Our Christmas Decorations and Goodies I made this Christmas Season!

I wanted to document our Christmas decorations and some goodies I made this Christmas season.

I am first going to start with our decorations.

Starting with the kitchen.

The picture that is framed on the table, is the picture of Ayla with Santa from the Festival of Trees this year.

I love to use old Christmas card to decorate.

Our kitchen has these frames and so I used the old cards in each of them.

I loved my Christmas plates hanging on the wall.

I won those plates, the JOY tiles and a little silver Christmas tree from my friend, Ann's blog 2 Christmas's ago.

This is what our cupboards looked like.

And this is what our fridge looked like. It still looks like this! I love all the Christmas picture cards we got this year!

Now I will move onto our living room.

This was our railing.

I did the card wreath on our front door this year.

This was our front window.

The cards in this picture our the ones we got this year! I love getting Christmas cards in the mail! It is like getting a little present every day!

My favorite decorations were the ones on the mantel and the tree itself! On the left end of the mantel is the little silver tree I won from Ann's blog.

I took this picture on Christmas Eve when we had my side of the family Christmas party. Everyone brought their presents and added them to ours under the tree. I loved seeing all the gifts poring out of the tree, so much love.

And this is what it looked like at night with the lights on. I loved it!
This was taken Christmas night after all the parties were over.

I am so in love with my fireplace and mantel. It is so fun to decorate. When I took Christmas all down our house looked like we were moving again. I need to start hanging pictures and decorating our home. I did put some Valentines decorations out though and I love them! I will blog those later.

Well that is the end of our decorations.

Now I want to share the goodies I made this Christmas season.

First thing I made were some cupcakes for my sister, Marion's coworker's fund raiser.

I topped the cupcakes with these yummy Andes peppermints.

I made chocolate cupcakes. I found these adorable boxes at Walmart, to put them in.

I did 24 cupcakes which filled 4 boxes. I was very proud how they turned out!

I ended up making more cupcakes for my Christmas Eve party. I also made some more sugar cookies. Notice the green frosting on the cookies? I was able to dye the frosting this time.

And last but not least...

I made these yummy Oreo Pops! I got the recipe from my friend, Amanda.

You have to try these! They are easy and taste like Oreo cake.

Here is how you make them...

You will need...

1-bag of regular Oreos (not the double stuff)

1-8 oz. block of cream cheese

Candy melts or white chocolate to melt.

24 sticks

Let the cream cheese become soft.

Take the Oreos (you use the whole cookie) and and blend them in the blender.

Mix the cream cheese and the blended Oreos together with your hands. Then roll the mix into little balls. Put the sticks in them and then chill them for 3 hours or more.

Melt the candy melts or the white chocolate and then take the chilled Oreo pops and dip them into the candy melts or white chocolate. Stick them back into the fridge to harden.

They are super yummy!

Zoolights 2011!

One of our Christmas traditions is to have nieces and nephews over to have sugar cookies and hot chocolate and then go to look at lights. Last year we went to the Zoolights. We really like it so that is our new place to go and see lights.

The Saturday before we went to the Zoolights, Ayla and I got some new boots for Christmas!

Her are Ayla's!
I hope you can see them because they are so darling! The night we went to the Zoolights is the night Ayla got to try out her boots for the first time.

The Morning of the Zoolights, I baked 62 sugar cookies. It is a family recipe. I grew up on these cookies. It is a pretty simple recipe.

1 Cup of Shortneing

1 Cup of Sugar

3 eggs

3 1/2 Cups of Flour

2 TSP. Baking Powder

1 1/2 TSP. Vanilla

Cream shortening and sugar, add the eggs and vanilla. Blend in shifted dry ingredient. Chill dough for 3 hours or overnight. Roll out on counter with flour and cut into shapes. Bake at 400', 8 to 10 minutes. Makes 24 or more cookies.

This time we had pizza before the cookies!

Lane came!

Brooke came!

Suzanne came too, she is standing behind Ayla in this picture but you can't see her.

Now you can see her!

See the cookie in front of Ayla? Ya, the frosting is still white. I had a very busy day that day and I didn't have time to dye the frosting. I always dye it green because that was always the color my mom dyed the frosting that she made for our cookies growing up. We may not of had green cookies that night but I dyed the rest of the frosting, so the rest of the cookies were green.

