Build A Bear

Aunt Holly and Mommy took Asher to Build-a-Bear to make a special friend for Ellie for her 1st Christmas!Picking out a special bear...Adding the stuffing...Chosing a heart...Giving "her" her first bath...Lots of warm hugs...Naming her Peppermint (Asher's build-a-bear from when he was born is named Butterscotch, built by his cousins Brandon and Hannah).

Picking out an outfit and getting her ready...

Stayed tuned for Christmas Day pictures to see her all dressed!

The Making of a Gingerbread House

Aunt Holly helped us make the gingerbread house this year! First we had to make our own icing (I always buy the kits on clearance the year before since we don't eat it anyway)... the icing was rock hard! Since you have to let it set once you put the walls up, it was a two day job!

First assemble the house: We used cans to hold the walls up overnight so they could dry... Asher went and got the little gingerbread man ornament off the tree so he could sleep in the house!

The next morning we put the roof on and started to decorate it! (Yes, the gingerbread man is still inside.. we'll get him out before we toss it in Jan!). All done!! (Pretty good since Asher kept sneaking pieces of the decorations.. LOL!) So cute!

Airplanes

On Saturday, Daddy took Asher to a retirement lunch for someone he worked for a few summers. There were lots of airplanes to see!

Ready for Christmas

Ellie is ready for her first Christmas!

Christmas Pictures

We had our formal family pictures taken today! They turned out pretty well.. (except for the fact that I let Asher pick his jeans out and didn't double check to see that he got them out of his drawer and not off the floor :(... guess that's a lesson learned... needless to say we didn't get any closeups of him except headshots!).

Ellie did a pretty good job for being sleepy!

How sweet are they?!?A great big smile! We didn't buy this pose, but I thought it was blog worthy!

Don't you just love the dress??

Thanksgiving in Olsonville

Instead of shopping on "Black Friday" we took a trip to Olsonville to see our family! Here are just a few of our fun adventures:

Making a grilled cheese with Tessa: Tessa after getting ahold of her mommy's makeup: Playing baseball outside (unfortunately Asher thought he was supposed to swing when I said three, and Tessa was standing at bat level... Sorry Tessa!!)Ellie got lots of snuggles...Meeting Tessa for the first time...Sitting at the new "kids table"Cousin Hannah loves to hold Ellie!

Riding on the tractor with Grandpa.. nice to have family that lives in the country! (Tag was having a blast too... she loves it up there!)

Thanks Grandpa for a fun ride!!

We miss you guys already... see you for Christmas!

Thankful for Mommy

Check out Ellie's Thanksgiving outfit! :)

(this is the best picture I could get before the camera got knocked off the couch. its working now, for the most part).