My Cookie Exchange!!!

This year I hosted my first cookie exchange with the girls in my ward, and it was so much fun!! I remembered doing this activity a long time ago with my fave "Beehive" leader, Kristy O. and I just loved it. So I've wanted to host one ever since.

I made some snacks to eat along with the cookies-cinnamon rolls, cheeseball/crackers, truffles, hot cocoa and hot butterscotch.

I requested that my guests wear an ugly Christmas sweater/silly festive clothes, and there was a prize for best outfit and for best cookie-we voted anonymously!

THE GOODS:

These are all the cookies that we still had left after everyone had sampled and taken home a plate of them all, and we donated them to a women's and children's shelter.

THE GUESTS:

Courtney on the right (below) won best cookie with her snowflake sugar cookies!
They were so professional looking, and yummy too!

Below, Abby and Amanda posing in their awesome costumes! Abby won first place, and Amanda was close behind in second place! Great outfits; thanks for getting so into it!!

Random, recent pictures of the cupcake!

Gretel's favorite words right now are "Mom," "Baby," and "Doggy." She is constantly jabbering and making lots of cute noises. She also likes to hold phones (and sometimes other things too) to her ear and say "Hi!" I just love hearing her high-pitched, sweet little voice!

I've "Fallen" for my Fall Garland!!

I don't want to seem like I'm tooting my own horn, but I'm just really excited about this idea I had to make a fall garland. My friend Shauna had a fall party at her house recently, and she asked if I'd help her with decorations. I started collecting a few leaves because I thought I'd put them in glass jars or something. There were so many pretty ones, that as I kept walking through my neighborhood, I collected tons of them, and just threw them in the bottom of the stroller.
I thought of paper chains, and then realized I could make a garland out of these leaves just by gluing them together.
I was just hoping that it would turn out as good as I had pictured it in my mind. And it did!!

Me, Shauna and Abby posing for pics post-party....

I took the garland over to Shauna's house the night before the party, and it looked perfect right in her front room; I collected more leaves in her backyard to make two more swoops, and I thought it looked awesome in her house because of her red walls. It looked gorgeous in person!
She took some funny pictures of me in her backyard that I'll have to post- 11pm, pitch black and me holding a Coleman lantern while hunting for more leaves. We were laughing pretty hard!

I'm so excited and proud of my finished product!! I'm definitely making another one of these next year. It looks very festive, and the best part is that it's free! Fall is my favorite season!

We had a great Thanksgiving-we had dinner with Abby and Todd's family, and everything was so delicious! We couldn't stop talking about how fabulous the food was. Unfortunately, we were so thrilled about the food that we totally forgot to take pictures of us with our spread! How lame...

Todd smoked a turkey with his smoker, and they made his famous rolls, mashed potatoes/gravy, corn, salad, and a cheeseball.
I made a cheeseball, pecan yams, 2 kinds of stuffing, (I wanted my mom's classic plus I wanted to try a new recipe which was also a hit) pumpkin squares, butter thumbprint cookies, and Johnny made a really good chocolate pudding pie which was also a new recipe I wanted to try just for fun. I LOVE Thanksgiving food sooo much! We got to enjoy the leftovers the next day with Shauna and Johnny's fam after some crazy Black Friday shopping. My friends and I got up at 2:30 to be at the stores to stand in line by 3:00 am. Yes, very crazy. So that was our fun weekend!

"CRAPPY" Nappy!!

Two days ago, Johnny was watching Gretel while I had an appointment at the salon. I had gotten a message from him while I was gone saying that he had just cleaned up the "biggest poop disaster ever!" I called him back to find out what had happened, and he just said I'd never believe it-I just had to see it for myself.

This was the dirty discovery waiting to greet me when I arrived at the scene..

Gretel had been in her crib, and instead of napping she'd taken off her messy diaper and spread it everywhere! He said she was covered head to toe (poor, poor baby!) and he hurried and ran her to the tub to give her a bath!

We spent a lot of time that day washing all her bedding/bumpers, washing her crib, and scrubbing the tub and all the bath toys....thanks, Johnny for all your help! I had to hand wash her doll and a stuffed animal in the sink, too.

My little "Houdini" continues to amaze me with her tricks. She has been taking off her pants for quite a while now, but yesterday she had taken one arm out of her sleeve.

I don't know how she does it. She is not a napper, and there are a lot of days that she just sleeps for 30 min. total and she remains happy and sweet throughout the day. All she wants to do all day is play and she gets very mad when I put her in her crib. She just sits and looks at books (which is her favorite thing in the whole world) and talks to herself in her crib for over an hour every time she's supposed to be napping. And I know she is tired! I spy on her, and she just rubs her eyes and yawns while standing up and doing a jig as she holds on to the crib railing. Or she smiles and laughs at herself in the mirror. I know I shouldn't complain, because at least she's a really happy baby.
The main problem is that she is the poopiest baby in the world. A lot of days, I'll change 2 messy diapers before her morning nap, and she'll still "visit the powder room" while she's trying to fall asleep, because her crib is her favorite place to go. So it makes it very hard for me to tell if she's having a hard time sleeping because she needs a fresh diaper, or if she is just having too much fun to sleep.
Right now as I'm typing, she is supposed to be napping. But I keep hearing her high-pitched excited yelps as she continues to play....I guess she is a (happy) "Crappy" Napper in more ways than one!

Our Happy HalloWEENIE!!!

This year Gretel was a leopard for Halloween. She looked soo cute; painting whiskers was extremely hard though! She was so wiggly and mad that we were messing with her face! I made her ears and tail, and I was really excited about how they turned out!! I had her get used to wearing them by having her eat and hang out in them, and she kept them on really well when it was time to dress her up!!! I think she really liked her costume, because she would smile bigger and act more excited than normal when she saw herself in the mirror!



Just for fun, I wanted to put a pic on here of last Halloween when she was just 2 weeks old. And I just realized that it's 2 years in a row now that she has worn a tutu for her costume!!





Thanks, Shauna for searching out the "Butt Pumpkin's" long lost twin for me!!



At Avery's 1st birthday party!!! It was so fun that the kids got to wear their costumes and pose

for a group pic!

We went to our ward's trunk-or-treating party looking like a hideous couple, wearing our embarrassing "Snuggies" that Johnny picked up that morning!

Johnny thought it would be funny to wear signs that said, "THE COUPLE THAT SNUGGIES TOGETHER STAYS TOGETHER!"

I hate to admit this, but I have the Snuggie (with Gwen sleeping) on my lap right now. I'm especially embarrassed to say that the other night I started out with it on my lap like a blanket, then ended up sneaking my arms in as I got chilly...I just never thought I'd be a Snuggie owner!!

Halloween Day with my two skeletons...

Also, Gretel started taking tons of steps on Halloween!!

Johnny dressed up as a greasy bowler I did my same tacky outfit.

Our group had a little pizza party before trick-or-treating around our neighborhood!

She was loving her little Crunch bar, and we loved her chocolate-y fingers and face!