Enjoying Christmas time

This is soooo Maddie! She totally dug the eye mask gift. She actually wears it at night...which I'm sure wouldn't be too surprising. She's snuggling up with her American doll (Bitty Baby) that she named "Holly". The doll has so many similarities to Maddie when she was a baby...the cute cheeks, nose and lips.
Hudson was enjoying the holiday the way it should be for a kid his age! He is such a cute and fun kid.
This is one of Jordans favorite things...model airplanes (or real ones too!)
One of Hudson's first smiles caught on camera. He loves to smile, coo, snort, and make some weird frog noise. Most of all, he loves being right in the mix of things. He loves to lay in the center of the room and just fall to sleep. He has a harder time falling to sleep in a quiet crib. Oh! I made the quilt he's lying on for his gift from us. I'm just a beginner... but it was so fun!
This is some of Hudson's gift's from Santa...he has absolutely no idea what is going on, he was just laying there waiting for someone to talk to him!
Jordan and grandpa watching Batman on Jordan's DVD player. Hey Lindsay, if you read this, CAUTION!! THIS IS NOT A MOVIE FOR BRIDGER! IT WILL CREATE A LIFETIME OF NIGHTMARES!
Jordan picked out this cute Hannah Montana watch to give Maddie. She loves it!

Dance, Dance, Dance!

Every couple of months, the parents get to go and watch a portion of what the kids are learning in their dance class. On Monday, we got to see a portion of Maddie's class dance. My camera couldn't record the whole thing, but here is part of it.

PJ's!

Joel and I hanging out in our jammies!
One of Grandma Nielson's traditions is to get all the grand kids new Christmas jammies. They all look so cute and just ready to wake up to see that Santa has come! The kids just love it!
Even little Hudson got some cute monkey jammies, Maddie got sock monkey ginger bread men PJ's.
Maddie rocked Hudson asleep. How sweet!
Do you believe Hudson cries? Well he does, he can't be perfect in every aspect:)
Hudson was hanging out in this picture just watching us make Gingerbread houses and listen to Joel pounding peppermints.

Gingerbread Houses!

On our snowy Saturday, we made Gingerbread houses. We had so much fun...it's fun to see everyone's creativity come out.

This is Jordan's Gingerbread house...it reminds me of Rainbow Bright!
This one is Maddie's house...I love the pond all around the side with the fish.
This is mom and dad's house...it has light posts and everything all around it...it is a masterpiece!
This one is me and Joel's house...he made a taco car in front of the house with a cool gingerbread dude driving it. (below)
The coolest gingerbread man ever! Check out those eyes!
Us.
Mom and dad.

How to smash peppermints?

Last Saturday, was really snowy and icky, so we decided to make Ginger Bread Houses, and Joel wanted to make peppermint bark...slight problem though, we seriously could not get that many peppermints smashed, So we began trying a lot of methods and experiments. Take a look...



The beautiful finished product, and it was sooo good. In case you were wondering, the car did not smash all the peppermints, Joel just ended up pounding each individual one with the back of a heavy ice cream scoop. Good job Joel!

Growing kids!

These pictures were taken just recently. Jordan is 11 (12 in March) Maddie is 7 and Hudson was 2 mo. in this photo. They grow too fast!

Hudson slept during the whole sitting!

My personal favorite...he is just a little sweetheart! He is truly as sweet as he looks. He is such a good baby (thank heavens!) We are so lucky to have him in our family.

Madison is 7 Years Old!

Happy Birthday Maddie! You are a cute and sweet girl! You add so much personality to our family. As a lot of people know, we call you "mother Maddie" because you are always so cute to look out for all of us. Your smile can brighten anyone's day. We love you!!
Maddie had a great birthday. She had 4 parties, the lucky girl. Everyone was so cute to give her such cute and thoughtful gifts. She is a well loved little girl. She loves all her gifts. She received this gorgeous Christmas dress from Grandma and loves to twirl in it.
Maddie got to go ice skating for the first time and loved it! She rode on a hay ride with Santa Claus, she got to have her cousin stay over for almost the whole weekend, eat at her favorite restaurant (Texas Roadhouse) and enjoyed a Tinkerbell cake, a cake that looks like a cell phone, a homemade cake and a bunch of cupcakes. When Maddie found out she was having so many parties, she said "Oh yeah! I'll get a lot of cake!" (she takes after Joel on that one). She got just a little spoiled this birthday:)

Maddie received this cute outfit for her birthday, and tried to wear it 2 days in a row to school. She thought it was so cute! She also had a friends party, which wow! 6-7 year old girls are wild! We had dinner, then had my friend that does "All About Beads" come over and they got to pick out their beads and make a bracelet, then we made cupcakes. It was so fun...and crazy. She has some cute friends. We love our cute Maddie and we are so glad that she is starting to feel better!