Jensen Cookie Bash

 One of my fave things to do around the holidays is decorating cookies.  It's not just Christmas season, I love to decorate cookies any holiday!  New Years, Valentine's day, St. Patricks day... You name a holiday I will bake and decorate cookies.  They aren't the nest cookies! lol but I have fun doing them with the kids.  So I've always wanted to do a cookie decorating party,  I find that Christmas is one of the best times to have one.

Last year I actually had a precursor to this cookie decorating extravaganza.  We had a big potluck for Christmas with our Oki fam and for dessert I brought cookies and decorating stuff.  It was nuts, we had about 15-20 kids {we have a big Oki fam} and no real adult supervision but myself .  The other adults were there but they were occupied with real dessert.  I thoroughly enjoyed myself!  I could tell the kids were loving it.  That's when I decided that we would do the real deal next Christmas .

Fast forward to Dec 2013.  This time we had a party at our house.  I baked about 60 cookies and bought all the fixins to make a mean Christmas cookie.  We had a bunch of kids and my table wasn't big enough for them to decorate all at the same time, so we did shifts.   It was super fun.  I know the kids were having a blast.  All the parents looked worried about sugar overdose! lol  The lil kids mainly were just eating all the decor.  Haha. The kids decorated 2 cookies each.  I did cutout sugar cookies of gingerbread men, snowmen, Santas, snowflakes, and just plain round cookies.  The kids were able to choose the shape of cookie.  Luckily we had enough of each shape and none of the kids were sad they didn't get a certain one.    I made all the kids wrap up their creations and take them home.  They didn't need anymore sugar.  So final verdict,  we will keep this as a family tradition.  It was so much fun and I love seeing the creative side of the kids.  I think next year I will add a hot cocoa bar :)

Elf on a Shelf

This was the first year that we used the elves.  The local exchanges don't sell THE elf on a shelf so we bought ours from someone else.  I was interested for a long time but thought Amelia was too young.  She is 4 now and I thought it would be the perfect time to start.   We got the elves, one boy for Nolan and one girl for Amelia.  We got the movie and watched it the night before they made their debut.   It was defiantly a challenge to set them up nightly.  MANY times we forgot and had to think of a quick placement .  I think she loved it though.  Every morning she would race around the house and look for them.  She even cried when she had to say bye.  So final verdict, we are keeping them as a family tradition.  It's fun and who doesn't love elves?

It's All About Tradition!!!

Every year while growing up my parents took us to the mall so we could go see Santa. We would get dressed in our Christmas dresses and wait in line to tell Santa what we wanted for Christmas.  The mall that we went to was indoor, (there aren't many indoor malls in San Diego) so it was pretty awesome we didn't have the wait in the cold.

Now that I have my own family it is no different.  We don't have a mall here but we take our kids to see Santa.  The only thing that did change was Morgan refused to take our kids to see Santa within their first year.  He is in the medical field, more specifically infectious disease.  Since both of our kids were too young to get their flu shots around Christmas time, he didn't want to take that chance.  I think he has seen what the flu can do to someone, especially a young child so he doesn't want to take the risk.   There are so many kids that go through that line, also with all the people , there is just a lot of germs that could be spread.  (I know we probably sound crazy) Totally understandable, so we just took their pics by our tree.  After Amelia's first year, we have taken her ever since.  Since Nolan is now 1 and able to get his flu shot (both of our kids received their flu shots this year) this will be his first year.

This is the first year that we had both our kids in the picture.  The local USO had a Santa set up that you pay $10 per kid and you get the pictures, some of the fee would go towards the USO.  This was the first year Amelia didn't cry.  It was just so precious, the look in her eye when she saw Santa.  She really believed it was him.  Her innocence was just so adorable.  Nolan on the other hand, was screaming bloody murder.  I got to give all the Santas out their a hand, because having probably every other kid cry must be crazy!! Here's to all the Santas out there!!!

Capturing December ::Day 1::

Since it's the last month of the year, I'm going to do a photo a day challenge.  I googled it and apparently its a popular thing and there are photo challenges every month.  Of course I'm at the tail end of the know.  But I found one called Capurting December #capturingdecmber and thought why not.  I'm not going to post it everyday, {that would be madness}  I'm just going to post one week at a time.  Since day 1 was on a Saturday it will be by it's lonesome.

::Day 1::  my view

On the first day of December my family put up the Christmas Tree!  It was nice seeing Mills really get excited about putting ornaments on the tree.   It was really funny because she kept putting multiple ornaments on one branch and we had to explain to her that she needs to spread it out.  She didn't really get that, so we spread the ornament love for her!  I wasn't able to participate that much because it was Nono's feeding time so Morgan and Mills decorating the tree was my view from the couch.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Wow, Thanksgiving is over, Black Friday is over, and Cyber Monday is over.  Holiday season is seriously in full swing.

Our Thanksgiving was pretty mellow this year.  Well all the prep for Thanksgiving at our house was madness.  Since we live in a 1000 square foot apartment in Japan, you can only imagine how small our kitchen is!!!  Luckily we actually have an oven, most people that live off-base don't have that luxury.  This is our 3rd Thanksgiving on Okinawa and every year we have more and more guest and we manage just fine.  We just have to get creative with where we prep and store our food.  Man, do I miss the big fridges, deep freezers, double ovens, and kitchen islands!!  Haha I'm terrible! 

Anyways this year we had 5 of Morgan's Junior sailors over for dinner.  We've had his junior sailors over for the holidays every year since it's really expensive to fly home most don't and we don't want them spending their holidays in the barracks.  It was quite mellow, Morgan made the full spread this year and I took care of a couple things.  I'm so glad I'm married to someone that knows their way around the kitchen.  Not only does he know his way around the kitchen, he can cook the sh*t out of anything!  Me on the other hand, don't really have a feeling for the kitchen, I just like making desserts.  So we ate, and literally right after we were all done eating his jr sailors were practically all passed out on the couch! haha That tryptophan got to them quick!  I'll admit I was a little tired too, especially since we were up super late with the prep and cleaning up.

All in all a really good Thanksgiving.  I'm thankful for my lil family and our wonderful new addition this year.  I'm thankful my husband has a job and able to support our family.  I'm thankful to have great family and friends here and in the states.  I'm hoping that next year we'll be able to spend the holiday season with our families.  Now, on to Christmas!  I've actually got a lot of my Christmas shopping done!  Usually the day after Thanksgiving we decorate the tree and the house for Christmas, we didn't get to that this year.  So we plan on doing it this weekend, can't wait!  It's the MOST wonderful time of the year!

Amelia's School Thanksgiving!

Dinner is served

Sailors of 3rd Marine Division

Getting sleepy

Amelia Asleep

My butterball sleeping

My Famous Pumpkin Cheesecake, eat your heart out Cheesecake Factory!