A Very Merry Christmas

The big day has come and gone and I finally got to see what all was in those gifts under our tree!

We had a great Christmas. With my brother's family and my parents in town, both my grandmas, my cousin and Matt's family, we had a full house this year; full of love, laughter and even a few tears. 

The highlights for me were celebrating the birth of our Savior at our church's Christmas Eve service with my family(we took up a whole row!), putting Addy's kitchen together and watching her reaction on Christmas morning, my Dad's tears as he opened a calendar we made him, spending the day with my family and Matt's family and actually getting to wish my cousin, Jamie, "Merry Christmas" in person for the first time in years. Those memories and the following pictures, will be what I remember about Christmas 2012.

Getting ready for the River of Lights

All 3 of us, rockin' the homemade beanies

Watching the choo-choo

Reading with Mamaw

All dressed up for Christmas Eve activities

Getting into trouble

Playing Santa

Oh! These two kill me

 

Sweet ladies, I married into a good family

The sad reality of taking family pictures with a toddler; someone is always blurry

Aren't my parents cute?

Addy and her Christmas surprise

The sweet hat and apron were a gift from her Auntie Morgan

Grandparents and their Grandbabies

I hope you all had a very Merry Christmas! We sure did :)

Christmas Time at the Danner's

I am just loving our house this time of year. 

Our Christmas decorations might not be magazine worthy, but I like them and Matt puts up with them for the Christmas season. And since the Christmas season seems to go by so quickly I thought I would take some time to document what our house looks like this year. 

I love having a fireplace this time of year.

I finally got around to making our stockings this year. We took a little trip to hobby lobby and we each picked our own fabric, then I stitched them together. 

There's a bunch of love under that tree. Looks like our gift exchange is going to be fun one this year.

Some of my favorite ornaments: 

The chef from the Muppets was a gift from Mat // Addy's first Christmas was last year and I love the picture of her in that ornament // Addy's hand print from last year // the view of our tree from my favorite spot on the couch. 

The little elf on the ladder is a hand-me-down from Matt's parents and I love how old it is  // Since Addy is obsessed with trains this year, I bought a train for her to put on the tree // The Alaskan totem pole was a souvenir from our honeymoon // the airplane was another hand-me-down from my in-laws and I think it's great.

Getting the mail has been a lot more exciting this time of year, with all the sweet Christmas cards waiting to be opened. I hang most of them on a piece of ribbon with clothes pins and then set some on the table. How do you display your holiday cards?

I was never meant to be a teacher because I have no skills when it comes to writing on the chalkboard, but I love having a place to display the lyrics from my favorite Christmas song.

"A thrill of hope, the weary world rejoices."

So that's the end of the tour. I'm hoping to slowly add to our decorations in the upcoming years, but for now, I think what we have is just great!

What's your favorite Christmas decoration?

Christmas is Almost Here!

Christmas is only days away and the Christmas spirit is going strong at the Danner house.

We have all of our presents bought, wrapped and under the tree, thanks to our sweet little helper.

The first of our Christmas guests arrived today. My brother came up just in time for a bike ride with Matt and his buddies and he brought a plethora of gifts with him. Our tree is over flowing with Christmas goodies.

While the boys are out mountain biking and braving the cold, Addy and I are enjoying a lazy day at home, watching Christmas movies and trying to perfect my homemade Peppermint Mocha. 

Matt and his Dad have been working hard all week trying to get our house Christmas-ready and comfortable for all our guests. He let's Addy "help" him with some things and she loves it! 

We've been wanting to paint and update our guest bathroom for forever and we finally got around to it. I wasn't a huge fan of the paper mache Orecks at first but it's grown on me. It's bold and statement making!

With Christmas coming up, we decided to give up on growing Addy's hair out and finally get rid of the mullet. Here she is last Sunday in her church attire, pre-haircut.

And here's the new do. I love it and wished my hair looked that good short.

What are your plans for Christmas?
 I'm looking forward to church tomorrow and our Christmas eve service. What a treat it will be to worship with my family and our church family.

I also have to admit that I'm pretty anxious to find out what's in all those gifts. We have a special surprise for Addy that doesn't fit under the tree and I can't wait for her to see it.

Five for Friday

Check out other Fridays here.

1. You spent hours this week and several trips to Lowe's getting our house ready for Christmas guests.
2. You asked Addy to help you with your projects and it totally makes her day
3. You got your Christmas shopping done early!
4. "You never get hurt plumbing."
5. I'm excited for another Christmas with you in our home, which you work to hard to make so nice.

P.S. I love you :)

Five for Friday

Check out other Fridays here.

1. You went to wake Addy up so she wouldn't be mad at me the rest of the day.
2. You play choo-choo around the house with Addy
3. You are re-doing our guest bathroom for our Christmas guests
4. You tried to be sneaky about your Christmas shopping until someone tried to use our Credit Card and cut your shopping short.
5. We have a date eating indian food and doing a puzzle together planned for tonight!

Trains, Babies and Life with Addy Lately

My blogging has been sparse lately but I thought it was time for a little Addy update. 

It seems that every night Matt and I go to bed talking about something sweet or silly she did that day. She turned 21 months old this weekend and although we find ourselves disciplining more, it seems she has also never been sweeter.

