Pre-Christmas Catch-up

It occurred to me as I laid wide awake after feeding Dalton a 3:30am bottle....uh Christmas is in like 5 days and I haven't updated my blog, other than family pictures since Halloweenish. Then I started making a to-do list in my brain of other things I need to do before Christmas this week, and well here I am an hour later blogging because I can't sleep. Maybe that's because Dalton slept without waking up from 9:30-3:30 and my sleep deprived body has no idea what it's like to sleep for more than 2 consecutive hours so now it thinks I should be good to go with 4 hours? Either way, I'm now rambling. This is what I feared would happen if I blogged at this hour.

I'll give you a little wrap up of what our November was like. First off, let me just say that December can be summed up with one word that I have learned to loathe about winter time with kids: SICK. Addie woke up in the night with a sore throat on December 5th...and since then every one of us has been sick in at LEAST one form. She finally is over her cold, and Dalton is too. Unfortunately, the cough from that cold brought Dalton's reflux back with a vengeance and he had a very miserable few days last week. He's back on his meds for that and doing better (and thankfully sleeping more than 30 mins at a time!) Jed and I both had a stomach bug last week and Jed's recovering from Pink Eye right now (seriously, right??) and we've both now got colds. Here's hoping for a healthy Christmas! Onward and upward....and on to this post. Okay, here's November:

Disney on Ice 

My mom and I have decided that this is now a yearly tradition with Addie. This year was even better than last year because there were more princesses, including Rapunzel :) 

Thanksgiving

Addie took this picture of me, so yes it's a bit blurry :)

That's me with my contribution to Thanksgiving which included making 80 orange rolls. I decided that Gramp's famous orange rolls needed to continue on after he passed away, so I obtained the recipe and set forth to master them. We all missed having him at Thanksgiving this year a lot, but at least a little piece of him was there. I also made some pies the night before, because it was Thanksgiving and that's what I do.

 Dawn always sets everything up so pretty and nice for family dinners...even when it's for 30+ people!

Ashley made cute place holders for each person's place setting too. 

My Chocolate Truffle pie (okay, well it's Paula Dean's but I made it)

Ash's Dulce de leche Apple pie, yum!

The best banana pie ever (in my opinion) Banana pie with Vanilla bean custard

Jed's brother deemed it the best pie he's ever had. Good enough for me! 

Dalton is getting too big....more on that another post (ps, he's crawling all over, pulling himself up and climbed a flight of stairs the other night!)

 Getting Christmas set up and being jolly....or whatever

(what's with my blurry pictures??) Addie and her little tree

So, I have to preface this part with what November at my house is like. Jed's company puts up Christmas lights for several homes each year, which means he's generally gone from Halloween until Thanksgiving almost every evening and Saturday. This is always kind of rough for me, but this year he was already extra busy at work, extra busy with Plutonium jobs, oh and I had an extra kid :)

Needless to say, it was just plain extra rough on all of us. He was gone 12-18 hours everyday of the week except Sunday and he was obviously exhausted by the end of it. I'm sure it's much harder for him, since he's the one being worked to death, while I'm in a warm house baking and what not. Still, it's hard on me and the kids. An example of how busy he was: we literally took the family pictures from my previous post in 20 minutes after I picked him up for his lunch from work, then took him back. Yep, it was like that in November! He's still super busy, which I can't complain about since his long work hours mean that I get to stay home and play with my kids for a living. BUT, by the time the weekend after Thanksgiving arrived, I think we had both had enough and probably should have just sat on the couch in jammies all day after church and taken naps. Instead, we decided to set up the tree and put up Christmas stuff. 

This is a cute little picture....I'm glad that it looks like the whole Christmas set up part was full of laughter and  happiness and joy because it so wasn't. I was tired and grumpy, Addie was pushing everyone's buttons and Jed was so tired he could hardly muster the energy to set the tree up. I think next year we should just wait a week :) Oh well, that's life right? You build something up in your head to be all magical and perfect and at the end of it you think I should have just done that myself when everyone was asleep and saved the trouble. Does that sound awful? Sorry. That's just the kind of day it was. 

 In any case, Here's the tree all set up and decorated!

I redid the tree with some cheap, non-breakable colored ornaments since I have a crawler around these days. I decided I wanted to add something fun, so I made some cupcake ornaments. It's fun and cute and kid-friendly so I haven't worried too much when I see the tree shaking from Dalton pulling on strands of lights he can reach :)

Some random...

I watched SkyleeiPad...and yes, Addie took this picture too lol.

Pretty sure this is the source of our initial illness this month....Kangaroo Zoo. We went for a field trip, and Addie LOVED it. 

 As much as Dalton loves pickles 

This boy won't eat rice puffs or yogurt melts to save his own life, but he decided aunt Teri's pickle was delicious. He seriously chewed on that thing, and then a couple more all during lunch. He still doesn't have teeth....maybe this is the teether of the future. Give your kids a pickle slice.

 Friendsgiving

 Jed and I hosted a "friendsgiving" dinner for my baking clubs friends and their spouses. It was so much fun and so delicious! It was also sans kids, which made it very nice. We were able to squeeze 10 place settings at my table that really seats 8.

Becky made this pretty Red Velvet Cheesecake....I can't wait to attempt this for Christmas Eve!

The crew, except for me taking the picture and Jed grilling up skirt steak

Mmmm...food, and talking....and more food and more talking and laughing. My favorite things!!

Since this WAS my foodie friends, we had two desserts :) 

Doesn't that Cheesecake look pretty? I also made a truffle pie

 My not-so-great attempt at taking pictures of my kids in front of our tree

Addie never smiles great for me, what do you do? Somehow 90% of the pictures I took came out totally blurry, so this was the best I got. I think I'm the last mommy blogger on the planet still using a point and shoot camera, or heck half the time my phone!

Not perfect, but it'll do I suppose....

Oh I like him.

 For decent photos it helps to have a really good camera, a person like my aunt taking them and a backdrop haha....and four kids who are pretty dang cute! Even then, this was the best we got! Getting ONE good picture of four kids took about 50, but it'll do! We took it for Grammy Dawn for her birthday. She loves her grandbabies so she loved it regardless of perfection.

Tristan, Dalton, Addie and Emmett

That about wraps up the goings on here. Unfortunately with all the sickness we've had to miss out on a few Christmas plans and play dates, but we hope to make up for it this weekend and enjoy Christmas with lots of family and loved ones. I wish you all a very Merry Christmas!

and now I will attempt to squeeze in a couple more hours of sleep...