Almond Roca recipe on cooking blog

Christmas Dinner; Molasses Crinkle Cookie recipe on cooking blog...

After Christmas two years ago, I found a bunch of clearance stuff from Wal-Mart, and bought all of these place settings, and napkins, and a table cloth, but they've sat in my basked in the closet for two years, because when I bought them, I didn't think about the fact that we'd either be at my parent's house for Christmas, or Royce's parent's house, so I couldn't use my place settings. But I decided that we'd start having our little family's Christmas dinner a couple of weeks before Christmas so I could use all of my stuff :) So here's all of my cool Christmas table decorations :)

Here are some yummy cookies. I love them. The recipe is on my other blog.

Have I mentioned lately that I really like Christmas?

I found this little picture from Christmas last year at Nana and Papa's house. She's grown up so much!
This was actually her dress from last year; my mom bought her a Christmas dress, so I didn't, but grandma's not coming out until next monday, so she's just been wearing the one from last year. (It's a little short, but not too bad :) )
(She's really not crying...she makes funny faces when I try to take a picture of her :) ) Today was our ward Christmas program at Church. (Half the ward is made up of UT's married student housing, so our ward did it a little early for students going home for Christmas) Anyway, Emmaline's nursery class has been practicing the Christmas song with the primary, so we've been practicing it at home, too, and I've been a little worried about the program, because I was afraid that she'd be too scared to go up in front of everyone (I can't even get her to go into the primary room without me :) ) but then after it was over she'd be sad because she didn't get to sing the song with everyone; luckily, though, the primary president (who is so so great with the kids...we just love her) walked right by our aisle, and asked Emmaline to go up with her, and Emmaline did, and Sister Smith held her hand up at the front, and Emmaline even sang! I was so proud of her, and so happy that it went well, that I even started tearing up a little. :) So there's our happy story from Church today. Of course we had to go home after sacrament meeting because Emmaline woke up with a suspicious cough. It's just starting, and isn't that bad, but it sounded like croup, and we've got quite a few new babies in the ward, and I didn't think their moms would appreciate Emmaline spreading croup through the nursery :)
After church today we ate our gingerbread cookies, and Royce would massacre his little guy, violently biting him apart one limb at a time, then have the gingerbread man try and scoot away with what remaining limbs he had left, only to be picked up and bitten again. (They watched a lot of war movies when they were kids...probably one too many :) ) Emmaline thought it was hilarious, though, so he ate a couple for her, then I wanted a picture, so he ate another one, then I wanted to get a video because Emmaline was laughing so hard, so he ate another one, then I realized that I forgot to hit record. But he was all cookied out by then.

Emmaline trying to mimic Daddy.

March my pretty minions...muahahahahha
Emmaline piping her first gingerbread cookie.
Mmmm...delicious.
Daddy the walking worm.

Royce is done with classes and finals and presentations, and projects! (Until next semester :) ) So now he just has to go to work, and we've had so much fun with Daddy!

Hooray for Christmas!

Emmaline and I have been having so much fun this Christmas season. We made a gingerbread house. We just bought one of the Wilton kits from Michaels...sooo much easier. (Well, I think anyway. I don't know if I've ever made a gingerbread house...I'm sure I did when I was little...I can't remember :) )But we're both so OCD, that I'd do a section, and she'd do a section, and she did the whole roof! She did a good job. (I mean, obviously I piped the loops for her, but she put all of the candy on.)
Today we also got the finishing touches on her room. We found a couple of cute/soft rugs at Ross, and some really cute wall stickers from Target. It's a lot nicer in there. Maybe Royce and I will hang out in there now too. :)
Even Royce is able to start enjoying himself a little. This week he has had big presentations in all of his classes, and has done really well, and made special web-sites for all of them. Now he just has finals to finish, and then he'll have a nice break from school and will only have to work. So it's been a pretty good day all around!

Christmas Tree!!!!!

I've been on the search for a fake Christmas tree for about a month, and I bought one about two weeks before Thanksgiving, and I finally got to put it up! It took a lot of self control to not put it up before Thanksgiving.


Here's a few more decorations...I guess we'll be eating on the couch until January :)
So besides decorating for Christmas, I've decided that I need to fix Emmaline's room up a bit. It's kind of become the storage room, and I wanted to make it a little nicer place for her to play. So for starters, I wanted to get her bed up off the floor. We've had it on the floor because she rolls all over at night, and the floors in our apartments are tile, but she slept in a bed at Royce's parents house, and stayed in just fine. So on the drive home (Saturday) when Royce was asleep, I planned her room in my mind, and I got so excited about it, that I couldn't wait until Monday to go get her a bed (or plywood and cinder blocks :) )
so I took some food storage cans, and cardboard and made her a little makeshift bed. You might be a redneck if... :)
Anyway, we decided to paint some letters to put up on her wall, and there's only one wall we can hang pictures on, so I think we might get some of those sticky flowers that go on the wall, and dress it up a little like that. I'm also going to get her a couple of cute little rugs, so she has someplace a little softer to play. So hopefully as I get more done in her room, I'll put up more pictures.
Emmaline really liked painting the letters for her wall.
She has been coloring like crazy lately, and we found her like this last Sunday after Church.

Thanksgiving

Here's Emmaline and Chloe at Nana and Papa's house for Thanksgiving.

Pie!

Here's a couple of pies I made for Thanksgiving...more stuff on cooking blog.

Joon

One of our neighbors across the hall are from South Korea, and she has a little boy that's almost two, so we get together every day for a little playgroup, and to help her practice her English, and to get us both out of our apartment every day. :) She's from halfway around the world, but we really are a lot alike. Our birthdays are even on the same day. And her little guy, Joon, is so cute...he loves playing with Emmaline. Everything she does he wants to do too.

