maybe next year

Santa showed up at our ward Christmas party tonight... She was crying even before she sat down.


Is this "torturing" your child or "creating memories"?

addendum

Natalie is a fantastic wife, but sometimes she misses the best pictures to blog about. But you see, marriage is all about balancing each other out. Here are some items she missed!

My Mom's face when she saw the rooster cake (priceless):

The tradition of rooster gifts to my Mom dates back to the late 90's. It all started with a giant ceramic rooster that she proudly displayed in the kitchen. She loves it, and my siblings hate it... life doesn't get much better than that.

Pre-Halloween hanging out in the sink (naturally):

Our very classy Thanksgiving, complete with paper towels as napkins:

The second cups were for our array of sparkling ciders... the favorite was pomegranate. When did that fruit become so popular? I feel like I hadn't even heard of one until two years ago. This Thanksgiving is of special notoriety as I carved my first Turkey. It was a tremendous success thanks to a quick internet tutorial. And yes, we are still eating leftovers and loving every minute of it.

Don't Touch

This week I have been putting the Christmas decorations up. On Monday night I put up the tree after Chelsea had gone to bed. On Tuesday morning I heard Chelsea exclaim "Tree!" as she was coming down the stairs. I think she likes the tree, maybe too much since she is always trying to touch it. Whenever I touch something on the tree to fix it she tells me "Don't touch!" I guess she has heard the command many times over the last couple of days.

I also got some stockings for Joe and myself this year. I think they are cute. I love the penguin so of course that one is mine.

I've also had fun making some decorations this year. I made some candle holders using a snowflake hole punch and mod podge.

I also made some wreaths for the front door and the windows in my dinning room. I got the idea from Pottery Barn. I'm not sure if I am completely satisfied with it yet. It may need a few more ornaments.

My favorite thing I made this year is my advent calendar. I love it and think it turned out great! I got the idea from Pottery Barn Kids and decided it was something I could make. It's a good thing I started it before Halloween because I just finished it on Saturday night, just in time. I have put little fruity tootsie rolls in the pockets for Chelsea to have each day. It has proven to be a little bit of a problem with trying to prevent her from touching it too much. Oh well.

A Month Late

Over the weekend of Halloween Joe's parents came to town. We got to celebrate his mom's birthday while they were here which gave me the chance to decorate my first cake. She loves roosters so it only seemed fitting to have one on her cake.

I just drew a rooster on some paper and cut it out with an exacto knife to make a stencil and then sprinkled cinnamon in the cutout. I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out.

For Halloween Chelsea was a little witch. I decided it would be fun to make a tutu for her which was super easy and turned out to be about as wide as she is tall. I guess I got a little carried away. Here are a few pictures

Going for the candy...

On Monday after Halloween Chelsea wanted to get dressed up again in her tutu and hat and then headed right for the door. I think she really liked getting candy from all of our neighbors!

Bad manners? No, bad parenting.

Yesterday Nat and Chels came to have lunch with me (which always ends up being the highlight of my day). As Nat and I were talking we look over at Chelsea and see this.


Yep. Definitely eating like a dog. Guess she really enjoyed that rice!

We told her to stop and so she just ate with her hands like this.


Not much better for being out in public, but at least we weren't getting the "you are terrible parents" stare.

Can't wait to see how she acts tomorrow... Happy Thanksgiving!

Ghost cart

Creepy.

Oh wait, it's just the babe...

just want to put this out there

I (Joe) had nothing to do with this whole "cutest blog on the block" business. There, I feel better.