Thanksgiving has passed so it is officially the Christmas season!! Wow that went fast! 🙂
Thanksgiving went without any hitches! Woo-hoo! We hosted for 5 other friends and I was a little nervous about it all going over well (my first time to host for people other than family!). I *might* have went a little crazy with the planning…Dan still ridicules me about my down to the minute timeline…but it worked and the day went smooth with everything coming out on time AND I actually got to relax and enjoy the day as well! I am going to be doing my insane timeline EVERY year from now on! We even had the challenge of making a completely gluten-free Turkey Day and I enjoyed finding new recipes and tinkering with old ones! The only things that didn’t turn out all that great were the dinner rolls. Without the gluten you just can’t get a nice firm dough! They still tasted decent….but they left a lot to be desired in the looks area.
Now though I need to focus on Christmas! We are headed out this next week to find our perfect Christmas tree….seriously one of my favorite traditions. I am a little bummed that due to the insane drought we had the crops don’t allow for cutting them ourselves this year :*(  Oh well we will still load up on hot cider and goodies while we pick it out. Poor Dan is already scared because I keep measuring the area we have to determine exactly how big we can go….I do love me a HUGE tree! I know some people love fake trees for the ease….but it just isn’t Christmas without a gorgeous real tree. It is a million times better for the environment too so that makes me feel even better! 🙂
I’ve already started stocking up on Christmas gifts for Harper with the after Turkey Day sales. We tend to go overboard at Christmas but with her birthday and Christmas exactly 6 months apart we tend to not buy her new toys until it gets so close to the big day that it makes more sense to just hold out and go big! Next year will probably be the last year we do that since I don’t want her expectations to be set at 20+gifts a year! 🙂
Here is what is on our list for the little Princess:
Play kitchen built by Dan – This will be her big gift from Santa (Santa typically only brings one large unwrapped gift in our home). I can NOT wait for it to be completed! The play kitchen I originally wanted was selling for almost $900 (yeah that is not going to happen!) and Dan said he could easily build me something just as nice for a heck of a lot less. We scoured the internet for pictures of different play kitchens, took the designs we liked and I drew out some plans on what I was wanting. I have faith that it is going to be great…and a LOT more special since it will be built by daddy!
Learning Tower – Harper is very into wanting to do everything with mommy and we have slowly been working on learning to pour/mix so she can help in the kitchen. This will be perfect for her!
Melissa & Doug Shopping Cart – Harper LOVES to play in the grocery area at the Children’s Museum….she is going to be so excited to have her own cart to push at home!
Wooden Play Food – I got several different sets of food for her kitchen. I especially love the one that has fruits & veggies that you can practice cutting on (held together with velcro!)
Pots/Pans/Spatulas – What is a play kitchen without something to cook with?
Plus tons of new clothes, coloring books, play-dough, etc! Spoiled oh spoiled! 🙂
I love it though. The holidays are so amazing with kids!! I have a ton of cute little projects lined up for the month….snowflake cut-outs for the playroom, making salt dough ornaments, etc. I feel so blessed to have an adorable daughter AND to get to stay at home with her and enjoy all these little moments.
Now just to figure out what the heck to get my husband……