Christmas 2012

Well Christmas has come and gone and now we prepare to start a new year. The month of December has been a joyous one full of tradition and special moments. I apologize for bundling it all in one post but I will claim I was too busy even though laziness played a part as well. Here are our December highlights:

Broderick learned several new tricks this month - clapping, waving, and saying da-da. He has also become a little faster at army crawling.

Tyler enjoyed a train ride at the holiday festival in Cameron Park. The train was also "robbed" by some dirty bandits, it was quite a show! 

Here is our little 12 footer. It's normally several feet taller than this.

View of the some of the decorations. It takes days to put up and days to take down! 

I of course did lots of baking. Here are the reindeer heads I made out of gingerbread  The recipe I use calls for butterscotch pudding mix instead of molasses. Its my fav! RECIPE 

   

Broderick loved the Christmas tree. I had him upstairs with me and he army crawled over to the banister to get a better view. It was so cute! 

I made this cute little elf craft that I saw on pinterest. 

Here are a few pictures from our ward Christmas party where the boys got to see Santa. Broderick didn't quite know what to think of him.

Beard test

I couldn't get Broderick to take his eyes off of Santa. 

Daddy liked to joke that Broderick's hat was a Christmas yamaka. It was supposed to be a "elf" hat which is why it looks so tiny. 

 He was enthralled with daddy's hair. 

Here we are on Christmas Sunday.  It was just the two of us since Deke had to work and Tyler was at his dads. Broderick loves his life sized Santa. See them holding hands?

And then we have Christmas Eve! This is the evening where my whole family comes together for a delicious ham dinner and gift exchange.

Cousins!

Brothers!

Kyla helped Broderick opens his presents while he ate the paper.

This was Tyler's excited face to get the game "hedbanz"

What would Christmas Eve be without an assortment of goodies! 

Santa came! 

Broderick checking out his stocking

Santa brought Tyler his very own camera. 

 Skylander Giants!! 

 Christmas morning is a beautiful mess

What the boys got for each other 

Tyler pushing Broderick around the house in this new Micky Mouse stroller 

Tyler helping make Christmas breakfast

Always have to have puff pancakes! Or what some would call German pancake

And of course we skyped with family who couldn't be with us this year. 

Christmas day was also a milestone for Broderick as he turned 9 months old!

the end

Family Halloween Costumes

Some of my favorite family Halloween costumes from this year. 

While out trick or treating we found a family of Lego's. 

Beetlejuice (seriously AWESOME costumes). 

There was another Beetlejuice but he was hiding behind his mama. You can see his little striped leg at the bottom of her dress. 

Flintstones 

My preggo sister and niece Kyla 

and my very favorite, US! lol I'm not partial at all 

Halloween cakes

I made two cakes for this Halloween. This first one was for my brothers birthday. I hope that someday I can plan to have a baby in October because I was always so jealous of my brothers birthday parties in October. There is SO much you can do to make them fun! 

Spiderweb cake

I don't like the spider on top. I would forgo next time or make it another color. 

Sewer Rat Cake

The second cake was for my work "creepy dessert contest". My hubby and I teamed up on this one and decided to make a sewer rat on top of a big block of cheese. He made the rat out of sculpted rice crispy and modeling chocolate. The whiskers are fishing line. 

The man hard at work. 

The cake was two 9" yellow round cakes with almond cream frosting and marshmallow fondant. My part and nice and simple. 

I think above all this cake was extremely unique and we won first place :)