The Most Wonderful Time of the Year

Can I get a big YAY for Christmas?!? My Christmas spirit has been revitalized (I hadn't realized I'd lost it!), thanks to having a two and a half year olds eyes to see it through.

Everything is so much fun. We finally put lights on the house! Addison thinks this is just the coolest. (I do, too) The trees are pretty puny still, I'm aware. It's a work in progress.
I never knew how hard it is to get a good shot of Christmas lights!

In addition to decorating, this is such a wonderful time to pass along family traditions. There is one in particular that I've been soexcited about. Growing up, we had "Christmas Calendars". My mom sewed these amazing wall calendars, with a place to hang a small gift for each day in December- counting down to Christmas. I LOVED this every year and, like I said, I couldn't wait to introduce this to Addison. My mom sewed Addison her very own calendar, and tonight I hung it up. I hung it crooked, but whatever.I suggest clicking on these images to see the detail of these calendars. My mom's wonderful!!

Tomorrow's the big day- she gets to open her first gift!! (It's a Santa Claus Pez Dispenser). She has lots of goodies in store for her: Sleeping Beauty lip gloss, silly putty, nail polish, Tinkerbell lifesavers... :-) I didn't put the calendar up until she went to bed, so this is what she's going to wake up to tomorrow.

Here's what else she'll wake up to tomorrow:

This is Elfie, our "Elf on the Shelf". In case you don't know, "The Elf on the Shelf" is a little elf sent from the North Pole to watch children to see if they're being Naughty or Nice. He flies back to the North Pole every night to report to Santa Claus what he saw that day. The next morning, your Elf is in a new spot in the house, and apparently children have a blast trying to find him. (I totally am sure that's true!)

We introduced Elfie to Addison tonight. Tried to read her the book that came along with him, but she wasn't having any of it. We'll see if tomorrow she'll listen. She definitely knows who Elfie is, though, and what he's here for :-) What a great idea, huh?

So. We've decorated, started new traditions, carried on old ones... I am just in heaven! So much so that I've got all of our Christmas cards mailed off and have about 90% of our shopping done. I can't remember that last time I didn't put off 75% of my shopping to the few days before Christmas.

I'm sure I'll blog tomorrow night about our Elfie experience, and her first Christmas calendar experience as well. Can't imagine I won't... I'm kind of camera and blog- happy lately (in case you hadn't noticed).

Night night, sleep tight!

I'm Not Sure What to Think About This

A couple of weeks ago, one of my four year olds asked me what I am going to name my baby. I told her I didn't know and she went ahead and listed a few suggestions. One of which was "Munkus Trap". Ha. I stifled my giggles and wrote the "name" down so I would be sure not to forget it.

I knew this was blog-worthy, but it wasn't until I googled Munkus, just to be sure it was just a made-up word, that I realized it is indeed blog worthy. I guess you could say it is just a make-up word... but when googled, the first thing that comes up are two definitions from urbandictionary.com.

I won't give the definitions here, as I'm not sure who exactly reads my lil ol blog, and I certainly don't want to offend anyone. Let's just say it's... sexually graphic?

I hope this little girl just happened to make up the word Munkus, and wasn't repeating it after hearing it somewhere.

And if I wasn't considering Munkus Trap for our child's name, I certainly am not now.

Two Days of Thanksgiving

This is the way to do it. Instead of cramming two huge and delicious meals into one day, it's easier on the tummy (and stamina) to break it up into two days.

Day one (Thanksgiving day) was spent at Grammi and Grandpa's:

The whole family

Addison and Daddy :-)


With NaNa and PaPa

With Grammi and Grandpa

After lunch at Grammi and Grandpa's, we headed home to decorate our tree. While Addy napped, Mike and I put the tree up and started hanging ornaments, careful to save plenty of ornaments for Addison to hang.

Yeah, she really wasn't interested. In fact, this is about as excited as she got:

Which turned into this. (Lack of interest from both Addy AND Daddy... in favor of The Polar Express):


Oh, well... I enjoyed decorating. And here's the finished product:

Day TWO. At GaGa and Grandma's house.

Me with sweet baby Annalie

Micah and Addy watching Elf and eating snacks. Too cute.

Working hard in the kitchen.

So funny. I guess she was hungry and could tell the food was almost ready.

All the "big kids" at the table. Now that there's a baby, they're the big kids.

My dear, dear Grandma.

I don't remember Annalie being fussy, hmmm...

Miguel, Adam and some crazy lady with a baby.

And... the grand finale. La creme de la creme. The SHOWSTOPPER. A food SO worth blogging about, it beat out bourbon glazed turkey, home made pumpkin and pecan pie, even my very own sweet potato bake that I thought went over quite well. Yes, it is that good.



