New Year's Weekend?

What are the Douglases up to this New Year's weekend you may ask?

A little project in the back yard

Some Christmas decoration removal

And a little dancin of course...

Audrey's Christmas Day

Audrey had such a fun Christmas day. She enjoyed playing with Cole, pulling presents out of her stocking, riding in Cate's new car and playing with new toys. What a great Christmas Day!

Alaina's Christmas at Gia and Bapa's

Alaina's Christmas was big this year. It included lots of loving from Cate and Caroline, pie with Bapa, singing on a microphone, playing with Gia, first steps and her 2 front teeth!

Mommy, I heard Santa!

The girls had such a good time together playing with the toys Santa brought them. Alaina danced to her move and groove table and Audrey named her baby Andi. Daddy and Nettie supervised from the couch. Fun times on Christmas morning!

Santa Came! Santa Came!!!

On Christmas Eve Mommy and the girls came home from the service before everyone else and we made cookies for Santa. We made a star, a donkey, a wise man, a manger and Mary. (yes, some turned out better than others.)

Audrey loved leaving the cookies and milk for Santa.

And Santa loved eating Audrey's cookies!

Every year we take a picture of what Santa leaves before the girls come in and dig in.

This year Santa brought Audrey a dollhouse, a babydoll, and a computer. Alaina got a move and groove table.
Thank you Santa!

Christmas with Nana, Papa and Granny Hilda

We were so happy to have Nana and Papa here with us for a few days this Christmas and Granny Hilda joined us for Christmas Eve. The girls had a great time with their Douglas grandparents. Above you see Audrey modeling some of Nana's jewelry, the girls helping Granny Hilda open her presents, Alaina eating a cookie during her first Christmas Eve service, the girls loving on their Nana and then just some fun times playing together.

Snowman

Audrey enjoyed checking out her snowman.

Entech Christmas Party 2010

Daddy's work party was fun for the whole family - complete with hamburgers, bowling, toys for the girls and face painting for Audrey. The face painting was definitely the highlight of the party.

You Can Roll a Rolo

Audrey and Mommy made some Christmas treats together tonight.

Audrey did most of the work

With a little snacking every now and then of course

She loves to cook with Mommy

She also loves to sing...

First Drawings

Last night Daddy and Audrey were drawing and Daddy was surprised to look over and see that Audrey had drawn a face all by herself.

You go Audrey.

You're such a smarty.

A Night of Christmas Lights with Friends

Some of our good friends have a big Christmas festival of lights in their neighborhood and last night we joined them for some neighborhood fun...

Audrey and her friend Jon

Daddy and Alaina seeing the lights.

Laina thoroughly enjoying a Christmas cookie.

Just us girls

And the fam with Santa. Audrey enjoyed seeing Santa, but Alaina didn't so much take to him this time.
What a fun night with friends.

2 Good Crock Pot Recipes

Salsa Beef
2 - 2 & 1/2 lbs beef, cut up bite sized pieces (I used stew meat)
16 oz. jar salsa
8 oz. can tomato sauce
2 cloves garlic, minced (I used dried, minced)
2 TBS brown sugar
1 TBS soy sauce
1 can diced tomatoes (Italian or fire roasted tomat0 is good)

1. season beef and brown slightly in skillet in oil. place in crock pot. ( seasoned with cumin, garlic powder, onion powder and seasoned salt)
2. add remaining ingredients
3. cover and cook on low for up to 6 hours. maybe on high for a short time before done.
4. serve over rice


Pork Chops in Orange Sauce
4 thick, center-cut pork chops
1/2 c. ketchup
1 cup orange juice
1/2 cup orange or apricot marmalade
1 TBS flour
3 TBS soy sauce
3 TBS brown sugar

1. season pork chops (I used seasoned salt, garlic powder and onion powder) and brown lightly in oil.
2. mix together remaining ingredients and simmer for a few minutes in sauce pan.
3. pour over chops
4. cover and cook on low for 2-3 hours. watch out and don't overcook.
5. serve over egg noodles or rice

Easy, cheap and good for cold weather.

