Catching Up- Christmas in Pictures

Well, mostly pictures.

Only Caroline noticed Santa outside

Putting out the reindeer food.

He's gonna kill me!

Nope, still not liking Santa.

Catching Up-December Fun

Every weekend in December was full!  The first weekend we celebrated the first birthday of our baby girl.  The second weekend, my sister and I had a cookie swap.  Oh the yumminess!

The next week was busy.  It was the last week of school before break, so I was exhausted from that. Our friends, the Friends came in town.  We met up with them one night for a trolley ride through Gatlinburg to see the lights.

All of us

Oh how I miss this girl!

With my honey

Nick and Caroline

On Friday night our little guy tested up for his yellow belt!  He doesn't look it in this picture, but he really was excited!!!

And both kiddos were in the Christmas program at church!

By the end of the week I was spent!  

Catching Up- It's December- Caroline's Birthday

Actually, I am going to divide December up a bit.

We began the month celebrating this precious girl's birthday.  I got up that morning feeling so blessed and thankful, considering what all happened surrounding her birth.  (You can read about that here).

I knew I wanted to do a winter wonderland theme for her birthday, because, well, I figure I should do what I want while she can't tell me what we are doing! I really didn't do that much, though, due to the fact that time really ran out on me!

Her smash cake, I made.

Cupcakes and Smash Cake

The hit of the party.....the hot chocolate bar!  

The hot chocolate bar was definitely a hit.  We had dark and white hot cocoa.  The white cocoa I made by mixing six cups of whole milk, two cups of heavy cream, and a package of white chocolate chips.  I heated on the stove until the chips melted, and it was wonderful!  On the bar I had chocolate dipped candy canes, snowman marshmallows, Andes peppermint chips, chocolate chips, white chocolate chips, and whipped cream!  

The birthday girl!  She hates headbands on her head these days!

She was not really into smashing her cake.  Right after she was born my aunt described her as dainty, that's how I would describe her treatment of the smash cake.  In fact, I don't even think she got a really good bite of it.  She just wasn't interested.

This is probably the best pic of all four of us in a while!