Christmas 2011

Hope you all had a wonderfully blessed Christmas!!  

I know it's been a long time since I've written last and hopefully in the next week or so I can explain that, but for now, I just wanted to give a quick update before this year was over.  (mostly of my favorite pictures from Christmas)

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve is my favorite night.  There is something so special about it to me.  Maybe it's because I always remember it being so magical when I was little.  Who knows, but we do spend it with my side of the family.  We start with a yummy traditional Hungarian dinner and then head into the living room to exchange gifts.  I think each year becomes more fun as we add children to the mix.  However, at times... it did seem quite chaotic.  But all-in-all it was a great time with family and being able to bless one another.  

Christmas Morning
Christmas morning was so awesome.  Four-year-old's have a way of making that magic of Christmas come a live again.  Well, at least for me it did.  Ian on the other hand, didn't really care about the gift he just wanted to play with whatever was opened by anyone.  Jayden was so excited to see what Santa brought for him!!!  He was even excited to see what Santa brought for mommy and daddy!  It was so cute!  

Christmas Day

 Then we spent the rest of Christmas day with my in-laws.  It was a good time with Jesse's side of the family.  We had a wonderful breakfast that Jesse's dad made us, and then we went and opened some great gifts.   I must say... we all made out pretty well this year.  :)

That's about it from us.  I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and that your new year is filled with joy and blessings!  Hopefully I'll get some time this week to read over some of your Christmas fun!  

Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

Shutterfly... oh, How I Love Thee

I can not believe that Christmas is just around the corner!  

Where the heck did this year go! 

A few weeks ago we finally got to take some family photos, thanks to my SIL Katie.  She did an amazing job in capturing our family!  At first, I thought there was no way we got a single good shot because my boys just wouldn't cooperate.  However, I was very wrong.  We got some great ones!  Here are my favorite ones!

 And now, I can finally start to process of ordering our Christmas card!  And there is no other place I would go to order them, than good old Shutterfly.   Last year, the ones I picked came out so great!  I loved them!!

 So this year won't be any different.  Their collection of Christmas cards is awesome, the only problem I'm having trouble with is PICKING which one I want to use!  

I'm even contemplating doing more then just a Christmas card.  Last year I made a Shutterfly mug for my dad with the grand-kiddies on them and that was a huge success.  I think I may want to do a Calendar or something for Jesse's parents. 

A few weeks ago my friend had a Shutterfly photo book party at her house and we all got a free photo book.  Needless to say I have been spending hours upon hours trying to do my first book.  I just can't seem to make up my mind.  However, they are going to make for some great Christmas gifts this year!  

I'm really looking forward to this year... Have you thought about your Christmas cards yet?

Happy Halloween

We had a fantastic Halloween last night. It was so much fun!!! Jayden’s excitement to go out and get candy made it that much more worth the bitter cold.

We all dressed up. Jayden was supposed to be going as a pirate (since I had bought him one for his birthday) however, he got a great Spiderman costume as a gift and that was WAY cooler than the pirate outfit. Go figure… Ian was a cow. Jesse went as our favorite serial killer Dexter Morgan and I went as a VERY disappointed Phillies fan (rightfully so).

The night was great! We got a lot of candy… maybe too much candy and had a blast going house to house. The boys were certainly wiped by the time we got home and both slept til 9 this morning. Yay for mommy!

Anyway.... Hope you all had a great Halloween!

I Adore Photo Shoots With Family

There is nothing better than taking pictures of the people I love most.  In my book, family is always free and I urge them to take advantage of that offer at anytime.  ;)  This past weekend my SIL did just that!  She texted me Sunday morning asking if I would shoot her fall family pictures.  There was no hesitation, of course I would!!!!  I just love getting my camera on my little niece and her two beautiful parents!

So we went out around my favorite time of day to shoot, 4pm (just as the sun is setting for to most PERFECT lighting) to this cozy little winery down the street from their house.  Such a perfect spot.  I must say I think we got a few good ones.  

What do you think?!

 

 

IS she not the cutest thing you ever did see?!

Interesting fact:  This little miss and I share the same middle name!

    Oh... and you see my watermark?  The really pretty LK?  Well, this is the awesome brother that made it for me!  I'm a lucky sister!

Arrrr… Jayden is 4!

I LOVE planning parties! Especially for people who are going to remember them! LOL! Kid’s parties have got to be my favorite to plan because it takes me back to being a kid myself. The themes, the games, the candy and fun; planning kids birthdays are my number one! hehe… can you tell I just love it!?! 

So this year Jayden wanted pirates. Pirates seem to be the big thing this year, don’t they? I think pirates are cool, but I was not a fan of the whole skull and bones thing… so I had to figure something out to keep that from being the focus. So thanks to some friends on facebook along with the ah-ma-zing-ness of PINTEREST, I’m pretty sure I made a pretty great pirate party for my wonderful little man.

I decided this year we were going to make our own invites because making pirate-like “treasure maps invites” would be so much FUN to do! So I printed them out, cut them up, sanded them down and took a candle to these bad boys and this is how they turned out. I was pretty happy with the end result.

The next major thing to decide was the cake! Since cake decorating is my thing and I LOVE doing it, this had to be good. I saw a lot of ideas but ended up really wanting to do a pirate ship. How cool?! A 3D pirate ship?! 

It would be a challenge but I knew I could do it! I did recruit my good friend Kristin to come over and work on it with me… however working with 4 kids running around isn’t easy so we just got it built and dirty-iced (crumb iced) before she had to go. This cake took me longer than most of my other cakes, but it was totally worth it. My husband said… “Best cake you’ve done yet, hon!” I was pretty thrilled at the way it turned out!!

Last Saturday, October 8th we had Jayden’s 4th birthday party. We held it at my parent’s church so that we would have enough room. (Our house is SO not big enough for things like this.) I painted some old wood that my wood-working father-in-law let me borrow and made signs and decorated the church basement the best I could. Made a dress-up area so all the kids would look like pirates when they got there and made a photo booth so I could get a picture of all the kids dressed up. Set up an awesome kids table just for all the young lads and lasses who would be attending so they could all sit together. 

I wanted to make this party an experience… not just an event. When kids came in they would go to the dress-up area to get all pirated-out and then get their picture taken. After everyone arrived we started games. (1) Pin the treasure on the map (2) Cannonball Pop (3) Treasure hunt to find their goody bags (4) Piñata - to add more candy to their already huge treasure chest full of candy! Kids DREAM! The kids seemed to have a wonderful time. If not… I knew Jayden was having a blast and that’s all that really matters, right?!

Then we went in to get some refreshments and cake. The food was simple because the cake was the big focal point. Plus… this cake was HUGE and it had to be eaten!!! So we sang happy birthday to the birthday boy and dug in. Despite the fact that the fondant melted onto the cake, it turned out pretty well. People seemed to like it and I came home with less than half a cake, so Yay to that!

All in all it was a fantastic birthday! I had fun planning it and people seemed to really enjoy it.  AND... that cake was freaking epic (well at least for an amateur cake decorator)! Thanks to my SIL who got the amazing pictures, because God knows this wouldn’t have been documented if I was the one taking all the pictures!! She did awesome, right?!  Thanks for doing that, babe!  

NOTE: If you have any questions about the party on what I did or how I did them, please let me know!  I didn't want to go into too much because I didn't want to bore anyone, but if you are interested in knowing what was done I would be happy to go over it... maybe in a blog post or something?! ;)