And of course, Ayla only ate the frosting!

Here is Lane with his hot chocolate!

Ayla had Chocolate milk instead of hot chocolate. Ayla doesn't like hot chocolate. Ayla doesn't like a lot of things.

Here is the Christmas shirt I bought Ayla. It says, "Mommy's lil' Present."

After all the fun at our house, we went to the Zoolights!

This was when we first got there.
They had some ice sculptures when you first walked in.

We went into the gift shop and Ayla sat down and started to pet the mechanical weasel. I ended up buying her one because every time we go to the zoo in the gift shop, she runs right to the weasels. She actually gave this one a kiss when she had to put it back. It was too cute but a little gross!

Suzanne bought Lane this alligator because Ayla and Brooke both got something from the gift shop and Suz didn't want Lane to feel left out. I thought that was sweet of her!

We then went to see some of Santa's reindeer. Comet and Vixen were the 2 deer that were there.

Then we went all over the zoo.

The cool thing about the Zoolights is you get to go inside a lot and look at animals.

In the monkey exhibit they had a craft for the kids to do. It was a scratch paper ornament. This was Lane's, he did an elephant.

Ayla insisted on sitting on the metal elephant. She does it every time we go to the zoo.

Here is one of Ayla and me.

Lane was so funny with that alligator that night. Here he is posing it for the picture! LOL! He cracks me up!

Ayla and me in front of the gingerbread house.

One of Suzanne and Brooke!

Suzanne was so nice to carry every thing that night. I couldn't have done it without her.

We then rode the carousel. Ayla decided to sit on the bench next to Lane halfway through the ride. I guess the bar you hold onto was too cold for her hands.

Here is Lane air guitaring it to the music! I love him!

Here we are at the tiger's cage. I am not quite sure if you can even see the tigers in the picture. You can see Lane blowing up his alligator though! LOL!

And last but not least, Ayla really wanted a picture with the dragon. She loves dragons because of "How to Train Your Dragon."

We had such a great time at the Zoolights!

I think I only have 2 more Christmas posts and then I will be caught up with the Christmas stuff. Then I can move onto what we did during the summer. By the end of this month I should be caught up on my blog!!

Took Ayla and Lane to the mall to see Santa!

I have a lot of posts to catch up on. My goal is to get most of them done in January because I know that a lot is going to be going on in February. One thing, the baby will probably be born at the end of the month. I don't know if I said anything but we are having another girl!

Anyway, on the second Thursday in December my sister, Marion and I took Ayla and Lane to the Valley Fair Mall to see Santa.

We started the night off at Red Robin. I love Red Robin!

Then we went in the mall and went to see Santa right off. We had a lot of fun trying to get a picture. We were laughing so hard because it is so hard to get a picture of Lane looking at the camera. The kid just has so much energy and Ayla looked like she was not in the mood. Even the photographers were laughing. It was a good time! We got 2 pictures, one we were all cracking up at. I only bought the one but the photographer insisted on giving me the second one that made us all laugh.

This was the best one we got. Lane looks so good in it! Ayla looks so bored!

And this is the one we were all cracking up at. Lane looks like he is being a Super Hero, Ayla looks so annoyed and Santa's face is priceless! It kind of reminds me of an awkward family photo!

After, Santa we all rode the train.

The kids got the awesome glasses from Santa!

The kids were in a goofy mood! It was so much fun! Lots of laughs!

Ayla and Lane on the train!

Here's one of me with Ayla!

Marion rode in a car all by herself. :(

Here we are outside and it was safe for the kids to stick their heads out, so Marion took a picture.

After the train, we had to get a picture of the kids in front of the big tree. Just like last year.

After the tree, we went to the yogurt place that is right in front of the tree. I don't remember the name of the place. I wish I did. I would recommend it. I really liked that place because you filled up your cup as much as you liked. You only had to pay for what you took because they charge you on how much your weighs. It was totally cheap because Ayla and I shared and we didn't eat that much.

Marion and Ayla!

And last but not least, one of Lane!

We had such a great time that night! I love all the traditions we have during the month of December to celebrate Christmas!