wordless Wednesday..

5 Question ..Saturday!

Oops, here's 5QF on Saturday for ya! 

1. Do you open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day? Well, we are starting a NEW tradition for our little family this year.. we going to start opening one gift on Christmas Eve, and it is going to be an age appropriate game for Aidan, that we can all play together that night as a family. (We picked Cootie as our game this year!)

Other than that, we tear all the presents open first thing Christmas morning! :)

2. What is your favorite Christmas cookie or candy? How about all of it?? If I'd have to choose, it would be these..

..it is called Kifli, and it is a Hungarian recipe that Tony's grandmother used to make, which his sister Linda makes for the family every year during Christmastime.. it is delicious!

I LOVE the walnut (dios) and prune (lekvar) flavored ones!

3. What is the worst Christmas present you have ever received? Hmm, I have NO idea. I am sure that I got some things that I didn't want when I was younger, and less thankful for stuff!

4. Christmas song that you love? I LOVE the song "Silent Night, so this year, it's this one:

5. How many trees do you put up? If you've ever been to our home, you'd know that there's only room for one tree, and it's a skinny space-saving one! ..and I'm perfectly happy with that! :)

Wassailing

This year, instead of going to our own town's Christmas event, 

we decided to go to my old school town's wassailing night. 

Yay Parchment! :)

What's wassailing, you ask? 

I had NO idea! 

I have heard that it's a holiday drink, 

a type of song and a gathering of people.. 

here's what it really is:

was·sail- noun

1. a salutation wishing health to a person, used in England in early times when presenting a cup of drink or when drinking to the person.

2. a festivity or revel with drinking of healths.

3. liquor for drinking and wishing health to others on festive occasions, esp. spiced ale, as on Christmas Eve and Twelfth-night.

...uh, okay?.. what we experienced that evening didn't seem like any of that, 

but we still had fun! 

Our first stop was at the middle school, to listen to my "niece" Mackenzie play in her first holiday band concert, it was so great to watch & hear her play!

We then took a trolley through town to see Santa.. which is the only thing that Aidan was interested in doing at that time.. 

it was FREEZING outside & most of the activities were outdoors. 

So, off to the bank to see Santa..

..doesn't he look thrilled? 

He wasn't too sure about the "old lady" (as Aidan called her) sitting next to Santa, he'd never heard of Mrs. Claus before & didn't care for her too much!

Kenzie got her picture taken with Santa too!

Our next stop was sponsored by the local church & was very interesting.. 

a live nativity!

Aidan was very captivated by this display, and the camel! 

His favorite holiday book has been this one,

and he was POSITIVE that this camel was the star of his favorite book! :)

Here he is checking out & talking to the camel..

 Okay, so I got very lazy about taking anymore pictures.. it was SO cold outside! 

We had a TON of hot chocolate, made some crafts, and ate an embarrassing amount of Christmas cookies before we came to our last stop.. 

a local car shop that had a live reindeer outside, a campfire & hot dog roasting! :)

It was fun to try something different this year :)

Thanksgiving!

I am so late at posting this, but I know my mom wants to see the pictures.. 

so here you go mom!!! :)

It was so nice to go to my mom's house for Thanksgiving dinner this year, we usually have to run from place to place, and it was nice to stay at one home!

My mom & my step-dad:

My Uncle Dave & Aunt Cathy were visiting from Georgia, 

so my mom invited her cousins to dinner that they all hadn't seen in quite awhile.. 

 it was fun to listen to them reminisce over dinner.

Aidan actually sat down for awhile to eat, he is always up & down at the table.. 

he must have been hungry!

(look at all of those olives!)

My Grandpa & all of his kids!

Tony & I after dinner & feeling like I just ate a whale!

I had a nice time visiting with my cousin Tanya, who I don't get to see very often!

Aidan was pooped after dinner, 

and spent the rest of the day relaxing with Grampie!

Since Aidan really didn't want to play, 

my Aunt Trudy had entirely way too much fun with Aidan's toys by herself! :)

Any time spent with my Grandpa is time well spent!

It was a great Thanksgiving, I'm so thankful for my wonderful family!

tiny talk tuesday

 The other day as Aidan was having a snack of cherry tomatoes.. he suddenly got up out of his chair & ran to get his play goggles...

I asked him what in the world he was doing.. his response was:

"Taytoes keep quirting me in my eye, need my goggles!"

Silly tomatoes, stop squirting Aidan in the eyes! :)

sunflowers!

We "harvested" Aidan's sunflowers a couple weeks ago, but I had to share this picture!

Aren't they huge???  

Aidan was SO proud of his flowers, and so excited to set them out for the birds!

I was amazed at how many different types of birds that came to feed from Aidan's flowers, some that we have never even seen in our yard before! It was also fun for us to watch the birds fight over who could hang from the sunflower heads & peck at the seeds.. 

it kept us entertained & we can't wait to grow more next year! :)