The Holidays are Here!

 Our new Christmas tree.   After years of fighting with the lights and each other OVER the lights, we broke down and bought a new pre-lit tree this year.   It is also self-shaping, so it was up and ready to decorate in about 15 minutes.   It felt strange, but I don't miss the hours of putting on lights!

 This year I am attempting to make my own dressing.  I even dried and cubed the bread!   It was a labor of love, so I hope our guests like it.  I used this recipe from Allrecipes.com because of all the great reviews. 

 Here's Eli's crab ornament from last year.    I found 3 new ones this year at Hobby Lobby and will try to post pictures later.   

 This is our first ornament as a couple.   I sent it to Jason while we were living miles and miles apart.    

I was playing around with the camera today and here's one shot of some of the shiny glass balls.    I love trying to photograph the Christmas tree.   Hopefully my pictures will get better with practice.  

Happy Thanksgiving.

Today we decided to put up the tree. Our tradition is to always put it up on Thanksgiving night, but we didn't do it this year because we weren't sure if we were going to put it up at all. The house has seemed very sad without it so we broke down and pulled it out of the attic tonight. I remember how much Eli loved the lights last year and I think if nothing else, we needed to put it up to remember those good times. It is getting close to a time of bad memories, so we should remember how great this time of year was a year ago...we still had no idea what SMA was at this point.

Christmas 2009

Today we took Eli's tree out to the cemetery along with a basket of pansies. I had bought Chrsitmas flowers for the rest of the family too. It makes me sad to see so many bare graves out there. If my lottery gamble every pays off I will cover that place in flowers. I try to take a few extra bunches for some of them each time I go, but there are so many that need some TLC.

Christmas Day

Breakfast! Homemade cinnamon rolls. Jason did a great job on these....they were YUMMY!
Eli in his Christmas jammies with his new toy from Aunt Crista

Eli and his stocking

Eli and his present from Santa

We had a nice Christmas day despite the fact that neither Jason nor I really got much sleep. Eli has had a few bad nights of not wanting to sleep so it has been rough on us. Crista was kind enough to come up today and watch him for a few hours so we could take a nap. We had a lot of Jason's family over on Christmas for dinner, as well as my good friends who made the best casseroles! I was so tired but had a great time. I did miss my family but they were in my thoughts.

Christmas Eve

Our family in our Christmas PJs
Eli loves his new monkey

Grandma and Papaw got him a puppy to chew on

Daddy was tired

Jason and I spent most of this day by ourselves with Eli. We made lots of yummy appetizers and snacked the evening away while opening our gifts from each other. Crista came up later that night and we opened presents again.

Elf On a Shelf

I LOVE traditions and one I recently learned about is Elf on a Shelf. I found a blog that is actually giving away the set and I would LOVE to win! To check out the tradtion, visit Elf on a Shelf or to see the giveaway, here's the blog! I will probably buy this even if we don't win, but it would be SO nice to actually win something we really really want!

Eli's 3 month and Christmas Pics

It's Beginning to Look a lot Like Christmas...

I'm having technical issues with the camera lately (bad user) but I wanted to share the tree and the fireplace. I would post the village but a hurricane of cats have destroyed it over the past week. Trees have been uprooted and none of the people are still standing. (The stockings were hung by the chimney with great care, just in case you were wondering) :)

A good friend at work made my day today (Thanks, Rebecca) by bringing me some stamps sets and a stamp pad she had duplicates of. Wasn't that the sweetest thing EVER? I certainly thought so and I can't wait to use them! I'll post some cards when I do.

I wanted to share a new recipe today. This one is YUM and can be modified to your taste.

Green Chili Cheesy Chicken Enchiladas

Ingredients
10 medium tortilla, flour, fat-free
4 oz chopped green chilies
3 oz fat-free or reduced-fat cream cheese
1 cup onion(s), diced
1.5 cups shredded cooked chicken breasts
1 can green enchilada sauce
1/4 cup Reduced fat Mexican blend shredded cheese
1 cup salsa or picante sauce

Instructions
Preheat oven to 350 and spray a 9x 13 pan with cooking spray. Add a little enchilada sauce to the bottom of the pan. Cook onion in a medium pan until soft. Add chicken, green chilies, salsa, and cream cheese. Mix well. Spread mixture down the middle of tortilla and roll up. Place seam side down in pan. Continue until all tortillas are used. Spread any remaining mixture over the top of tortillas. Pour remaining green enchilada sauce over all and bake 30 minutes, covered. Sprinkle with cheese last 10 minutes.