Precious

When Zoe was a baby, my favorite pictures of her were those of her sleeping....today, she had another one of those precious moments :)



Then, later in the evening, I caught this really cute picture of Ryan and Buckeye.

More Christmas...

We spent Christmas Eve at Vertie's house. Zoe got a lot of cool gifts, but I'm not really sure who bought what: she had a huge pile of gifts that she just tore into and through and I didn't get to see who bought what. Anyway, we had a great time, with great food and great family!





When we got home on Christmas Eve, we put out cookies, milk, and lettuce (carrotts were gone) and read the Night Before Christmas....and then the struggle began! Zoe did not want to go to sleep. It was almost midnight when she finally fell asleep. We later decided that she was afraid of yhe thought of Santa being in her house. When we got up Christmas morning, the treats were all gone and she was so excited. She really liked opening her presents and inspecting them. We had to encourage her to open the next one - mommy had to get busy cooking you know! :)
Here are a few of the morning pictures:







Later in the afternoon, my side of the family came over. We had a great time opening presents, eating, and playing games!
Just a couple more pictures :)




**Just a side note, I'm hoping all of this posts in order because I still can't see the pictures when I'm creating the post....Jen, Sara....HELP!"**

Christmas #1 and #2

I'm not sure what's going on with the website, but I'm unable to tell what order the pictures are in until I post them....so I can't write about each picture. We had Christmas with my dad's family at dad's house on Saturday. It was very nice. Dad's house looked great and Jessie made each of us some yummy baked goodies. Zoe loves the house and castle that papaw Dave and Aunt Jessie got her.
On Sunday, we had Christmas with Ryan's mom's family. We all had a great time eating lots of yummy food and playing games. Keyairra and Zoe loved playing dress up with the clothes we got Keyairra.
For all of you who say that Zoe looks like me...try again....Keyairra is her twin - just a few years apart! :)

Our Little Chef...

As promised, more pictures of Zoe cooking :)

Santa Baby...

Well, we pumped Zoe up for about 3 weeks to get her ready to sit on Santa's lap....and she seemed excited and ready. She knew exactly what she wanted to tell him that she wanted, "bwocks and a puter"! We went to see Santa in the park in Xenia. While we were waiting in line she seemed to be getting nervous and wouldn't let me put her down. As we walked into the house where Santa was sitting, she got a death grip around my neck and when it was her turn.....no way! She didn't want anything to do with him, or Mrs. Clause for that matter. Mrs. Clause was nice enough to wipe her tears for her though. Afterwards, we went on a wagon ride through the park to see the lights and she obviously liked that a little more.

Happy Holidays from us to you :)

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It's the Holiday Season

It's this time of year that I become extremely thankful for who and what I have in my life. I am very much a gift giver and really enjoy buying for others at Christmas. I like the challenge of buying a thoughtful gift for everyone we buy for. Although I enjoy this time, I much more enjoy buying for those that are less fortunate. This year we adopted a family from work along with buying toys for kids at one of the mobile home parks.

We don't get to see the kids open their presents, but I just enjoy imagining seeing their faces light up when they see their gifts under the tree on Christmas morning. Zoe helped me to wrap all of the presents for the family from work and we had quite the conversation about who the toys were for and why we were giving them. Of course she didn't understand, but it's never too early to start :)

Last night she helped me to wrap presents for our family. As we were wrapping, she wanted to know what each present was and who it was for....which means she can't see or talk to these people until we see them or she will tell! HA!

I am so excited to see her face Christmas morning. All she has been talking about is wanting blocks and a "puter" from Santa....I can't wait for her to open them! On the flip side, this will be my first Christmas without Grandma Judy and Grandma Dorothy. Both of them loved to give gifts in their own special way. It's going to be a little rough for all of us, I'm sure.

Anyhow, here is a flashback picture from Zoe playing last year at this time :) Thankfully, this December has been a little healthier for us (knock on wood - esp. considering that Zoe and mommy both have nasty head colds right now!)

Cookie Season is here!

So, as many of you know I make too many dozens of cookies to even count to pass out to all of our tenants and businesses that we deal with. I decided to get busy with this a little earlier than last year and started this week.
My hubby finally bought me a kitchen-aid mixer - maybe because I threatened to go on strike without it...so Zoe and I tried it out this week. First thing we made was some cookies to take to Donna's and today we made some Buckeyes. Look for many many more cookie cooking pictures to come :)

Helping mix the "dry" ingredients.

Very proud of her first cookies!

She tried to take them apart to get the chocolate chips out when they were done :)

Making Buckeyes - Zoe cooking with nothing but her apron on! It was her first taste of peanut butter and she loved it!

She's so sugar sweet....look at that face :)

Coloring Queen

Zoe loves to color and write. I caught her sitting at her desk last night :)