Pie on cooking blog

Chocolate, Apple, Peanut Butter, Pumpkin, and Cherry (well, sort of cherry) pie recipes on youcanttrustaskinnycook.blogspot.com. Thanksgiving is coming!!

Advent Calendar

Here's a little advent calendar that I made for Emmaline. Nothing too fancy...just some old Christmas scraps I had from last year when I tried to make an advent calendar. :)



And these are the leftover stickers/letters...

Emmaliney-loo

"Helping" Mommy make chocolate cake for the missionaries.
She is such a cheerful little sweetheart. Last Sunday we came home from church, and had some lunch, but she didn't eat very much, so to try and get her to eat more, Royce fed her like she was a puppy, and she thought that was funny, but still didn't eat very much, and said she was full. So about five minutes later she threw up all over the rug, and right after she did, she said, "Daddy, you fed me too much!." It was so funny. So I got her cleaned up, and Royce worked on the carpet, and she was just so cheerful! When I throw up, I am not any fun to be around, but she was so chipper and happy, so I had to take a picture. (She has crackers in her cup...it's not vomit. )

I don't remember what she was doing...so here's some pillows :)Putting Daddy's sunglasses on her horse.

Maraschino Cherry Thumb Print Cookie Recipe on cooking blog...

Mmmm...cookies.

Chicken Noodle Soup and Homemade Rolls on Cooking blog...

Every time I make rolls, Emmaline gets her stool and "helps."

Happy Halloween!

Here we are at our Ward Trunk-or-Treat. I realized yesterday that I didn't have a bucket for Emmaline, so we swung by Wal-Mart on the way to the Church, and apparently I wasn't the only one that waited until the last minute. All of the candy was gone, as well as all of the buckets, so we got a little creative with a gift bag :) Luckily she's not old enough to know that you're supposed to have a bucket (Or at least not old enough to care...heck, random people are giving her lots of candy!) :)

This one is for Kelda

Hair Cut!

Watching movies with Mr. Bear, Daddy Bear, and Monkey. That's what their names are.
I cut off her hair! It was the most random thing...we were sitting at Church yesterday, and this little girl had a cute haircut, and I thought, huh, maybe I should cut Emmaline's hair. So we went home, and I cut it off! Normally I would think/plan/debate for weeks, but I just came home and chopped it off. (It was also my second time cutting hair...I tried to cut Royce's hair once, but I was so worried about doing a bad job it took me like 2 hrs, and then Royce finally decided to do it himself, and he just went at it with the clippers.) So hopefully she likes her new hair cut!
I let her play with some of my old make-up...this is lip gloss, but it looks like she had a really bad accident. We thought about posing some pictures...one with her holding a cheese grater; another one with her laying on the floor next to her upturned bike...but we just couldn't do it :)

New Blog!

I've started a new blog! It's just some good recipes that I've found/have, and so hopefully I'll keep it updated so if you're in a cooking mood, check it out! Today's postings are Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies, Paula Dean's Pumpkin Pie, and Whole Wheat Pancakes...yumm......I think I love food a little too much. :)

www.youcanttrustaskinnycook.blogspot.com

Emmaline's Drawing

Emmaline drew this today, and I thought it was pretty funny. She's just recently started drawing people, and it's cute, but she'll never be able to go beyond this point, because this is about the level that I draw at. She asks me to draw people, and she wants me to draw feet, and toes, so I just draw a circle at the end of a stick arm/leg, and little stick fingers and toes. :)

Googly Bear

I've decided that I need to blog about Royce more often. I've been realizing lately that it's easy to get caught up in things that I'm doing with Emmaline, and cleaning, and cooking, and what not, which are all very important things to do, but I think in all of my efforts of trying to do good things I've kind of been neglecting Royce a little bit, and so this is part of my attempt to focus on taking care of him a little better. So it's bragging about Royce time :)
A couple of weeks ago we found out that he is going to be published! One of his professors and another student and he (him?) are compiling a bunch of stuff together to make a book about instructional technology (I think :) ) and they're going to present it next year in Washington DC. Which is really cool, and it's a great opportunity for him, especially being so new in the program. So whoohoo! And hopefully he'll keep telling me cool stuff like that. (sometimes I have to beat it out of him, or we'll be talking with somebody and we get on the subject, and then he says something cool that he's done, and it will be a surprise to me too! Which is another reason that I want to focus on him some more, and help encourage him in the good things that he's doing :) ) It's a little harder to blog about Royce, because it's not like they're moments that I can take a picture of, but since I don't really like blogging without pictures, here's a cute one with his youngest sister Gina, when they went camping right before he left on his mission.) (And I really don't call him googly bear, but Emmaline has been watching Monsters Incorporated a lot lately:) )

Sunday Naps

Royce was so tired when we came home from Church today, and he fell asleep in the chair, and Emmaline went in her room and got her princess blanket, and put it over him, and then she got her monkey and Mr. Bear, and tucked them in with him too. It was so sweet!

Thanks for the flowers Aunty Lea!

...

Both of the girls got bikes for their birthday, and Nana and Papa got them each a princess dress-up outfit. It was funny how well they could walk in heels!

Fun at Nana and Papa's

Emmaline and Chloe's birthdays are pretty close to each other, so we went to Nana and Papa's this last weekend to have a little party. Lots of fun!! They got each of the girls their own little cake so they could just go crazy and do anything they wanted with their birthday cake; it was really cute.