Christmas Crafts & Cookies

Decorate Christmas Tree for Hadleigh's room

Christmas crafts

Decorate Christmas Cookies

Short Pump Tree Lighting

Fire Truck Santa in Neighborhood

Tacky Light Tour

Go See Santa

We are finished with my small "to-do" list! it was fun, but I'm a little sad at the same time :(

I bought a gingerbread house kit to make with Hadleigh.  I envisioned it going a lot smoother than it did!  Hadleigh was just interested in eating the icing and candy the entire time, Daniel wanted the house to be perfect and we were rushed to get it done instead of taking our time.  Needless to say, it all fell apart about 5 minutes after we put it together and I took pictures. Ha!  Hayden had fun watching over us three working on it.  She was probably thinking about how crazy we were!

Hadleigh also did some painting!  I got the idea from pinterest :)  I bought some canvas and then taped the words "hope" & "love" to them.  Then I let Hadleigh go to town with finger paint.  She had so much fun and was pretty upset when we were done.  Hayden was an on-looker once again - I can't wait for her to get more involved in all the fun activities!

We also baked lots of cookies!  I only have a few pictures, but believe me - we made a ridiculous amount of cookies!

Pictures with Santa

Decorate Christmas Tree for Hadleigh's room

Christmas crafts

Decorate Christmas Cookies

Short Pump Tree Lighting

Fire Truck Santa in Neighborhood

Tacky Light Tour

Go See Santa

This year we went to Bass Pro Shop to see Santa - they are actually the place that is the least expensive.  And the Santa is really nice!  Bass Pro is a pretty awesome store anyways, but they had lots for the kids to look at and do.  We met the boys up there as well, so the kids had fun looking at the fish in the aquarium, looking at the deer & moose, and then looking at the Christmas decorations near Santa.
As soon as we got in line to see Santa, Hadleigh immediately started saying "No" We figured it wasn't going to go too well, but thought maybe if she saw Erik & Jaxson sit on his lap she would do fine.
Erik & Jaxson did really well - neither cried - and Erik told Santa he wanted a be-be gun and a firetruck with a trailer on the back.  He wasn't too happy when Santa told him he would have to talk to his parents about the be-be gun.
Then Hadleigh and Hayden sat on Santa's lap.  Hayden just looked around while Hadleigh of course whined/cried.  She actually didn't scream bloody murder like we thought she was going to do.  We were lucky to get a decent picture, so there was no talking to Santa this year :)

Looking at the fish 

Gran & Hadleigh 

The boys really liked the fish! 

Hayden taking it all in 

Pretty girl 

Love my girls! 

In line to see Santa! 

Erik & Jaxson 

Hadleigh & Hayden 

Poor Hadleigh was not happy

Erik's 4th Birthday!

I say this every year about all the kids, but I cannot believe Erik  is 4 already.  He's not a little baby anymore!  This year he wanted to have his party at Chuck-E-Cheese.  It was our first time going as a family and boy is it loud in there!  Hadleigh liked it OK - she wasn't too fond of all the strangers and Chuck-E-Cheese himself.  Hayden did well, except when she was tired she didn't like how noisy it was.The boys really seemed to enjoy themselves with everything. Everyone played games, ate pizza & cake, and then watched Erik open his birthday presents.  Afterwards, Daniel let Hadleigh go get a prize with her tickets, so she got a jumbo pen.

Love that little man!

Pretty Lights

Decorate Christmas Tree for Hadleigh's room

Christmas crafts

Decorate Christmas Cookies

Short Pump Tree Lighting

Fire Truck Santa in Neighborhood

Tacky Light Tour

Go See Santa

We didn't do the entire Richmond Tacky Light Tour - we just stayed around Mechanicsville.  Both girls were asleep by the last house and actually Hayden was asleep through most of it.  Hadleigh really loved seeing all of the lights! She kept saying "Oh wow!" "Pretty Lights!" and "Look at all the stuff!"
Daniel's parents came with us and brought Grandma & Pop's van so we could all ride together.  Hadleigh loved "Hop's van" :)

The girls all ready to go!! 

First house on our stop

Daddy & Hadleigh (Hayden was asleep) 

Watching the lights from inside the van

Spelled wrong, but so crazy it says this!!

Last house on our stop - this one was BRIGHT!

Hadleigh & mama 

Hadleigh & Baba

We can't wait to do this again next year and make it tradition with the girls <3  I'm sure Hayden will love it just as much as her big sister!

Updated Playground Area

You may remember the original post on our swing set here

Then, we only had the swing set - and my how things change in a few short months!

Daniel has since blocked off a small squared area in the back with railroad ties.  For a while we just had all of the fun stuff just sitting in the area - swing set, trampoline, water/sand table, and play house.  Daniel then killed all of the grass and laid black weed blocker to get ready for the rocks, or playground mulch, or rubber mulch.

Rubber mulch was way too expensive, and we didn't decide on the rocks since Hadleigh still puts things in her mouth.  We went with playground certified mulch - and we are really happy with how it turned out.

All the kudos goes to Daniel on this one!

Here are the pictures as Daniel was spreading the mulch - progress pictures:

And here is how it turned out::

Family Pictures 2012

Thank you to Nikki Santerre Photography!

Her work is amazing and she's pretty fabulous herself!

My sister Kelli, her hubby Chey, and my nephews Erik & Jaxson 

love Hayden's pouty lip 

smiley girl 

my family of four 

hubs and I 

the whole gang 

love 

Gramps & Hadleigh 

Hadleigh loves her cousin 

funny 

Gran & Gramps with the kids