Spot from school and more Santa too!

Everyone in Lauren's class gets an opportunity (or two, I'm told) to take Spot home for a weekend.  Lauren came home two weeks ago explaining that there was only two names left for Spot.  And that meant if we were the last name, we would get Spot for the entire Christmas break.  Unfortunately Thankfully, we had Spot the weekend before break.

We gave him a makeover...

Took him sledding...

And even baked cookies with him at Grandma's house.

 I think Lauren's favorite part was taking Spot to enjoy bedtime stories with Santa.  The kids got to come dressed in their pj's and listen to Santa read.  He also took time in between to listen to some very excited children.  

 And they weren't telling him what they wanted for Christmas, one told him about how she painted her nails.  Another wanted to know if he knew their Elf on the shelf. 

 The next morning we had to take Spot back to school and turn in our homework assignment (which took mom an hour to complete!!) that showed everyone about his adventures with our family.  

 PS - Billy and I were most excited for Spot to go back to school because we got a little more room in our bed.  Lauren INSISTED Spot sleep with us because she already sleeps with fifteen dolls and stuffed animals leaving no extra room.  She wanted him in the middle of Billy and I...sure, honey...wink, wink.  She then woke up at 3:30am and walked into our room asking where he was.  I said he was happy at the foot of the bed, but Lauren said he HAD to be in the middle.  Half asleep, I complied.  I complied for the next three nights.

XOXO

Aubrey

Merry Christmas Santa!

Aren't they adorable in front of the tree?

We got them all dressed up in their Christmas best to see the big guy.

Even Baby J was in her Christmas best.

We usually hit up Santa on Lauren's birthday, but it didn't work out.  Billy decided to take a day off and we made a day of it.  A longer day than planned because even on a Monday Santa was a 2.5 hour wait.  The kids had no idea because we turned our wait into lunch!

They were so perfectly sweet to Santa.  Telling him exactly what they wanted and looking at him with such wonder.

They both were speaking with these never before heard angelic voices...Santa definitely brings out the best in William and Lauren.  When they got off Santa's lap and were walking away William looked at Santa, waved, and said "Merry Christmas."  Heart.  Melted.

And to top it all off, we got a picture with everyone smiling.  Job well done!

We just have a few more days left to see if they were really naughty or nice?

XOXO

Aubrey

Sunday Sweets {YOLO Bars}

Almost every Sunday Sweet I share with you is a bar of some sort.  They are easy and tasty...who doesn't love bars?  I think 99% of those bars have chocolate and more than half have peanut butter.  But none of those bars have ever topped my love for Scotcharoos, until now.

Ladies and gentlemen, these are so tasty, so good and so freakin' bad for you!

They are so delicious that we made up a new name for them, YOLO Bars !

My mom found the recipe months ago in Midwest Living and made them for the first time last month.  She brought them to our open house and people couldn't stop raving about them.  I finally tried one, WOW!  When you look at the ingredient list you would think they would be really rich, but everything works so perfectly.  Make them!  You Only Live Once (YOLO)! But take them to friends and family because eating an entire tray of these will not help your New Year's Resolution.

Thank you Midwest Living for these winners!  And sorry to the creator for changing the name...your name just didn't do them justice!

XOXO

Aubrey

Winter Pool Party

Aside from a few close family friends, we have limited Lauren's birthday parties to family.  But for as long as I can remember I said that turning five would be a friend party.  I don't where she got the idea from, but after attending Emma's fifth birthday back in March she has said she wanted a pool party for her birthday!

There wasn't much work on my part for this little soiree.  Cupcakes, favor bag, and my credit card!

I found the cutest invites on etsy for only $10 and she even changed the hair color to brown for me.  I kept the pink, purple, and blue theme going from the invites and made tags for the favors.  Inside were flip flops for each guest.

I should have kept the cupcakes to just pink because every girl wanted pink.  Luckily we had one volunteer for purple so there was no crying!  And the cupcakes were Sam's Club...30 cupcakes for $14.98!

It was about 25 degrees outside but a balmy 80 inside.  The girls had a blast!  I would show more pictures of all her friends, but I don't know many of the parents well enough to parade their child on my blog.

This pool is actually inside our community center where our gym is.  Not only can we workout here, but there is open swim all the time for the kids!

I think she was in awe of having all her little friends around her:)

My favorite part...the kids always swarm the birthday girl/boy and more and more gifts get opened they get closer and closer.

A special thanks to Uncle Brandon who came and braved the pool for us!  Thanks for taking one for the team so I didn't have to get into my bathing suit:)

XOXO

Aubrey

Fashionably Five

Fashionably late posting that my best girl turned FIVE last week!

Because she attends a co-op preschool I'm in attendance as a parent volunteer all the time.  And when you are the working parent your child is the "leader," which is a very big deal to them.  Add another title of birthday girl and her day was made!

 It was a great morning spent at school complete with cupcakes for the whole class.

This year we decided to have a friend party (more on that tomorrow), so we hosted the grandparents for a little dinner, gifts and ice cream.

Happy 5th Birthday Lauren!

...six days late in blog land:)

XOXO

Aubrey

#Thanksgiving

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend!  

We had another fun filled weekend with our family and friends.  I haven't done the best job on keeping up with the blog, but I'm going to try really hard to get back on the ball for all of our Christmas festivities.

We kept the tradition going with our local holiday parade the day of Thanksgiving.  Each year we gain a few new faces in our little spot:)  

 

 Wills was really into the parade.  I really wanted a picture of all the kids and he wouldn't sit for it, too busy looking for Santa.

 

After the parade, we hosted a  little large open house...what started as a way to see a few out of town friends evolved into a way to see as many friends and family as we could.  Go big of go home!  

I wish I had more pictures but considering I probably started fifteen different conversations and never finished one of them...my camera didn't stand a chance.  I wish I had pictures of all the kids playing together and the mound of coats three feet high on our bed.  Instead, I'll settle for these.

 We ended the weekend with some feather bowling.  Our Canadian cousins had never been, but since they are such experts at curling, they caught on quick.

Thank you Mark for all the pictures, too many to post!

 The game got a little competitive and thanks to my athletic abilities, we won.  Actually, we can just thank the fact that I wore my glasses.  What a difference:)

If you are feather bowling anytime soon, I'd highly recommend these gloves too.

A fun weekend all around, and the only part that I was ready to see go was Billy's creepstache moustache.  He participated in Movember, and we'd like to thank all of you who donated!  He really appreciated it!

XOXO

Aubrey