Oh, yes I did. I MADE these delicious little tastes of heaven. I got the recipe through a blog through a blog through a blog. (I follow Julie's blog... she follows this blog. Who follows THIS blog. Yes, yes... I am a blog stalker. Especially of food blogs.) Anyway, these Crunchy Caramel Reeses Bars were as good as they look and sound. The recipe is here.

Yep, this year's Thanksgiving was a good one. Still very thankful. Only now I have the taste of Thanksgiving food every time I burp. Oh, I'm sorry. Maybe I should have kept that to myself.

Happy Turkey Day!

So much to be thankful for this year! Of course, so much to be thankful for EVERY year, but I don't know if it's the pregnancy hormones or what- I am feeling EXTRA grateful for everyone and everything that continues to be a blessing in my life! In no particular order, (and of course I'm leaving about a million things out), I am thankful for...

Addison. Sweet, fun, silly, smart, loving, perfect Addison.
Our little peanut. So amazing to be pregnant... SO thankful.
Mike. My patient, affectionate, helpful, giving, caring, AMAZING husband.
Family. Mine and the one I married into! Thankful for their daily love and support!
Dance eMotions. My DeM family. My DeM students. And most of my DeM parents ;)
My girlfriends, long-time and new! Laughter, support and fun every time!
My guy friends, many of whom were around back in DeM's starting days. Have been forever thankful for them since they helped put our first walls up, and they continue to make me thankful!
Good health, all around. Yay for that!
Second trimester!!
A roof over our head. Which I happen to still love, 4.5 years after buying.
Addison's teachers at school. They are teaching her so much, and she is growing into such a sweet, smart girl- thanks in large part to them!
Chocolate.
Glee.
Coffee.
Jacob Black ;)

Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family! I hope you all have a fabulous day of eating, and a long and restful NAP afterward!

Edited to add: THIS is what I am most thankful for:

Daddy Day

Here at the Adair household, we call the days that Mike gets to stay home "Daddy Days". Today's Daddy Day has been extra special already. This morning Mike took Addison to the book store to see HULK! This was something that Mike and Addison did frequently over the summer, and last night when Mike told Addison they would be going back this morning, she started talking about the smallest details of their previous trips- the girl has a crazy memory! Anyway, here are some sweet shots that Mike got while they were there.

Shutterfly page updated!

Check it out here (password is lola)

Turkey Cupcakes

Warning: LOTS of pictures here. (special thanks to Melissa for taking these pics. Had I taken them, they wouldn't have looked like this!)

Grammi invited us, Auntie Melissa and the cousins to her house this morning to make "turkey cupcakes". She had it all set up for us, each kid had a space with all of the necessary candies, frosting, etc to make a cupcake with a candy turkey on top! She was so prepared- she said it reminded her of her teaching days and preparing for science labs! She must have done a great job as a teacher, like I said she was very organized and prepared for us!




Hard at work.


Such concentration!


Sweet Jude.


Micah ate while he worked :-)



Addison's finished product.


Showing off her turkey!



Abbie took it seriously, and had quite a cute cupcake to show for it!


SO CUTE.


The birthday boy! Today is Jude's 4th birthday! :-)


Thank you, Grammi! We had so much fun! Let's make this an annual tradition! (If you'll have us again, that is!)

Krispy Kreme

Addison and I went for breakfast the other day... to none other than Krispy Kreme! Yummy! Of course, I brought the new camera along. Bear with me as I try to learn how to take decent pics... and as I add more than necessary to the blog.

Memory Card is BACK!

I got my memory card back! Yippee!!! Here are some of the "better" pics worth sharing.
Addison at open house at school.



At chapel at school, waiting for the Halloween costume parade


The only decent shot we got of the parade. The kids walked around the chapel to "Monster Mash" and "Ghostbusters". It was SO CUTE.


From here on out, the pictures are with our amazing, new camera. See if you notice a difference in quality!!


Kassidy came to play!


Sweet Kassidy and her sweet Mommy :-)



Eating a grilled cheese with "Dada" (her only doll not named "Sasa")

Our Peanut

Today I had an appointment with my OB. And dang it, I'm not farther along than I thought. In fact, I'm only measuring 12 weeks, 2 days. It's a good thing I got to see the cutest little 6 cm baby EVER at this appointment, otherwise I'd probably be a lot grouchier about the fact that I still have 6 entire months before I meet this little bugger. The baby was kicking, squirming and wiggling around- it's so crazy to see a living baby on the screen, one who isn't even big enough to cause a bump!!