Christmas Celebrations

Here comes a HUGE photo dump of all the Christmas festivities from the last week. My sister got Lucy this cheerleading outfit a few weeks ago and had been wanting a picture of her to put on her desk at her cheerleading/gymnastics gym. Here is the shot I got of my sweet girl.

Our cats pretty much spend the whole week under the tree

Liam ate a lot of candy (peppermint bark here) and cookies

Our trees, so hard to get a good shot of, I may need to do a video before we take them down

Alex got me an upgraded lens for my camera and I am just in  love with it!!!

Lucy on Christmas Eve

The boys

Liam having some breakfast

Edgars grand finale, the zip line!

Liam painting on Christmas Eve

Possibly one of my favorites pictures, Liam and I cooking

Sweet Lucy

Lucy just LOVES to watch Liam so we put her in the high chair to watch us cook

Liam at my parents house on Christmas Eve when he saw his Lighting McQueen hot wheels car

My Aunt Chris, Mom and Lucy

Liam and Evan opening presents

Ooooh what is it…. CAILLOU!!!

Evan, Kerri, and Liam

Action shots

One of my favorite pictures ever! My whole family!!

Liam on Christmas morning, he wanted nothing to do with his presents he just wanted to play cars

Liam at Alex’s parents house christmas morning playing with cars instead of opening presents.

Last day opening the advent calendar

Pioneer Women cinnamon rolls for breakfast yummmm!

Lucy having her bottle on Christmas morning

Our failed attempt at a sibling picture in their matching PJs.

We hosted Christmas this year which was so much fun! Here is our table

Pop and Lucy

Matt, Alex and Liam at the kids table HAHA we ran out of room at the dining room table so instead of being squished we just sat at a different table.

Liam with his new picnic table from Aunt Debbie and Steve.

Action shot in the kitchen

It’s the holiday season….

This weekend I got to work and started on our holiday baking. Liam was very excited to help me cook, he is still very into cooking which I love. Now if only he were that into helping do the dishes! He helped me made chicken pot pie soup tonight, which I thought turned out great! He loves to pick out just the right utensil to help stir.

Ripping up kale for a stir fry I made last week, he did such a good job. Then he ran and got two dump trucks to fill the back with leaves and drive them around.

Stirring my oatmeal for me. I make the same thing for breakfast everyday (rolled oats, millet, chia seeds, pumpkin puree, cinnamon, and a scoop of almond butter), the poor kiddo could probably make it for me all by himself by now.

Some of our baking…peanut butter filled chocolate cookies and vegan chocolate chip with walnuts for me, honestly SO SO SO good and the best part you can eat all the batter you want without fear of salmonella.

Yesterday we went to a 1st birthday party for our good friends daughter, Addison. Ms. Lucy was all ready to party! Ummm when did this girl get so big?!?

Last week there was a meeting of the survivors, HAHA, we had eight  deer in our back yard. I was happy to see the survivors of hunting season. My Mom and nephew happen to stop by to drop something off (deco mesh because I decided to redo our family room tree 10 days before Christmas because I am crazy) and she told them it was Santa’s reindeer, it was so cute to see the look on his face.

Today we finished up our cookie baking with Liams favorite! We made pinwheel shortbread cookies with were suppose to be coated in sprinkles but it just didn’t work out BUT Liam had a fantastic time playing in the sprinkles. I am pretty sure it made his week!

…I had to laugh, didn’t his hair look mullet like today? He was channeling his inner Billy Ray Cyrus.

and of course Lucy was our supervisor. I swear this kid is one of the most happy babies I have ever seen she is constantly smiling and laughing (she has a very ticklish chin). I just cant get enough of her!

Our poor cats sleep under our living room tree all day and all night. They are going to be really depressed come January.

I am still putting on the running shoes at least six days a week. Today I ran two miles without stopping, let me just tell you for a girl that used to cheat on the presidential fitness test in high school this is a big deal! I was pretty proud of that accomplishment tonight. I didn’t start this journey with the intent to lose weight (more so to keep an organ….whacked out pregnancy hormones that gave me gallbadder disease) but let me just say that being 5 pounds under my pre-pregnancy weight at 12 weeks post partum in pretty awesome. Hard works pays off!

We are hosting Christmas this year and I am super excited! I have been planning since June so I am excited for everything to start coming together. My brother is coming in tomorrow (by train, wouldn’t Liam love that!) and will be here until well after the new year! We are so excited for “Unc” to visit for a while! It is such a joyful time of year and I have so much to be grateful for. I can’t wait to see Liam on Christmas this year, we have been doing Elf on the Shelf and an advent calendar all month so the anticipation to the big day has been building for him. We didn’t get him a ton of gifts (who knows where I am going to store anything else the kid gets since we are bursting at the seams over here) but what we did get were very thought out and I think he will be very excited for! I also have a few get togethers with friends planning. One with a few high school friends that I have not seen in years and who haven't been all together since the summer we graduated, so excited!

Life in photos

Life lately has felt a lot like groundhogs day, hence the lack of blogging. Nothing very exciting going on here on our home front but of course we can recap the last few weeks with some pictures.

 

Miss Lucy has been all smiles and has been sleeping like a rock star, thank goodness for the concept of “dream feeding'”!

 

Edgar the Elf has been up to some very funny things….

Liam devoured a peppermint brownie cake pop from starbucks, he is addicted to candy canes as well.

Our train station got its own Christmas tree.

We’ve had lots of group play time. Here Liam was showing Lucy the Baby Jesus that goes to his nativity. He loves the Baby Jesus and takes it with him everywhere….in the car, bed … you name it.

Liam has been a great helper in the kitchen lately. He has developed a big interest in helping me cook. He runs to the kitchen, slides a chair over and says “I cook” multiple times a day. Many times he just gets out a lot of utensils and measuring cups and pretends. Here he was helping me make pizza, adding mushrooms to Dada’s pizza (I had to assure Alex that it would not hurt him to have mushroom reside on his pizza…ugh..picky eaters), and decorating cupcakes.

Sweet Lucy hanging out and rocking the skinny jeans and uggs.

My Moms tree, isn’t it pretty! I have some big shoes to fill when it comes to Christmas décor!

Liam got a set of Legos from Alex’s Dads work Christmas party and has been playing with them all week! He has had so much fun building.

Do we need a haircut or can we just say we are rocking the Beiber look?!

Traffic jam on the couch!

Tummy time for everyone

Oh those cheeks, don’t you just want to kiss them!

I have developed a new hobby … running has taken over blog time. I also went vegetarian (with a few exceptions like turkey on thanksgiving) (there is a whole long story behind this one). This is the fourth time in my adult life now that I am trying my hand at a vegetarian diet. Being honest, the thing that always got me off track was McDonalds (isn’t that terrible) well let’s just say McDonalds is off the table for a long, long time and this change has definitely been more of a lifestyle change than a phase. Honestly, I have never felt better!! One of the nice side effects of all these changes is being three pounds below my pre-pregnancy weight with Lucy and only two pounds to my wedding day weight! Very exciting. Only 7 pounds to my goal!

and Lucy rolled belly to back for the first time today!! Go Lucy!!