One Time a Year

Well I realize now why I only get all suzy homemakery and cook one time a year. BECAUSE ONE TIME A YEAR IS ENOUGH!!! It's great to add the personal touch, but again only one time a year! I've spent the last two nights (after work) coming home to cook. Last night it was 2 huge batches of sausage balls and 2 batches of tuxedo balls... if you've never had them they are AWESOME!! (all credit goes to Heather for those!) Then tonight I made 2 batches of my candy cane sugar cookies. One batch is actually 2 batches... one white batch and one red batch so that's actually 4 batches!! Anyway I like to make Brian's employee's something for Christmas so it has a personal touch, plus we have our annual luncheon at work tomorrow where I always bring the cookies. And these days as Mackenzie is actually into everything and has teachers that have to keep up with her I realize they need CHristmas gifts too! And I've also realized why my Mom did it! Ha! Thanks Mom!!

Is that alot of cookies or what?? I even had half as much on another counter! I need to recoup until next year...

By the way, I just love these little chinese take out boxes! I used boxes like this for Mackie's b-day favors and now I'm using them again for Christmas! They are so cute, and they matched the boxes I found for the cookies back in October!

Side note... Brian laughed at my word... suzy homemakery, but its my blog and I can use the words I want to!! When he gets his own he can use the words he wants! Ha!

Springer

Mackenzie has a new obsession... one of those little bitty metal slinkies. Who knows why but for some reason she calls it her "springer". I assume its because it looks like a spring and in 2 yr old logic it should then be called "springer". Who can fault a 2 yr old for their logic? If only things were that easy!! :) She is OBSESSED with it and wants it ALL the time. And go figure its little and she likes to carry it everywhere so we never know where exactly to look for it. One morning before leaving for work I came in the living room to find her playing with it, she looked at me and just said "Mom it's not boinging!!" I was surprised as usual and had no idea where she had learned the word boing or what it meant. She never ceases to trip me out with the new words she comes up with every day. I also want to thank my wonderful husband for buying a backup and also discovering they have them at the W-M checkout and not just the Target dollar bins!!

Could she have anything else on??

Yeah I couldn't resist taking this pic... could she have put anything else on??? Jewelry might be the only thing she's missing.

1. Pajamas
2. Coat
3. Scarf
4. Sunglasses
5. Green headband (that didn't match)
6. Headphones
7. I think she even had a cell phone stuck beside her leg.

Family Movie Night

The weekend before Thanksgiving I took my GMAT to get into grad school. But I decided it was more important to have a family movie night the night before my test... I was tired of studying and I was in need of some serious family QT. We rented Kung Fu Panda and Brian even got a tub of movie popcorn at W-M. We had a great time hanging out as a family, and Mackenzie really liked the movie.

Can you tell she was watching the movie and not interested in taking a pic?

Yeah she was loving the popcorn!

Such a sweet girl to share... :)

Christmastime is HERE!!!

I don't know about you, but I LOVE Christmastime! It such an amazing time of year with all the family and Christmas decorations, but most importantly it celebrates when our Savior was born. I get so frustrated because we all get so wrapped up in what Christmas has been turned into... finding gifts for this person, what am I going to get that person, holiday parties, and what am I getting?? The real reason we celebrate Christmas is because Christ came to earth to DIE for us! I still can't comprehend it some days, and am SOOOO grateful for His sacrifice!!!

After taking my GMAT I decided I needed something relaxing to do so I decided to put up my Christmas tree. What was I thinking?? Did I forget how many lights I put on the tree? Both Brian and Mackenzie were in bed when I finished with the lights, and I was about to wrap up and I remembered I told Mackenzie she could help me with the ornaments. If you have or ever have had a 2 yr old, you know that promising a 2 yr old something and then hoping they will forget doesn't work... So I knew it was best to wait until picking her up from Wanda's to put on the ornaments.

She had a good time putting the ornaments on the tree! Until she got bored! Did I mention she's 2 1/2 and has a age appropriate attention span? :) I love it when she looks at me and says "Mom the Christmas tree is beautiful!" (She says beautiful so cool!)

Can you tell what her favorite ornament was?

Can you tell how excited she was about the Razorback ornament??? Yes we're raising our kiddo right!!! Woo Pig Sooie!!

This was the ornament Charlie and I always fought over putting on the Christmas tree growing up. I'm still not sure why but I love the fact the ornament ended up at my house!! Guess that's the benefit of being the older sibling who had a family first. :)

First Movie

We took Mackenzie to see her first movie a few weeks ago... she loved Madagascar so much that we thought Madagascar 2 would be a great first movie for her. She did really great during the movie and only got really restless one time during the movie. We told her all week we were going to take her to the movie, and that we'd have lots of popcorn and M&M's. She was in heaven! We had a great time together as a family, and poor Brian met us right as he was getting off work, so he slept thru part of the movie.

Stackin'

Mackenzie's newest obsession is with stacking the cups and cans in the kitchen. My kitchen could be perfectly clean... (Hey I said could be, not that it is, anything is possible!) and all the sudden out comes every cup in our cabinet and every can in the other cabinet and away goes my clean (or pretend) clean kitchen. This day she had skittles she was pouring back and forth between the cups. Even more of a mess, but she was having such a blast!! Some days she helps pick up the mess and then other days its just not worth the 10 extra minutes it would take to have the "help".

P.S. Mackenzie just saw this pic and said, "It's my tower! I build it!" and immediately went back to watching Mickey before bedtime.

One of many times the "tower" fell over.

This time was funny because I caught it in the midst of fall... her face was priceless!

This is Mackenzie's silly new "say cheese" face... I laugh every time but then thing what a silly picture! (Again she looked over while I was uploading the pics and said, "I'm saying cheese!")