A Day for a Chef

Today, we went to a wonderful birthday party for Colin's favorite newly minted 5 year old red-head, Avery. She is my good friend Wendy's daughter and she is brilliant and adorable and loves Giada from Food Network. Therefore, her party theme was cooking and they made chefs hats and cooked their own pizzas and cupcakes. It was so brilliant and Colin had the best time.  I am loving Avery in this shot!  She knows how to throw a party, that girl! 

The favor was a tiny rolling pin, cookie cutters and a recipe for sugar cookies! Colin used the cookie cutter as soon as we got home and made his first batch of cookies "almost" by himself. Now, granted, they were made from store-bought pie dough (which I hate) and mint Hershey Kisses (which I hate), so you should take it with a grain of salt when I say that they were horrible. But Colin had a blast and was SO proud of himself that I ate two. And promised myself to stop impulsively making things that look pretty on Pinterest. :-)

Slow Down, December!

It's already December 8th. I find this totally unacceptable. I LOVE THIS MONTH. I DON'T WANT IT TO END! It feels like I waited forever for it to get here and now I am blinking and it is flying by. Sure, maybe I am being slightly melodramatic. Not that I'm prone to that or anything. Anyway, we are having the most wonderful time around here and I have now decided that four is the perfect age for Christmas. I will probably say that every year for at least the next several. But Colin is so full of joy right now and I am trying to soak up every single moment. Last night, we attended an ornament exchange party with all of our friends and Colin took a nasty spill on their ceramic tile stairs. He busted his chin up pretty badly and I had moments of wondering if we were in for an ER visit. Good lord, the mouth can BLEED! Luckily he appears to be okay today, but the right side of his chin and cheek is seriously swollen, to the point that he talks funny and looks like he is a chipmunk with acorns stuck in his lip. The poor peanut! We had a great time tonight taking "glowy" tree pictures with the SLR camera and I wanted to make this one a close-up shot, but his poor face is a bit too messed up.

Jer took this one and I think it will probably go down as one of my all time favorite pictures. I am so in love with Christmas and I think this shows EXACTLY why. :-)

Breakfast With Santa!

The Christmas season has started off with a BIG bang! What a fantastic week we have had! My parents couldn't come for Thanksgiving, so my dad took some time off work and they BOTH came here for several days. It was absolutely amazing! They were here Wednesday through Sunday and I can't even express how wonderful it was. We just laid around, shopped and ate. Perfection. :-) Saturday was a big day...we woke up bright and early to head over to Breakfast with Santa! The event was hosted out at Jer's parents country club and he ended up having to work at the last minute. Since my mom was here, she took his ticket and joined us. Colin LOVED having both of his grandmothers at one event and we had the best time! He was all smiles and having a blast. He was counting down the days and this year did not disappoint! I was sick last year and missed the festivities, so I had an especially good time seeing Mom Mom dressed up like an elf! I am so thankful for the wonderful pictures we got. Originally, Colin was adamant that he was not going to go anywhere near Santa. He has asked me LOTS of logistical questions last year (big surprise!) and we told him that all the Santa's in the malls were Santa's helpers, since he can't be in that many places at once. Well, I forgot all about that until the night before the breakfast. I asked Colin during our bedtime routine what he was planning to ask Santa for. He said, "Mom, is this the REAL Santa or an actor?"....lovely. I stumbled at first and then recalled our conversations from last Christmas. I told him that it would be Santa's helper, who works DIRECTLY with Santa. That was when he told me that he was not going to get near him, but would allow me to tell him what Colin wanted. Only me. SO, I was not surprised when he absolutely refused to get near the stage where the Santa pictures were taking place. Jer's mom employed all kinds of tricks to get him up on stage and it finally worked. He decided at literally the very last minute that he would go up and get a picture. And it just happened to end up being the most wonderful, precious, amazing, fantastic picture with Santa ever. At least according to me. I LOVE IT. I don't think I will ever top this one.
Here are some more cute shots from the festivities...here is Colin with his Mom Mom, the elf. They were checking out the trains, which is always his favorite part. I think he looks so big and grown-up here!

Colin and Mom Mom and Mimi (my mom)...how cool that they are both together with Colin!

Here we are writing a letter to Santa. This was serious business, folks. Colin is dictating.

He was VERY focused. :-)

This face means "Can someone help me memorize this list before he drops it in the mailbox?! PLEASE?!"

Super cute Colin and Mom Mom!

I just love this one! My mom, Jer's mom, Colin and me. What a great morning!

Me and my little man...I was so glad that it FINALLY got cold over the weekend. It was a rainy day and very Christmasy!

I will always cherish this picture of me and my mom with Colin! ALWAYS!

How cute is this one with Jer's mom?! You can really tell how happy Colin was to have both of his grandmothers there...he was glowing!

The perfect end to a great morning!