Holiday Happiness With the Family

My brother arrived with his family and extended family this Monday. I was so excited to see everyone! Monday evening we ate at the Twin Cities Grill and walked through the Mall of America. Valeria brought her American Girl Doll and got her hair done at the doll store, which was super cute! On Tuesday, the family went to the Outlets in Albertville. Wednesday, we went downtown to Macy's for the Christmas Land display and then to the Guthrie Theater for A Christmas Carol. It has been a wonderful time thus far and there will be many more pics to come as on Friday we are having an open house for the couple! And lets not forget Christmas!

Ornaments and Traditions

The little guy I care for is 20 months now and he is totally into gluing things right now!  So this year we decided to glue some things together and make Mom and Dad some Christmas Ornaments. I love taking photos of my little guy so we dressed him up in his Sioux Jersey, grabbed his hockey sticks, helmet, skates, and took some cute pics for Dad. And for Mom we put some angel wings on and pretended to fly. He had fun gluing the feathers on most of all. 

So after we made these special ornaments I realised that there is a new fad now..."perfectly decorated Christmas trees!" Most of the houses I have been in this holiday season have trees that are very different from my tree at home! A lot of these trees have perfectly matching decorations, looking like they came straight out of a department store window. I understand that these trees do look amazing, but where is the sentiments? Where are the homemade children's ornaments, or the decorations from your great grandmother that were passed down from generations? Do people not do this anymore?

I had the honor of helping my parents decorate their tree this year as well as my own and to me it wouldn't be Christmas if  there weren't those special ornaments that make us stop and reminisce on the past. My mom still cries every time she hangs my preschool ornament with my picture inside it! I remember decorating our tree growing up, and it was so much fun! We always did it as a family and listened to Christmas music. It may not have been prefect, but it was meaningful and we all share those memories today. And after all isnt that what is most important?  The time spent with those who we love rather then the look of our Christmas tree. 

Tell me parents.... do you let your children help? I have heard of some houses doing two trees, a children's tree and a "perfect tree." Is there too much pressure to have everything looking great around the holidays? Are we loosing traditions because of our need for perfection? What do the kids do with their proudly made homemade ornaments?

Cookied-Out

 

 

 

Today, was a long day, I helped out my boss by baking 12 dozen cookies for their neighborhood cookie exchange. After today I am officially cookied-out. My little boy was sick today with a fever and a cold. It is going to be a long week I am afraid. This weekend I have to work too sadly. I am trying to stay positive and think about the fun that I will have with my family during Christmas...and I am excited for my family to open the gifts that I have found for them. Especially my niece.

The highlight of my day has been coming home, taking a bath, and talking with my husband. Another positive aspect was finally discovering Words With Friends. I am already thoroughly enjoying myself. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful husband to come home to. He really makes all of my days brighter.

Annual Solie Christmas Party

This year, our annual celebration for the holidays was filled with joy! We always have the celebration on the second Saturday in December. We celebrated with some of our closest friends. We are so blessed to have such wonderful people to share our lives with! We had a wonderful turn out, the weather cooperated this year too!

Some of our wonderful friends in their Ugly Christmas Sweaters! A lot of people dressed up this year too! It is a silly tradition, but fun none the less! I would have to say that my husbands shorts and socks were the highlight of the wardrobe this year!

I am so unbelievably excited for three of our close friends to have babies next year! I cannot wait!  Josh and I found each baby a little something this year, this was especially sweet for our good friends Todd and Claudia, as it was their first gift for baby! It is crazy to think that next years party may include a bunch of kiddos, as more of our friends will have kids then not! Yay!!!  Lives are about to change, but only for the better!!!

The beautiful bride to be and her handsome fiance even made it to the party! It was so nice to spend time with the special people who we seldom get to see during the holidays.

It wouldn't be the Christmas party without a ridiculous amount of delicious food! Josh and I were very busy this week preparing the food for the party but it is so worth it to watch everyone enjoy eating so much! We had Swedish meatballs, cheese dip, bacon wrapped shrimp, roll ups, cheese balls, Carmel puff corn, chex mix, bagel dip, meat and cheese trays, tons of cookies, veggie pizza, taco dip, and all kinds of other dips and snacks! A new favorite this year was the Sweet Ham and Swiss Sammie's! I will hopefully be sharing some of the recipes soon on my blog!

Holiday Cookies

2011 Cookie Baking Day

12 Kinds of Cookies

1. Grandma Van Donsel's Sugar Cookies

2. Lemon Spritzers

3. Aunt Joyces Bars

4. Cherry Hideaways

5. Peanut Blossoms

6. Peanut Butter Ritz

7. Almond Bark Pretzels

8. Chocolate Peanut Butter Balls

9. Tumbleweeds

10. Berlina Kruntzer

11. Almond Holiday Wreaths

12. Melting Moments

My Top 10 Christmas Songs!!!!

10. The Chipmunk Christmas- The Chipmunks

9. Go Tell it on the Mountain- Sheryl Crow

8. Away in a Manger- Trisha Yearwood

7. Silent Night- Andrea Bocelli

6. Ave Maria- Josh Groban

5. All I Want For Christmas is You - Mariah Carey

4. Blue Christmas- Elvis Presley

3. O Holy Night- Celine Dion

2. O Come All Ye Faithful- Casting Crowns

1. I'll Be Home For Christmas- Elvis Presley

 (Played on the Record Player)

Just Like Me: Meet Selma Lee

This is my new American Girl Doll!  I created her with the "Just Like Me" program. It was a fun program, I decided her hair color, eye color, glasses, and whether or not she had pierced ears. I happened to find her wedding dress at a craft show and I bought the dress before I even had the doll. I knew that I wanted a "Wedding Doll" that would remind me of my wedding day! This dress, and this doll was perfect. I decided to name her Selma Lee, after the name of my Maggie Sottero wedding gown.

The back of Selma's Wedding Dress.

My Maggie Sottero Model wearing the Selma Dress.