Holiday Memories

We had such a fun week! We kicked it off by getting Eva's 6 month pictures taken with my sister in law. Once again, Ashley you ROCK! Eva has just started sitting up by herself, so it was perfect timing for her pictures. She is the happiest baby, I honestly don't know how we got so lucky with this one. She hardly ever cries! She has definitely made up for lost time with eating, and she has packed on the pounds, I LOOOVVVEEE her rolls, I could just munch on them all day....okay, I do...especially those cheeks! I couldn't pick a favorite, so these are my top 5 fav's my sister in law took!

Honestly!!!!!!! Don't ya just want to squeeze those things?

Ashley totally captured Eva's personality in the picture above. All you have to do is say her name and she will look at you and pull this big cheesy smile...it kills me!!!

Growing up, my parent's spent so much time decorating our home for the holidays. I remember so many specific things my parents did to spruce up our house. My dad's Christmas village lit up in the window at night, my mom's bells that played Christmas songs dangling from the railing. I can remember specific smells from the candles my mom lit, and just the overall feeling I had during the Christmas season. Christmas was something I looked forward to. One of my favorite things (still to this day), is to turn the house lights off at night and just hypnotize myself by staring at the Christmas lights on our tree. I honestly could just stare at the tree for hours at a time, listening to soft Christmas music while intoxicating myself with the smell of Pine. I want my kids to remember Christmas the way I remember Christmas, I want them to have the same feelings and excitement when the holidays come around as I did. I thought it would be so fun to buy Isabella a mini Christmas tree for her room. This week we put up her little tree up and we decorated it with mini balls and snowflakes. She loves to turn her tree on and play with the tree ornaments. It's so fun to watch her....it's amazing the spirit kids bring into your home during the holidays. I admit we have spent endless hours in front of our TV this week watching The Polar Express, The Santa Clause and Shrek the Halls with the Christmas tree all lit up. And to be honest, the month of December is the one month I don't feel guilty for watching lots of TV, I love all the holiday shows! Isabella has been walking around our house singing "Shrek the halls with boughs of holly, falalalalalalalala." It's hysterical.

A fun holiday tradition we have with Chris's family is dipping chocolates for the holidays. Friday night we got together and dipped pretzels....oh my gosh, I totally ate beyond my fair share of these things, they are delic, especially when there is hot melted chocolate dripping off of them......yeah, it's time to hit the gym again!!!

I had to end with this last picture. While getting Eva's 6 month pictures, we thought we might as well get some pictures of Isa too for our Christmas cards.........this one is soooooo her........