Christmas

Again I'm still a little behind with sharing holiday pictures, but this is the last of them and then it's time to more forward with 2014. Haha!

This year we had 4 Christmas' you could say. We did Christmas Eve at our place with my sister and brother, Christmas day we went to Shane's family and that evening to my Grandma's and on New Year's Day my mom, sister and brother came over to do Christmas with my mom. We had a good Christmas this year and enjoyed all the family time we got.

Christmas Eve at our place:

We got Kasey a Vera Bradley purse and coin purse.

We got Brandon new shoes.

I made Kasey, Brandon and my mom each a memory frame for Grandpa. I made myself one too and it's already hanging up in the hallway. :)

Had to get a group picture!

Christmas at Shane's Dad house:

Sydney and the book we got her.

Erica was so excited we got her a Hello Kitty purse, she LOVES Hello Kitty. :)

We got Paige a personalized art set with paints, crayons, colored pencils etc...and her name was on the front of it.

Shane and I

Christmas at Grandma's:

Family pictures. I get one of these every year! :)

Heather, Me, Kasey & Brandon

 Me and Lexan. He's getting so big!

 Landon just hanging out. Isn't he the cutest!

 He was passed out cold and look he is posing for the camera already! :)

I didn't get pictures with the Christmas with my mom but it was a good year!

Looking forward to seeing what 2014 has in store for us!

 

Photo Shoot: Thanksgiving/Christmas Celebration

A little over a month ago a friends mom asked if I could shoot their Thanksgiving/Christmas family celebration. The celebration was a little over an hour from me so I had to get up early and head out for a day of photo shooting. My friend that I did this for her family I have known her since middle school and she currently lives in Florida, so it was nice getting to spend sometime with her and seeing her be with her family. I had a good time at the celebration and got lots of pictures.

To see more from this shoot, please visit my Facebook Page.



Merry Christmas!!!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!

I hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!!!

Shane and I have a busy day today. We will head over to Shane's dad around 10:30-11am and open gifts and have Christmas dinner there. We are having Steak this year, yummy!!

After we are done there around 6:30pm we will head out to my Grandma's for more family fun. This year at my G-ma's we decided not to do a big dinner but just have desserts since everyone goes places during the day and is eating all day. I did make a festive dessert to take which I will post later.

Enjoy the day with your families and be safe if you are traveling!!!



Peanut Butter Eclair Cake

This is another yummy dessert that I found on Pinterest! I made this for a dessert for my Grandma's house for Christmas dinner. It turned out really good and I can't wait to make it again! 

Ingredients:

• 1 box chocolate graham crackers (there will be a few leftover)
• (3 ¼ oz) boxes vanilla instant pudding
• 1 cup peanut butter
• 3 ½ cups milk
• 1 (8 oz) container cool whip, thawed
• 1 can chocolate frosting

Directions

1. Spray bottom of a 9x13 pan with cooking spray.
2. Line bottom of pan with whole graham crackers.
3. In electric stand mixer, mix pudding with milk and peanut butter; beat at medium speed for 2 mins. Fold in whipped topping.
4. Pour half the pudding mixture over graham crackers.
5. Place another layer of whole graham crackers on top of pudding layer.
6. Pour remaining half of pudding mixture and cover with another layer of graham crackers.
7. Heat container of prepared frosting, uncovered in the microwave for 1 min.
8. Pour over the top of the cake
9. Refrigerate for at least 12 hours. 

Our new toy!!!

I told Shane a few months back that I think we should get a tablet. I love my laptop don't get me wrong but it's such a hassle sometimes when we need to look something up and we don't want/can't on our phone. So, I thought having a little tablet for the living room would be great. :) He agreed so we decided that would be something for Christmas to get along with our stand mixer we wanted. We ended up getting the stand mixer sometime in November and I told him after the first of the year we would work on getting the tablet. 