I might have mentioned her small obsession with trains before. On Friday we took her to ride the train at the mall for the first time. This was quite the treat for her since she asks about the train as soon as we walk into the mall. 

Matt rode with her and when it was time to get off, she cried; a sign that she did indeed have a good time. 

We've been building a lot of "choo-choos" around the house lately; book choo-choos, animal choo-choos and this morning she even made a choo-choo out of two sticks of deodorant. 

Whenever I ask her if she wants to watch a show she'll say "choo-choo? Ah ah?" Basically asking to watch George and a train show. Unfortunately there is only one Curious George with a train and there are only so many times we can watch that one. 

Addy also has a new thing for babies, or "Bay-bays" as she calls them. It might be one of my favorite words of hers because it sounds like she has a little southern accent when she says it. The other day we ran into a friend at Target who has a baby. She started crying when said good bye to them and through out the whole store kept saying "Bay-bay, bye!" in a pathetic little voice that got a lot looks from other shoppers. 

Sometimes she forgets to use her inside voice at places like Target or the Library and when I tell her to ask her to please be quieter, she asks "Bay-bay?" 

Speaking of inside voices, some one is starting to stir from her nap. Gotta go!

More on life with Addy later. (I hope)

Belated Five for Friday

Check out other Friday's here.

1. Wow! This week was a doozie, thanks for sticking it out and taking such good care of your girls.
2. This week was also your first week at your new job and you LOVED it, in an "I don't deserve this" kind of way.
3. You did all the grocery shopping and the cooking this week.
4. You and Addy sing "Baby it's Cold Outside" together.
5. After a long week, you took your girls for a fun outing at the mall. Sadly, it ended early on account of the stomach flu. It's the thought that counts.

P.S. I love you :)

Thanksgiving, Decking the Halls and Other Randomness

I've been meaning to write a post for weeks, but once again life has gotten in the way. It seems that we've been going non-stop since Halloween. We travelled twice this month and every time we come home, I'm amazed at how long it takes to recover from vacation. 

We "skipped" Thanksgiving this year and spent a wonderfully relaxing tow days in Colorado with Matt's sister and her family (a.ka. Carter and his parents). The kiddos loved spending two days straight together and since none of us are big turkey fans, we enjoyed a delicious non-traditional meal of Chicken and Dumplings, made by Auntie Morgan.

For the first time ever, I broke the "rules" and got into the Christmas spirit early this year. And by that I mean, we were listening to Christmas music a couple of days before Thanksgiving and I opened the Christmas box up on Thanksgiving Eve. Sometimes I feel like there should be a week in between November and December that is just spent enjoying all things about Christmas. There really isn't enough time between Thanksgiving and the 25th.

We got the tree up this past weekend and besides stockings (hoping to make some this year), we're all set! I even re-covered our pillows with a more wintery fabric. Sorry about the bad picture.




Addy isn't allowed to touch or play with the ornaments on the big tree but she does have two trees of her own that she can decorate over and over again. Thank you Pinterest for the felt tree idea!




As of last night, we have over half of our presents purchased, which means that besides a little Christmas shopping and crafting, we can sit back, relax and actually enjoy this season. Maybe I can get back to blogging again.

Addy is continuing to grow and change everyday. Her vocabulary is also expanding, although it might not be quite accurate. She has started referring to me as "me," which actually makes sense. I often ask her if she would like to come help me or go with me. Hopefully she'll figure that one out someday.



She's developed a small obsession with trains and goes around saying "choo-choo! choo-choo!" We've been watching some Thomas the Train Engine on Netflix but it usually puts Matt and I to sleep.

Matt starts a new job on Monday and has had the past three days off, so it's felt a little like a holiday around here. Yay for answered prayers in new jobs and days off!

There you have it, a little long post about what's been going on around here.

Happy Friday friends! Have a great weekend!

Five for Friday

Check out other Fridays here.

1. You've been taking good care of your girls this week, making sure we take our vitamins and eat well.
2. You bought going away plants for your co-workers
3. Your co-workers were sad to see you go
4. You've been such a hard worker this past year, thank you for that
5. You start your new job on Monday! Congrats! I'm so excited for you!

P.S. I love you :)

Five for Friday

Check out other Friday's here.

1. You sent out an "olive branch"
2. You have high expectation for your relationships
3. You made a point of being very "go with the flow"
4. You've turned me on to White IPA
5. When I came home last night, you were watching Parks and Rec... I told you it was good!

P.S. I love you :)

Meeting Baby Tate

Last week we flew up to Portland Oregon. It was our first time in Oregon and our first time to meet this handsome little guy:

Tate Jackson; Addy's newest cousin.

He was already six weeks old when we finally made it up there, but I think he was worth the wait. Look at those handsome eyes!

Addy thought he was pretty cool. 

We've been singing "The Wheels on Bus" song a lot lately and she loves the part where the baby goes wa wa wa. Whenever we would talk about Baby Tate or whenever she realized he was there, she would do the hand motions for that part of the song and say "wa!"

She loved giving him kisses and even got to "hold" him a few times.

It's hard to believe my "little" brother is dad!

What a pleasure it was to meet you sweet Baby Tate! We're looking forward to spending your very first Christmas with you!