Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas to all of my friends and family! As I am typing this, there is a thick layer of SNOW outside of my yard! Yes...I said snow. It snowed on Christmas day in Texas...what are the odds?? Then again, it is Texas, and nothing about the weather surprises me anymore! We have had a wonderful Christmas; however, the snow did alter our plans a bit. Michel and I invited his parents and grandparents to our house to host our first Christmas! Everyone came into town around 4:00 on Christmas Eve, and planned on going back to their houses this evening. When the snow started coming down so hard around 1:00 this afternoon, and was starting to accumulate on the grass and streets everyone ended up leaving just a little after 2:00, giving Michel and me a lot of time with nothing to do. So, I've made the most of it by watching some of my favorite Christmas classics that I hadn't gotten a chance to watch yet: The Santa Clause and It's a Wonderful Life (I still cry every time I see it: "George Bailey - the richest man in town!"...so sweet)! Anyways, for me Christmas started around 2:45 on Friday, Dec. 21st when we were allowed to leave school. The "celebration" didn't begin, but I was celebrating to have 2 weeks off of school :)

I really wanted to do some fun Christmas things with my niece and nephew, and Michel never minds when they come over. So we met my sister and brother-in-law at a Chick-Fil-A to make the drop-off. We joked that it looked like some kind of drug exchange because Janette called me and told me to meet them in the back of the parking lot so that we could transfer over all of their stuff. They only stayed with us 2 days and 1 night, but kids need a LOT of stuff! Anyways, Saturday afternoon while Zane was sleeping Karys and I baked cookies. At one point she told me that Uncle Michel needs to come help, and I told her to go find him and tell him that, and she did. Uncle Michel will do anything that his favorite (and only) niece asks of him :)

This is Karys showing off a cookie that she cut, frosted all by herself, and added sprinkles to. Love her big smile!!

Sadly, I didn't take many pictures over the course of the weekend, and didn't end up with any of Zane. Don't worry...we haven't celebrated Christmas with them, so there will be lots of picture-taking then! And his birthday is later this week, so I'll make up for my lack of picture-taking. 

Saturday night we took them to a really nice neighborhood in Plano to look at Christmas lights. It was pretty spectacular (it probably helps that the first place winner of their lighting contest wins $5000, so there's a lot of incentive to get creative!). I loved hearing Zane say "Ooooh...Chri light" (translation: Christmas lights)! 

The next day Michel had to work, so I just loaded the kids up and took them over to see Nana and Granddaddy. We went to a church service that night (I didn't think I could get them up and ready to get to a morning service on time), and then headed back to give them back to their parents. Michel and I still had to get our house cleaned up, and I hadn't wrapped a single present!

Fast forward to Christmas Day! I am still like a child and had a really hard time sleeping. I woke up around 5:30 and tossed and turned until about 7:00. Part of the problem could have been the incredibly loud claps of thunder that I heard. Anyways, Michel was our designated chef of the day, so he prepared some cinnamon rolls for us for breakfast while we waited for his parents to arrive (they stayed at a nearby hotel...his mom is too allergic to our cat to stay here overnight). 

Once everyone had eaten breakfast, it was time to open presents!! I tried taking as many pictures as I could. We had a lot of fun!!

Ninja was such a good little kitty. After an appropriate amount of sniffing everyone to see who all these new people were, he had no problem getting on the couch next to anyone who may be sitting there, and also had no problem showing off his hunting/pouncing skills. Grandpa Z enjoyed petting Ninja, and continued doing it even when Ninja was attacking his hand!

My wonderful in-laws

My grandparents-in-law 

Me and my handsome hubby!!

This is the first present that I opened from my in-laws, and it literally made me laugh out loud! My mother-in-law is a retired teacher, so she totally understands the cherished, yet rare, snow days!!

Ninja was not allowed to have the wrapping paper or tissue paper scraps being tossed around as we opened our gifts because he has gotten into it before, and ends up throwing up, or having really nasty poop (sorry if TMI). So we were trying to put everything into trash bags so that he wouldn't get into the paper, but that darn trash bag didn't stop him...

Here's all of the awesome gifts that I was given! Some of it includes a plaque with a Bible verse that I have in my kitchen, a Kohl's gift card, a Target gift card, Starbucks and Whataburger gift cards (we love gift cards), fleecy pajama pants (Michel knows me well!) and LOTS of food! I'm going to gain 10 pounds by the time school starts back! Michel and I didn't really exchange gifts this year..we just filled each other's stockings. We decided that we wanted to put the money that we would have used towards purchasing each other gifts to go on another cruise! I'm pretty excited! We don't have dates or location in mind yet, but we're hoping to go on one in February/Marchish.

Our entertainer of the day was definitely Ninja, though. Michel's grandparents were sweet enough to buy Ninja a cat toy! He LOVED it! He seriously played with it for about 3 hours non-stop. At first, we were kind of surprised that he was still going at it so late in the day, but then we read the tag and saw that it had catnip in it. He's really funny when he gets around catnip...it gets him really excited/hyper!!

