Jeff's Birthday

 Jeff's birthday was on Sunday and my little party girls were so excited to throw him a party!

When we were talking about his birthday Aubrey said, "When we were picking out your fairy party, I saw Pirate party things. Let's have a pirate party for Daddy." So off we went to the store to get some pirate things.

Saturday afternoon Aubrey spent hours drawing Pirate pictures to put up for decoration.

These ones (I think) are a Pirate with an eye patch, a forest, and some coins.

While Aubrey hung her pirate pictures, Brooke was on streamer duty. She had a ball covering the counter with streamers!

 Then the both HAD to hang up balloons!

I got into the spirit and quickly made a Pirate cake. Not my finest work, but not bad for eyeballing the skeleton pirate on the plates and sketching it with Wilton tube frosting!

I made some more of the Pumpkin muffins that we all loved for Jeff's birthday breakfast. We had to have them on pirate plates too! (We also had to have a lunch on pirate plates as well!)

Then that evening we had Jeff's favorite dinner, curry chicken, rice and peas. Complete with pirate plates, napkins and cups that the girls picked out.

 After we ate we played games. First we played pin the eye patch on the pirate. Here the girls are spinning Daddy.

Brookie getting a spin.

Now Aubrey's turn.

My turn last.

Since it came with 16 sticker eye patches the girls had fun taking turns and doing them all!

Then we played Bingo.

Present time. Jeff didn't actually get to open his presents, the girls were kind enough to do that for him!

Jeff reading his letter that Aubrey wrote with her own hand.

Here's her cute little letter.

Then it was cake time.

And don't forget ice cream. Aubrey picked out ice cream bars and Daddy was thrilled about that.

I love how my girls make everything so much fun! I hope you had a happy birthday Jeff! We love you!

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas

 After our visit with Santa on Friday, we returned home to decorate the house. The girls were just as excited to decorate as they were to see Santa. Aubrey had been asking me for weeks when we could decorate for Christmas.

She was such an awesome helper. I really don't like to decorate - I like the end result but not the process. But, Aubrey kept me going all day with her help and enthusiasm!

They both decorated the trees with very little help from me. They are not perfect, but definitely good enough!

Aubrey had a system, red ornament then gold ornament . . .

Brooke insisted that she do it all by herself. So, she only put a few on. Our hooks are kinda tricky. But, she was happy taking her sweet time on each one!

Here she is working so hard to get that hook on the tree!

Then we moved to the family room for tree #2. They were just as excited to keep on tree decorating. There's no stopping them!

When they were done I looked at the tree and had a good giggle. There was a lack of ornaments on the top half of the tree! Too funny. Later Aubrey got a stool and evened it out a bit.

 

Next was the Nativity's. Brooke especially loved setting up the nativity's. Good thing I have a TON of them to set up! The girls had to take turns on who got to put baby Jesus in the scene. Too sweet!

 Aubrey hung in there and helped me put ALL of the decorations up. She was sad when we were done because she wanted to decorate more. What a little cutie! I honestly couldn't have done it without her. I was ready to be done after the trees! Good thing my girls enthusiasm kept me going because our house is so festive now!

On Sunday the girls were dressed festive so I took pictures in front of their tree.

 She's my little sweetie pants!

I have to point out the ladybug clip I crocheted for my girls. They both love ladybugs and they each have a ladybug outfit so I wanted to crochet them a clip. I found a toy ladybug pattern and altered it enough to turn it into a clip. They both LOVE their ladybug clip!

 My spunky little Aubrey!

 She sure is full of sass these days. Thankfully she's also really helpful or I don't know if we'd survive her sassiness!

After lunch the girls helped Daddy set up the train. They sure were excited about the train!

I'm glad I had a fun day with my girls decorating! I hope they are just as enthusiastic about helping me take it all down after New Years!

Week 25

I didn't loose any weight this week, but I didn't gain any either. So considering this was Thanksgiving week & Jeff's birthday and I was in the kitchen most of the day for the past 5 days, I consider that to be a success! I am pretty sure I have gained several pounds every Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas for the last several years. So, I am happy that that tradition did not continue. I kept it completely CLEAN all week! (I probably just ate more then normal and thus no weight loss.) I am hopeful I will have a good weight loss week this week!

Santa Clause is Coming To Town

 On the day after Thanksgiving a local mall has Santa Claus flying in on a helicopter. It is a tradition for us to go and it's so fun.  It's such an exciting way to kick off the Christmas celebrating!

My girls talked about it for days. Aubrey is so into traditions this year and has been remembering and talking about all of our Christmas Traditions. It makes it so much fun! Here are my cuties so excited to see Santa fly in soon!

This year was the first year that Daddy came with us, and he loved it too.

While we were waiting the Build a Bear came around. The girls thought he was fun too!

Here we all are.

Brookie playing with Daddy.

Finally we get the first glimpse of the helicopter - so exciting!

Santa got out on the other side, so I didn't get a pic of him coming out of the door like usual. I'll remember that for next year!

 

 This was one excited girl that Santa was on his way to her!

She was pretty excited too!

This year they even had elves and Mrs. Clause greeting the kids!

 Aubrey saying "Hello" to Mrs. Clause

Brookie saying "Hi" too!

Hurray Santa made it to Brookie!

He gave hugs to Aubrey!

What fun! I can't wait to fit in all of our traditions!