Happy Thanksgiving!

We are celebrating home this year with beautiful weather. Happy Thanksgiving to you all!

Happy 4th of July!

My little firecrackers!!

I hope you all had a wonderful Independence Day! We spent the day relaxing and staying cool and spent the evening enjoying good food and great friends. Quinn let me curl her hair for the BBQ, and even though the curls fell flat in no time, I was so proud of her for being such a big girl!

Christmas Day 2011

On Christmas we packed the kids up bright and early to head to Westside! My mom was hosting Christmas lunch, so we wanted to make it there by 11:00. My sister's family was there, too, which is always a lot of fun. Mom made lots of our favorites (including my favorite: chicken and rice). After lunch, we opened presents. Quinn did a great job opening hers and Wes slept the whole time. He didn't take very good naps over the holidays, but he had lots of people who love him very much there to console him and snuggle him. We stayed overnight and left after lunch the next day. Quinn had a blast playing with her cousins!

Reading about choo-choos

Here, I brought you this!

Snuggling her new Fancy Nancy doll. She is a new favorite!

Christmas Eve 2011

We really enjoyed our first Christmas Eve as a family of four. The flu had hit the Kaspy house hard a few days earlier, so Randy and I weren't feeling the best, but it was a great day and evening anyway. After Quinn's nap, we headed to 5:00 mass. We have never gone to St. Boniface before on Christmas Eve, but I'd heard rumors of how busy all three services are. It really was crazy; we got there at 4:30 (plenty early with two wee ones...) and the place really filled up fast. Wes slept the whole time. He has never done that, not even when he was just a few weeks old! That was a blessing to me. Quinn wasn't perfectly behaved, but she did ok. I had made chicken in the slow cooker earlier that day, so we came home to a warm, delicious-smelling house. Afterwards, the kids opened presents, we all checked out what was tucked in our stockings, and then we put Quinn to bed. I love that Quinn is old enough to get excited about new toys. Wes was a sweetie, just hanging out and taking in the scene. :-)

Ready for our church! Quinn is NOT a fan of getting pictures taken lately, so this is the best I could get!

Quinn "helping" Brother sit up.

Alphabet board

"Dolly!"

Checking out her stocking!

Momma is excited about her new FitBit!

Quinn also got a set of ABC board books that I'd won in a giveaway earlier this year. I got new boots and a necklace, but I've been wearing those for a while. Randy got a new jacket and a saw but has been putting those to good use as well. We had so much fun just hanging out in our jammies!

Decorating cookies!

On Friday morning Quinn and I decorated and baked some cookies. I am not much of a baker, but I had great success with this recipe:

1 box cake mix (we used lemon)
1/2 cup oil
2 eggs

Drop by teaspoonfuls on a cookie sheet. Use a drinking glass dusted with powdered sugar to flatten into even circles.

Bake for 10 minutes at 350 degrees. Let cool before frosting. Makes 3 dozen.

These were so yummy! We used cream cheese frosting and sprinkles to add the finishing touches! I think next time I will try using applesauce in place of the oil to make them healthier for Quinn.

Frosting one cookie, eating another...

Yummy!

My sweet girl. :-)

We had such a fun morning decorating cookies! I am excited for a new tradition with Quinn.

My sweet babies...

 

The first of many coordinating holiday outfits these two buddies will wear over the years! Love them! :-)

The stockings are hung...

We went over our good friends Jenni and Eric's home the other night. Jenni is a fabulous decorator, especially for different seasons. She inspired me to put up my Christmas stuff yesterday! My house is not nearly as festive as hers, but I did my best between the two kiddos' naps.

When the stockings were finally hung on our mantel, I couldn't help but smile at the fact that there are four gold quilted stockings up there. At Christmastime last year, we were enjoying life with a vivacious 9-month old. Quinn was cruising along furniture, crawling everywhere, and eating everything in sight. We didn't do official Christmas presents, because Quinn wasn't into opening presents at that time. Quinn wore tons of beautiful velvet and tulle dresses and skirts and sported festive headbands on her still-bald head.

Never did I imagine that we'd be so blessed to have a new baby in 2011; what a wonderful, sweet surprise!

Christmas is going to look very different this year. I have presents for Quinn to unwrap, and I'm going to stuff the four stockings on our mantel. Wes might even get a treat or two in his. :-) I keep reading friends' blogs about all of these fabulous traditions that they have....but I'm not the kind of person who tromps through a field to pick out a real Christmas tree, I'm not really a fan of Christmas music, and with two kids under two, sipping eggnog, watching Jimmy Stewart, and gazing at our tree is just not going to happen.

However, this Christmas season I'll still make little treats for my family. Quinn will look gorgeous in all of her holiday finest, and Wes will be her handsome sidekick. Randy and I will steal sips of each other's wine between bouncing a baby, wiping spills off the counter, and reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar for the 100th time. Perfect? No. Real-life? Absolutely. :-)

Somewhere, amidst all of the food and noise and family and friends, we'll find traditions of our own.