Christmas has come and gone and we got our new Nexus 7 tablet!!! Thanks to my mom and grandpa for the Christmas money we ended up only have to spend a little of our own money for this new toy! 

It was a pain trying to find this tablet anywhere, it was something everyone wanted! We were going to get the 16GB tablet but this was sold out everywhere and no one knew when more were coming in....so finally I said let's just get the 32GB and spend some of our money to get it. So that's what we did, Shane got on his phone while we were out at dinner and found our tablet right next door and after dinner we went and got it! 

I was so happy and couldn't wait to play with it! I love it! I love that I can sit on the couch and watch a show if I'm not interested in what the hubby is watching. It's so little and so easy to work! I think this is going to be a great investment for us! 

Brownie Peppermint Cookies

This year for Christmas Shane and I did some baking for our family as gifts. We each got to pick something out we thought would be fun and yummy! Shane picked Apple Bread, I picked these Brownie Peppermint Cookies and we both decided to add some fudge to each bag. Everything turned out great and very yummy!

This is another recipe I got off Pinterest. 

Cookies:

• 1 package brownie mix (I made my own mix)
• 1 1\4 cups all purpose flour
• 1\4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1\4 tsp salt
• 2 large eggs
• 2 tbsp milk
• 1\2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 recipe vanilla cream frosting
• 1\2 cup crushed peppermint candy canes

Vanilla Frosting:

• 4 cups powdered sugar
• 1\2 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 6 tbsp heavy cream
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1\4 tsp salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees
2. Butter cookie sheet and see aside
3. In large mixing bowl mix flour, brown sugar and salt. Add I'm eggs and milk and stir with a large spoon. Add in melted butter, vanilla and peppermint extract, stir um till well blended.
4. Spoon dough by heaping tablespoonfuls OK into greased cookie sheet (you can fit 12 per sheet).
5. Bake for 10-12 mins.
6. Cool completely before frosting and adding candy canes.

My Nieces!

Back at the beginning of December Shane and I thought it would be fun to take our nieces out and do their pictures for Christmas gifts. We couldn't have asked for a more wonderful day in December to go out and take pictures. It was almost 60 degrees out! A girl at work told me about this pretty place that had a lake and some pretty waterfalls called Cedar Creek. It's a really pretty subdivision of HUGE house (nothing we can afford that's for sure). This place was the perfect for the girls to take pictures. I was so happy with this place and I can't wait to go back. :)

Here are some of my fav's from their pictures:

To see more from this shoot, please visit my Facebook Page.

Christmas Time!!

Christmas Day has come and gone and it was a wonderful year!!! Now it's time to post about our wonderful time together and get back into a normal routine. LOL

We had 3 different Christmas celebrations. All of them were such a great time spending all day with our families. 

Our first celebration was on Sunday Dec 23rd with some of my family. Everyone came over to our house for gifts and chili. We had a fun time hanging out and enjoying the family all afternoon.

My nephew Lexan cheesing. LOL

 My sweet frame from my sister and her boyfriend. I can't wait to hang it up! it says "Wickliffe"

 All of us! Heather, Me, Kasey & Brandon

Shane and I did our Christmas, Christmas Eve night since we had a full day on Christmas Day. I think one of my gifts was too big for my stocking (it was slow cooker). LOL

 Kira loved all her gifts and she couldn't wait to get her treats out of her stocking. 

Christmas Day we got up early and headed over to Shane's Dad's house. We made dinner over there and hung out all day. 

The girls all snuggled up b/c it was chilly!

 Sydney checking out her awesome ornament we got her. 

Which was hand painted by Eileen's Hand Painted Gifts. She did an awesome job on all the ones I ordered!

 This was Shannon and Stef opening pictures of their girls. Shane and I took their girls out and did pictures at the beginning of Dec for gifts. They turned out so good!! (I will be posting on them soon).

After we left his dads house we headed out to my grandma's for more Christmas fun! 

I hope everyone had a great Christmas and got lots of goodies!!