Christmas Card

Hello everyone. I would like to thank you all for the beautiful Christmas cards you have sent to me this year. I was planning on sending out cards this year and I even ordered pictures to put in them but thanks to Wal-Mart photo lab those pictures have still not arrived. So instead I am going to blog a Christmas card this year!!

I hope you all have a very Merry Christmas filled with love, laughter, and the spirit of giving.
Merry Christmas & A Happy New Year
Love,
The Eldredge Family

Elf Yourself

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Christmas Tag

1. Wrapping paper or gift bags? Paper, I love wrapping and I think it cheats you out of the present opening experience to just open a bag and pull out your present.(even though they do have some really cute bags)
2. Real tree or Artificial? I would like to have a fake one to save money but my hubby grew up with real trees his whole life and MUST have a real one. Plus I like the smell of the real ones!
3. When do you put up the tree? There haven't been many years that we haven't put the Christmas tree up the day after Thanksgiving. (And have to take it down Christmas day because we are afraid of the fire hazard!LOL)
4. When do you take the tree down? Oops I answered the this one in the above question.
5. Do you like eggnog? Less and less every year so I usually limit my intake to 1 or 2 glasses a year. I like diluting it down with milk. I have never been brave enough to try the sprite or 7-up diluting. 
6. Favorite gift received as a child? Probably our Trampoline
7. Hardest person to buy for? Russell
8. Easiest person to buy for? Kennadee. It's a little TOO easy. If I had money that girl would be so SPOILED!!
9. Do you have a nativity scene? Yep, I even painted it myself.
10. Best Christmas gift you ever received? This year we are getting a house does that count?
11. Worst Christmas gift you ever received? I can't think of one.
12. Favorite Christmas Movie (s)? Home Alone 1&2, The Santa Claus 1&3,Elf, & Christmas Shoes

13. When do you start shopping for Christmas? Depends on the year this year I started in September. Two years ago I started in July.
14. Have you ever recycled a Christmas present? Yep
15. Favorite thing to eat at Christmas? Breakfast Casserole & All of our homemade candies.
16. Lights on the tree? Yes we do tons and tons of lights
17. Favorite Christmas song? Baby it's cold outside (the Zoey Deschanel version from Elf)
18. Travel at Christmas or stay home? This year we are staying here. We will go back and forth between our house & Diana's.
19. Can you name all of Santa's reindeer's? Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid, Donder, Blitzen, & Rudolph
20. Angel on the tree top or a star? Star
21. Open the presents Christmas Eve or morning? We open one on Christmas Eve (usually pajamas) and the rest Christmas morning
22. Most annoying thing about this time of the year? Absolutely nothing! I love everything about this time of year!!
23. Favorite for Christmas dinner? We don't really have a traditional Christmas Day dinner. We do Clam chowder on Christmas Eve
24. What do you want for Christmas this year? Stuff for the new house

Photo Shoot

My awesome brother-in-law Aaron did a fabulous photo shoot for our family pictures today. He and my sister are budding photographers and have this awesome "ghetto studio" as they call it. But when you look at the pictures he did for us today there is nothing ghetto about them!! Thank you so much Aaron for our awesome pictures!! And thanks for doing them for us on your birthday!! Happy Birthday Man!!

Christmas Sweater

This sweater was mine when I was around Kennadee's age (20+ years ago). I pulled it out of storage this morning to see if it would fit her and it totally does!! When I was little I LOVED that sweater which is why 20 some years later I still have it!! I felt so special when I wore it. It was so warm (now it's a little threadbare) and it had the M on it for Maria! I loved it!! Kennadee likes it a lot too. I told her the M was for Mommy and she said " yeah and the hearts are for Kennadee" It was so cute!! I hope she likes it and feels as special in it as I did when I was her age.

O Christmas Tree

A week or so before Thanksgiving the fancy-schmancy mall in Austin (it's called The Domain) had a Christmas Tree lighting of their Macy's Christmas Tree. They had some carolers perform and then later in the evening there were to be Fireworks and a performance by American Idol winner 2007 Jordan Sparks.  

When we got to the plaza this^ was a close as we were to the stage. But we were a couple of hours early so we didn't think that Kennadee would be able to handle sitting there in her stroller for two hours so we walked around and looked at the stores. We didn't want to feel bad about our poverty stricken selves to we didn't go into many of the stores namely Neiman Marcus,  Barney's New York, Tiffany's, J Crew, & Louis Vuitton. So we mainly hung out in the Borders book store and Macy's.

When it was time to start the show they had a lot of different people perform before it was time to see Jordan they had a little interview with her but it seemed like it would be forever until she performed Kennadee had to go to the bathroom therefore making it impossible for us to stay so we had to go before Jordan performed and before the lighting of the tree. Oh well at least we beat the traffic getting out of there. And we made it to a restaurant before they got really crowded.

Here is Russell trying to warm up Kennadee's hands because she was freezing cold.

And here is our little Christmas tree. We got it the day after Thanksgiving. We weren't going to get a real tree this year. But when Russell saw them at Wal-Mart and that this one was only $25

He HAD to get one!! I just hope it lasts all the way until Christmas. I guess if it doesn't it was cheap enough that we can go get a second one!!

I am so excited for this Christmas season!! Merry Christmas Everyone!!

Thanksgiving

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. We went to my sister Diana's house this year which was the first year of our marriage that we haven't hosted Thanksgiving at our house. It was a little strange not hosting it but it was fun to have a change in tradition.

It was really fun. We had Aaron's sister Alicia and her husband and two boys and we also had our friends the Aleman family join us. 

While we were preparing Dinner Aaron's sister Alicia had some fun crafts for the kids. Kennadee made this pilgrim hat and a picture of a tree where she wrote (with help) what she was thankful for on little leaf stickers and stuck them to the tree. She had lots of fun doing it. 

Here is the gorgeous table full of food. I love all of Diana's fun serving dishes!! They definitely make the food look even better!! We had Turkey (made by Aaron the moistest turkey I have ever had!!) Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes, Gravy, Rolls, Jell-o salad, green beans, sweet potato souffle & pies pies pies for dessert. 

Each plate has three candy corns on it to represent the 3 kernels of corn ration the pilgrims were going to have to eat. We each went around and said three things we were thankful for. It was really cool.

Here is the kiddy table. Kennadee had fun sitting with her cousins & friends at the table. They talked and laughed and had lots of fun. 

(Notice her super short hair? She and her cousin Hannah decided it would be fun to play barber shop and cut their hair. So I had to chop it all of to make it even. GRRRRRR!!)