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.