Christmas Parties

This year's Christmas parties in review ....

Our first party was with the Bussis (my mom's) side of the family a couple of weeks before Christmas. Opening presents for Addison is a long process, she removes one small piece of paper at a time and cannot continue until she gives someone the piece in her hand. Funny, because Noelle is typically our neat and orderly child.

Noelle was so proud of her new games


Christmas Eve, when daddy got home from work after lunch we let the girls open their presents from us.

Helping daddy assemble their new John Deere trike!

We stayed overnight by Grandpa and Grandma Nienhuis on Christmas Eve, ate breakfast together and then headed to the basement for family pictures and more presents!

Emptying her stocking, she was pretty sure that she would find candy in there ... she guessed right!

Sunday we celebrated with my family

Too much excitement for Addison, she climbed onto their new dollhouse and announced that she was going ni-night. :)

We also got together with the extended Geurink family on Tuesday night and celebrate with the extended Nienhuis family on New Year's Day. So needless to say we've been very busy, but we have enjoyed the fun and fellowship and sharing the joy of this season with our families!

Riviera Maya

Since we celebrate our anniversary in December (eight years already this year!) we have a great excuse to get away from the cold and snow to warmth and sunshine! We don't buy eachother Christmas or anniversary gifts but enjoy time away together instead. This time we spent the first half of the week on our own and our friends Bryan and Betsy joined us for the last half of the week. It was a perfect arrangement! We stayed at the Grand Sirenis, probably the nicest resort we've ever been to ... had excellent service, beautiful property and yummy food. We had a wonderfully relaxing time, felt so good to get away from busyness and responsibilities.

Headed to the beach

Watching our food being prepared at the Japanese restaurant

Enjoying our breakfast outdoors

Laying out in the sun with a good book and a gorgeous view, doesn't get much better!

Dinner at the Italian restaurant

The hotel lobby

Holiday Tradition

Since I had decided we were just going to stay safe and warm in our house on this cold and snowy day, I figured it was the perfect time to turn on the Christmas music and make our Christmas cookies. So I mixed up some red and green frosting, rolled out the cookie dough, and let the girls go to work. It was an absolute mess, but they had so much fun, and that was the whole point. :)

Let it Snow!

What a beautiful day! I am not a huge snow/cold fan, but I must admit that I am enjoying the view outside my windows today! I guess it helps that we didn't have plans to go anywhere, it's not that I dislike snow so much as I dislike driving in it. Noelle wasn't about to let me just enjoy the view though, pretty much as soon as she got up this morning she was asking to go outside and play. Finally I gave in and although we probably spent more time getting dressed than we spent outside, she was satisfied. Noelle probably would have spent the entire morning outdoors, but Addison thinks like mommy and didn't want to spend too long out in the cold.

Noelle learning how to make a snow angel

SO excited!!

Of course Addison was much happier once she found something to climb

And a few pics that I took earlier this week, just because I thought they were cute :)

Christmas Pictures

Thanksgiving Day

We had a very fun and busy holiday weekend ... two Thanksgiving get-togethers, some Black Friday shopping, scrapbooking, and a date night for Matt and I were some of the highlights. It was a wonderful weekend spent with family and friends and just reminds me again of what a long list of things I have to be thankful for.

Following are some pics of our Thanksgiving dinner with the extended Nienhuis family.

Grandma and Delani made some cute pilgrim hat cookies, Addison thought they made great appetizers.

Auntie Karin brought some fun hats for picture taking

All the boy cousins were at 'man camp' all week, so Delani, Kate, Noelle and Addison got to have some girl time. :)