Girls Party!

Every year all the girls in the family (who live local) and friends get together for the "Girls Ornament Party". It is really fun to get to see everyone, and eat yummy food and get a new ornament for the tree!

November Randomness

November was a busy month, and as always it went by so quickly! We visited Santa, took Hallie to see her first movie in a theater (The Muppets), went bowling, saw Grammie and Grandpa, started our Christmas shopping and had a nice week off together since Matt and I were able to have the week off after Thanksgiving from work! So fun!

Botanical Gardens

I love looking at Christmas lights, and we found some really fun neighborhoods that went all out for Christmas! Adam's favorite was the house that was "Cars" themed, and had a HUGE Lightning McQueen light up car on the roof!

Hallie just had fun saying (or yelling) LOOK AT THAT ONE! LOOK!
We ended up at the Botanical Gardens to walk through and look at the lights there. They were very pretty, and the kids had fun "catching" the snowflake lights. We decided we liked the zoo lights better, so will probably try to hit that up one more time this year!

Also, Hallie can Levitate. (This was taken at the Botanical Gardens so I figured a good spot to put this picture. I have NO idea how I captured this!)

From photos for blog

Fort Kirwin!

Adam and I decided we were going to build "The Biggest Fort Known to Man".

We took all of the extra blankets (and thanks to Pearly aka my Grandma) we have about 6 or 7 gorgeous afghans she has crochet and given to me every year for Christmas. We set up our Fort in the dining room with our table as a base and with the help of some very strong packing tape, we were able to build a HUGE fort, with a window and a door. We had a fun afternoon of playing in our fort, and having a picnic in there.

From photos for blog

Christmas Cookies!

I am an excellent cook. I love to cook and make appetizers and try new things. One thing I am NOT good at however is baking. Luckily sugar cookies aren't too tough, so we make them for all the holidays. I think the most fun part is I always borrow my Mom's very large container of cut outs. These cut outs are ones my brothers and I used when we were kids, 30 years ago! It is so fun to see the cut outs and remember my favorite ones. They are also amazing quality, don't get dough stuck in them, and some of them, I don't even think they make anymore with out special ordering them.

The only bad part about this process is trying to clean all the flour and dough out of the cracks of the table because "someone" forgot to cover it with paper first! Ooops! :)

From photos for blog

Zoo Lights and Benihanas!

We went with our friends the Benik's to the Zoo, to see the Zoo lights! As members, we get to see the zoo lights before it opens to the public (it's a great perk)! Luckily for us we picked a night that was both not too cold and not too busy! The kids literally could run around and not into anyone. They had a great time checking out all the lights and finding their favorites from previous years.

After our zoo adventure we went to one of our favorite restaurants, Benihanas! Adam's favorite part is when the chef makes the onions look like choo choos and then a volcano. The kids love the food there, and how can they not? It's sooo good!

The kids were fast asleep before we even hit the highway to get home!

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas!

Getting the tree up was no easy task. Our living room isn't user friendly when it comes to re-organizing the couches so we can put the tree up by the window. But, after a lot of huffing, puffing and working out our arm muscles, we figured out a new layout so we could fit in our big tree! Adam and Hallie helped Daddy put it together and we organized all of our new (and old) ornaments in a row so we could get them all hung up! Adam got to put the star on the top and he was up pretty high on Dad's shoulders to get it on! Hallie found a Santa hat in the box of Christmas fun and walked around with it on (tilted sideways) saying "Ho Ho Ho, Merrrrrrry Christmas". She and Adam then took turns sitting on each others laps and telling "Santa" what they wanted for Christmas. It was hilarious and so cute!

We also picked out stockings and put them up over the fireplace. This year Adam chose Cars, Hallie picked Tinkerbell and Matt and I had our same Snowman stockings from last year. Can't wait to see what fun surprises Santa leaves for us in our stockings!