I'm going to be catching up over the next few days...

Here are the Christmas lights on my house...

Here are the Christmas lights on my dads house.  

No comparison.  

Oh, and these are the awesome penguins Brad and I bought dad for his bday a few years ago.

So I was looking around the internet at a couple of websites that I frequent, and I found this at Daily Checkout for sale:

"As Seen on TV Workout Package- Miracle Ab Roller, Ultimate Pushup, Legal Limit Alcohol Breath Test With KeyChain Holder!"

I want to know how the Breathalyzer keychain has to do with working out...I mean after all, this is the WORKOUT PACKAGE! Right?

This weeks Top 10 List was kind of a tough one...there are so many places I would rather be than Utah on New Years Eve! But here it is:

10 Places I Would Love to be on New Years Eve:

10.  New Orleans

New Orleans is a party no matter when you go!

9.  On the couch in my PJ's

Ok so this totally doesnt sound fun to many, but how great is it to ring in the new year with a countdown, a kiss, and then 30 minutes later be asleep? So great.

8.  Rio De Janeiro
 

I hear they have crazy awesome fireworks all night long!

7.  Sydney, Australia

 

I have  just always wanted to go there.

6.  Asleep

Let me be honest...I am an old lady who likes to be in bed before 11.  Midnight is late for me.

5.  Playing games with family

 

Playing Hungry Hungry Hippos or Slap Jack with Mack is the funnest any day of the week.

4.  Hawaii

I'd love to be in Hawaii any day over Utah.  Especially in the winter.  

3.  Times Square 

I WILL do new years in Times Square before I die.  

2.  Disney World 

I hear that Disney World has crazy fun stuff going on there too!

1.  Vegas 

You can NEVER go wrong celebrating in Vegas!!!

Next weeks Top 10 List:  10 Resolution that I will make but probably not keep

Here is my random tip of the day:  My nutritionist told me that if you are taking Vitamin C daily, you will burn 20-40% more fat.  My trainer has me taking 2000mg a day of it.  Let's see if it works!  Although it definitely can't hurt!

Hey All!  So this is my last Top 10 Christmas List for this year.  This week's top 10 list...10 Reasons why Christmas is the BEST Holiday.  So here it is Folks!!!

Top 10 Reasons why Christmas is the BEST Holiday:

10.  Movies and Music

I love being able to watch amazing movies and listen to great music all month long.  I mean we've already been over this...there are some great christmas movies and music.  It just adds to the joyous atmosphere!

9.  Indoor Christmas Decor

I LOVE being able to put Christmas decorations up.  I love even more that Mack get's so excited for it too. It is time we get so spend as a family (putting up the christmas tree).  Not to mention, my house is still in a huge need for decoration since I'm slowing getting around to it, but putting up Christmas decor kind of makes my house look fuller for at least a month.  Although I do dread January when I have to take everything down and my house looks empty again.  BOOO JANUARY!

8.  Christmas Lights

My family LOVES christmas lights.  EVerything about them.  Although, people, I do have some pet peeves about christmas lights.  If you are going to use mutli color, use ALL multi color.  If you are going for the classic white light look, use all classic white lights.  I HATE when I see white lights on the house, then different single color strands (all blue, which is the worst, or all red etc. ) on bushes.  I also hate when lights aren't straight on houses.  But I digress.  Oh well.  It's the effort that counts.  I wish more people would put up christmas lights!

7.  Food

Bon Bons, fudge, sugar cookies, gingerbread cookies, peppermint, homemade chocolate covered toffee, peanut butter kiss cookies etc etc etc. Enough said.

6.  Smells

I LOVE the smell of cinnamon and pine.  So yummy.

5.  Presents

I'm not going to lie...I love getting presents.  Anyone who tells you that they don't are lying.  BUT, I love to GIVE presents more.  I can honestly say that I am more excited to give Brad his presents.  THat may just be because I have no idea what I am getting.  I also love to see Mack's face when he opens each present that Santa gives him.  Priceless.

4.  Family

Christmas is the time for families gathering.  Or at least it should be.  I love having the excuse to hang around my family more often.

3.  The Anticipation of a White Christmas

Every child wants to wake up to a white christmas.  As a little kid, I seriously used to pray for a miracle in Seattle.  I don't think I had a white christmas until I moved to Utah as an adult.  Now, after christmas, I hate snow.  But it sure does add to the christmas spirit.