Watch as the ferocious panther attacks his unsuspecting prey

And just in case I haven't put Ninja in this post enough here's another video of him playing with his toy! He's not jumping as much, but he's still pretty excited about it!

 The most unexpected surprise was all of the snow that we got!! Nobody was expecting the accumulation that we got, or for it to stick, but we ended up with a white Christmas!!

I love taking pictures of me with my handsome hubby...especially with some snow in the pic!!

This picture was taken around 3:00, and we had snowfall until 5:30 or 6:00, so we ended up with even more snow on the ground and roads. I can't even see my grass anymore...I love it! I'll have to take another picture tomorrow...I was too cold, and already in my pj's to care about taking more this evening :)

Merry Christmas!! Remember that He is the reason for the season!!

Our Pathetic Christmas Tree

So, as I said in last week's post I love how all of our decorations look in our home with the exception of our tree. It's pretty pathetic this year.

In these pictures, there is about a foot and a half of tree (starting from the bottom) that have no decorations on them because Ninja got the impression that this tree was put up for his amusement, and he views every ornament as a challenge that he must take down!

Then, the stinker figured out that swatting the ornaments from the outside of the tree isn't nearly as fun as climbing up the tree from the inside of it, and seeing how many ornaments he could take down.

Sadly, I think our tree looks even worse now because he plays with it so often that the branches aren't fluffy anymore, we're putting ornaments up higher and higher, and I've just dealt with it. When he's a little older and not so playful we can have a beautiful tree. Besides, I'm sure he's really just helping me prepare for what it will be like when we have little ones running around the house!

These pictures were taken a couple of weeks ago, and I took a picture of all the ornaments that had lost their hooks because of a certain little cat.

Notice that this one has a piece of it bitten off?? Hmmm.....who would have done that? :)

One of Michel's ornaments that he's had since he was a child (luckily it didn't have special sentimental value) was taken off the tree and turned into a new favorite cat toy. The ornament is a little cat, and in Ninja's defense, it really does look like a good cat toy. Ninja entertained himself with the Christmas ornament for at least half an hour earlier this morning...it was pretty hysterical to watch :)

Christmas Decorating!

I love decorating for Christmas! When we lived in our apartment, Michel and I really only put up our Christmas tree and stockings because that was all we had room for. Last year, we had only been in our house for a month when Christmas rolled around and I put up a few more decorations because had the room for it, but I still didn't go crazy decorating. To be honest, it may take years to fully decorate the way I want to because I like lots of decorations in every room of the house (not sure if Michel likes that, but he knew that I was the crazy Christmas lady when he married me!), but I did decorate quite a bit more this year, and I really love the way everything has turned out....take that back, I love the way MOST things have turned out. I'm not too happy with the tree, but that's because of a certain four-legged creature in our house. More on him later.

This year, I even busted out some creativity to make my own Christmas crafts, and I really love the way everything turned out!

Last weekend, I dug into my creativity and began a craft that I had found on Pinterest to decoratively hang Christmas cards. I started the craft on Monday, and kind of figured that I wouldn't finish it until the Christmas break at school started, but I have surprised myself and finished it within a week of starting it! I'm kind of a procrastinator sometimes...

Anyways, the craft was really easy. I bought some small clothespins, Christmas scrapbook paper, Mod Podge, decorative buttons, ribbon, paint, and paintbrushes. Altogether it probably cost me about $10, so not bad at all.

A close-up of one of the clothespins

Several of the clothespins...just waiting for more Christmas cards to come!!

My other craft that I tackled didn't really require much talent...only paint and glitter. I bought these wooden letters that spelled out Merry Christmas at First Monday in Canton. I think they go on the entry table really well!

Please excuse all the glitter on the table...it will get cleaned!

Awhile back, I bought some wall shelves at IKEA that Michel was kind enough to put up for me about a month ago. Normally, it's our wall that's decorated with firefighting stuff, but I took it all down to swap out Christmas decorations.

I love this nativity scene and the Christmas plaque with words written in the shape of a Christmas tree!

Our stockings in a very creative location since we have no fireplace

Our side table

Like I said, I really love how everything turned out except for our Christmas tree, but it's so bad that it deserves a post of its own...hopefully I'll have it up tomorrow, so stay tuned! :) Merry Christmas!!

I'm still here...

I promise that I haven't forgotten about my blog. I have so much to blog about now! At first I didn't, but now we have new furniture, we went to an awesome Christmas party that I need to post pictures from, and we've decorated for Christmas (with some Pinterest-inspired crafts designed by moi!). Unfortunately, my crafting isn't done so our house is a bit of a mess. I'm hoping to have new posts, and pics up in the coming week...hopefully at least one will be done this weekend!