Dear Santa

It's in the mail!

Spaghetti Face

Alaina's first time having spaghetti...

I think she liked it.

Spreading the Christmas Cheer...

Last night we went to a neighborhood Christmas party.

We have been working with Audrey on looking at adults and talking to them when spoken to - working on our manners. So last night, Daddy had a little talk with Audrey before we went to the party about being friendly to the many adults who would be at the party. Apparently Audrey was listening and "friendly" took on a life of it's own.

We were at our next door neighbor's house and Audrey is fairly comfortable with them and their kids so she was roaming around the house on her own checking things out. Little did I know, she was actually making her rounds spreading the cheer. As I sat down on the couch next to a man and a woman, Audrey came and crawled up on the couch between them and grabbed both of their hands and started swinging hands with them. After some time with them, she crawled down and went to sit by another lady - grabbing her hand as well. I asked the lady if Audrey just grabbed her hand and she said yes and her husband tells me that she did the same thing to him a few minutes ago. THEN, later I am meeting some people who come in the door and Audrey comes up to them (these are all absolute strangers by the way) and grabs 2 hands and starts swinging.

I am looking at this man that I have never seen before and thinking - I have no idea who this man is or what he is like and my daughter is standing there holding his hand. I did follow Audrey into another room and tried to inform her that she did not need to hold everyone's hand, but she said that she did need to. Hmmm. Need to do some work there I think.

And Alaina...I sat down next to Troy on the couch and Alaina was in a neighbor's lap (this one at least we had met on several occasions) and Alaina was basically kissing this man's nose. Picture a toddler's open mouth, all over the face kiss. She was standing on him, bouncing and kissing his nose. He did seem to enjoy entertaining her, but I'm not so sure if that is appropriate party behavior. you think?

I'm just not really sure what to do with all of that.

Christmas Traditions for Alaina

Dear Alaina,

Since this will be your first memory scrapbook, Mommy wants to share with you some of the Christmas traditions in our house.

For the first time, this year, we are going to have 2 Christmas trees - a pretty tree for our living room and a family tree in our den.

Throughout our house you will find Christmas pictures from every year since Mommy and Daddy were married. These are very special pictures to our family. In last year's picture you were such a little bitty baby all wrapped in red.

This year we are also starting the tradition of family advent. We will be reading together every night to prepare for Christmas when we celebrate Jesus' birth. We will also be hanging an ornament on our advent calendar.

We have some nice scrapbooks that we pull out at Christmas. These are full of Christmas cards and pictures from our family and friends in years past.

We love remembering as we look at these scrapbooks.

And this year we started a cute little scrapbook to save all of your pictures with Santa.

This is a tradition we will enjoy.

Our stockings are hung. You have a new stocking this year.
Your play nativity is under the tree.
You and Sissy will spend alot of time playing down there I am sure.

To my surprise, you have not pulled over the Christmas tree yet. You aren't really touching it at all....but we do have many days left in December. We will see about that.
There are so many fun family traditions to come. You will love them all my sweet girl.
And what a blessing it will be to see you experience Christmas this year.

Christmas Decorating on Deerlodge Trail

The Christmas season is here and to get us in the Christmas spirit

here are two cutie girls ready for church on Sunday...

It has become the Douglas tradition to decorate our house for Christmas on the weekend following Thanksgiving. How fun to decorate our new house!

(Especially when last Christmas we had a new baby and the decorations were rather sparce.)

This year...bring on the spirit!

Daddy hung lights outside on our house. This was his first time do to this and he did GREAT!

The season has begun for the Douglas fam! We've started advent, Christmas books are being read, songs sung and cookies made. We are ready to enjoy all things Christmas!
We hope you enjoy your Christmas season to the fullest!