2.  Christmas lasts all Month Long!

I LOVE THIS ABOUT CHRISTMAS!  Christmas starts the day after Thanksgiving, officially.  FOr me, it starts November 1st when I start listening to Christmas music.  BUT, I think most people are ok with it officially starting at the end of November and lasting all the way through December.  It is the best.

1.  The Magic of Santa

There is nothing more fulfilling around Christmas than seeing Mack get sooo excited for Santa Claus.  He loved seeing him at the mall.  and at his preschool.  He came home from preschool with a bag of peanuts from his teacher for the reindeer to eat.  And as a parent, the magic of santa becomes so real again, just as if I were a little kid again.  In our house, the minute you say that santa isn't real anymore, he stops coming.  No more presents. (Also, part of the magic is being able to threaten your kid with a call to Santa to tell him that your kid is being bad...instant behavior change.  It's amazing.)

Well everyone, I know this is kind of a lengthy, wordy, list.  But I love Christmas.  It's the best. I probably used the word 'love' about 500 times in this post.

So I've had so much fun with these top ten lists, I'm going to keep doing it.

Next weeks Top 10 List:  10 Places I Want to Be on New Years Eve

Hey guys!  This weeks Top 10 Christmas list is the 10 Best Christmas Movies!  Now I'm just going to let you all know...I have never liked It's A Wonderful Life or Miracle on 34th St.  They didn't make my Top 10.  Sorry.  Don't hate me for it.  Now presenting....

Top 10 Best Christmas Movies:

10.  The Nightmare Before Christmas

9.  How the Grinch Stole Christmas

8.  Scrooged

7.  The Polar Express

6.  The Santa Clause (I loved all 3 of them)

5.  Home Alone

4.  Elf

"Buddy the Elf, What's your favorite color?"

3.  Christmas Story

2.  Christmas Vacation

Of course this is such a classic.  My father is my own, personal Clark Griswald.  This movie has so many amazing quotes.

1. White Christmas

This is and has always been my favorite Christmas movie.  I think it's a comedy, a little bit of a romance, and it is so magical at the end.

Next week is the last Top 10 Christmas list.  It's going to be: Top 10 reasons why Christmas is the Best Holiday.

I'm sorry, I am not a Kevin Bacon fan.  But I think this commercial is hilarious.

So the other night I got a major craving for something chocolatey.  It was getting kind of late, so I wanted something easy.  And I've been looking for some new ways to use my Nutella that I love oh so much.  I found this recipe over at What's Cookin? for some Chocolate Nutella Cookies.  They looked super yummy.   Brad and I ate all 3 dozen that they made in less than 24 hours.  Right out of the oven...they were SOOO GOOD!  Here is the recipe:

Ingredients:

• 1/2 sticks of unsalted butter, room temperature
• 3/4 cup of brown sugar
• 3/4 cup of white sugar
• 1 cup of Nutella
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla
• 2 eggs
• 2 cups, plus 2 tablespoons of all-purpose flour
• 1/4 cup of unsweetened cocoa
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 cup of chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup of chopped hazelnuts (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Cream butter until light and fluffy. Add the sugars and Nutella then mix well, scrape down the sides of the bowl to ensure even mixing. Add the eggs, one at a time, beating for 30 seconds between each. Add the vanilla and mix for 10 seconds. Sift together the flour, cocoa, salt, and baking soda Add to the butter mixture, fold in the chocolate chips and hazelnuts and refrigerate the dough for ten minutes. Spoon tablespoon-sized drops of dough onto cookie sheets. Bake at 350 for 10-12 minutes. Allow to cool on the sheets for a minute or two before transferring to a rack to finish cooling.

Now I didn't use the hazelnuts, but they still turned out SO good.  But because Brad says he doesn't really rate cookies, I had to ask his sister Jessie.  

Jessie's Cookie Rating:  4 out of 5 stars

Try them.  Soon. 

Hey all!  Here is this week's Christmas Top 10 List!  I think most of them are pretty common traditions you can all relate to.  

Top 10 Favorite Holiday Traditions:

9.  Puzzles: For some reason, around the holidays, we always do tons of puzzles. 

9.  Family Christmas Shopping:  Growing up, we always chose one night in December to go out and shop as a family for our exchange gifts.  We would break up into teams and go.  It was a blast. 

