.  A tradition that began with my grandma Freestone & continued with my mom.  We always had to drink a large glass of juice before we could go in to see our Christmas presents.

For some reason, the glass of juice seemed insurmountable.  Always a struggle to guzzle down.  One year the juice selection was V8 juice.  That year was especially tough.

Now I have my own little family.  We're deciding which traditions we want to carry on & start.  One we've adopted from Chad's family is the baking & decorating of sugar cookies. My third time with the tradition.   Here's how things looked this year.

November randomness

November randomness...a lame, completely uncreative blog post title.  But really, what sort of cohesive title exists concerning some pictures regarding a naked baby boy & a dessert.  Ya, I couldn't think of one either.

Soooo...onto the pictures.

I'll tell you straight up, Liam takes showers with me.  It started out as a convenient way for me to get a shower when he was younger.  Now he insists.  He LOVES the shower!

And we have our routine.  We shower.  I bundle him up & flip on the disney channel.  He sits all adorable mesmorized by Mickey Mouse or the trains of Chuggington.  I fix my hair & make-up.  I finish.  I chase him, diaper in hand.

I never wanna forget any of it!

On another note, have you heard of pinterest?  You probably have.  Chad and me have taken an interest into baking a new dessert from there together every week.  Below is our favorite dessert we've made to date.  Cheesecake Brownies.  (their brownies turned out a lot more "photogenic").

Thanksgiving 2011

All of my family, with the exception of my sister Kyra who had a working husband, went out of town for Thanksgiving.  It was kind of depressing.  But, we wanted to make the best of it.  I craved watching the Macy's day parade.  Chad craved the food.  We both craved a little vacation.  So...
We had a modest Thanksgiving day feast.  I watched the Macy's day parade as I made the final preparations for lunch/packing.

We ate.

 We cleaned up.

 We left for Branson.

It was nice holiday.  More than anything, I think it was a learning experience.  The things I/we learned-

1.  Pyrex & Corelle do not count as fine china.  (I'd like some pieces of nice serving dishes to make special meals feel more like an event).
2.  Entertaining a toddler in a hotel room is a lot more difficult than at home.
3.  Exciting destinations are more fun than exciting resorts.
4.  Learn the back roads of Branson.
5.  We enjoy baking together (Chad helped with all the pies the night before.  Didn't he do great?).
6.  Take more pictures than just at Bass Pro.
7.  Liam is really obsessed with trains.

We're having a...

well, the picture speaks for itself.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words...I don't think this one needs much explanation.

We both broke out laughing when we caught sight of this view.  We knew exactly what that meant.

We're both so excited for Liam to have a little brother & a playmate.

Liam's reaction to the news- completely clueless.