8.  Bon Bons:  We always make these yummy little guys around the holidays for parties and neighbor gifts.  They are my very favorite.

 7.  Endless Christmas Parties:  It seriously seems like every week we have a least one Christmas Party to go to.  CHurch, Work, and family parties are spread out all month long and I LOVE it!

6.  Seeing Santa at the Mall:  Now that I have kids, I love being able to see the joy in their faces when they go and visit Santa at the mall.  The only down side to this tradition, is Corporate America has taken over and now you  can no longer take your own pictures.  You have to pay $15 for a 5x7 picture.  It's lame.

5.  Gift Exchange:  We always draw family names to exchange gifts for Christmas.  It's way better than having to buy a present for each and every person in the family. It just get's way to expensive.

4.  Gingerbread Houses:  Making graham cracker gingerbread houses is always a family favorite in my house!  Of course, I always made the best one!  Then after, you get to eat candy and frosting off your house for days!

3.  PJ's:  On Christmas Eve, we always got to open up the PJ's that my mom always got us for christmas so we could wear them to bed that night.  For the last 5 or 6 years, she always gets the super cute flannel ones from Victoria's secret for us.  We love them!

2.  Christmas Eve Movie:  On Christmas Eve every year growing up, we always went out to eat and then went to a Christmas movie.  I love Christmas Movies!

1.  Christmas Lighting Ceremony:  Yes, like the Griswald's, our family had a Christmas Lighting ceremony every year.  We would all gather around outside on the street and start singing our version of "Oh Christmas Lights", even though none of us really ever new any more words to the song than those.  But it was always the most magical night of the season for me!

Next Week's Top 10 Christmas List:  Top 10 Best Christmas Movies!

Hey all!  We have had some Christmas fun the last few days!  We...

Put Christmas up at our house...

And wrapped presents...

And Mack had his first Christmas concert for preschool!

 He is the little guy right in the middle of the picture...in between the two heads.  

He did great!  Sure he didn't exactly sing...but he stood up there and did his own little dance. He was kind of in his own little world.  

On a different note:  

She is so beautiful.

Brad and I decided to go get Macy's ears pierced yesterday...I love little babies with their ears pierced.  Brad wussed out and walked out of the store before it happened so he didn't have to watch.

 I hated having to hold her down...that was probably the worst part. 

 Her huge crocodile tears afterwards

 Calming her down afterwards...she only cried for about 30 seconds. 

Brad looks angry in this picture...I swear he wasn't.  He swooped right in after it was finished and took her from me so he could be the good guy. 

 She fell asleep about a minute and a half after Brad got there.  But she looks so pretty!!!

So we had a long and horrible drive to and from Washington this last weekend.  We left Thursday right after dinner and didn't get there til Friday night for the viewing.  It took us 18 hours to get there and about 20 to get back.  The roads were horrible, Tyson had car problems, and it was freezing cold.  But we did have a great time seeing family and celebrating the life of my grandfather.  He will be greatly missed.

 We took a drive by the place where my dad grew up for the first time.  It was a pretty barren place, but this is a picture of the house he grew up in.  He showed us where they farmed and where some childhood stories took place.  

 Cohen thought he was allowed to drive.

 I was the only one with these pictures.  They did a full veteran honors at my grandpa's funeral. Afterwards, I was fortunate to get a shell casing from one of the shots. 

 I literally ran in heels, shin-deep in snow to get these pictures for my mom because there wasn't any time to get my snow boots on. 

 This is a picture of most of the grandkids and great-grandkids.

Thanksgiving was a bit rushed this year!  We ate at noon ( i know, very early) and then we had to leave on the road by 3:00 to leave for Eastern Washington.  But, we had a great dinner at my moms house with my grandma and grandpa Mackay, and Bret and Barbara's family.  My favorite part, of course, was the pies.  Which we were cutting into before people were even finishing their dinner because we were in such a hurry to eat and clean up.  Here are some pics:

 Cohen loving Macy

 Again with the love...

 One of the tables...

 Erica did a great job with the place setting.

 The centerpiece of the other table.

Since Erica doesn't keep up her own blog anymore, I guess I will post a pic of how cute her little guy is getting.