Creating traditions: Apple Cinnamon Ornaments

It is important for me to establish traditions now that I have my own family, while embracing the ones that I have practiced with my own family as a child. I started thinking about something fun that Dustin and I could do with Addie as our own family Christmas tradition. Thanks to Pinterest, this is what I came up with! I decided on apple cinnamon ornaments because not only are they cute and match my tree already, they smell wonderful! Because of the amount of dough the recipe makes, we had enough to make one for all of the grandmas and great grandmas, too! Here is the recipe I followed:

 1 cup cinnamon
1 cup applesauce
1/4 cup Elmer's glue
Ribbon
Cookie Cutters
Parchment Paper  

Mix cinnamon and applesauce together until a dough forms. Then mix in glue. Spread between two pieces of parchment paper and roll flat with rolling pin. You want to make sure the rolled mixture is about 1/4 inch thick throughout. Cut out desired shapes with cookie cutters and make a small hole near the top with the end of a straw. Bake for 2 1/2 hours at 200 degrees and let cool. Loop your ribbon through the hole, decorate and enjoy!

This year of course, I decorated Addie's for her, but as she gets bigger I would like her to be able to get her hands dirty and make her own just the way she likes it. It will be cute to look back on each one as we have more children and collect them over the years!

Nana can't wait to hang hers up next year!

Addie's first Christmas recap!

Addie's first Christmas!

HOLY COW. I'll admit it, as excited as I was about the holidays coming, I was just as excited for them to be over. It was a great few days, and as stressful as it can be shuffling from one house to another (five all together), I kind of like the chaos. On the 23rd, we went to Mammaw's house for presents and dinner, and had a great time playing games, like we always do.

Mammaw loves big bows too!

Christmas Eve morning, Dustin had to work for a couple of hours, but was able to do it here at the house. We had our Christmas, just the three of us, before we headed to my moms. Again, we played games and had a good time. My favorite gift was one my sister gave me, the motherhood ring from James Avery. It was gorgeous, and I'm SO proud to wear it! Christmas morning, we woke up to see that Santa had filled our stockings and left Addelyn her first high chair! She's still not crazy about it, but once she's able to sit up on her own, it'll be really great to have.

Big girl in her high chair!

I was so excited to get Addie dressed for Christmas day because I had made her a matching onesie, bow and tutu for the day that read "I'm dreaming of a PINK Christmas"! She looked adorable in it, but of course, the bow and tutu didnt last long before she was stripped down to the onesie.

I'm so proud that I was able to make her first Christmas outfit!

Then, it was on to Leigh and Parish's house! I always look forward to Christmas morning over there, because Leigh makes delicious blueberry muffins for everyone to enjoy before we open gifts. Its silly, because we can have blueberry muffins ANYtime, but there's something about having them warm and fresh Christmas morning that I love.

Yummmmm!

Later that afternoon, we went back to my mom's house for Tutu's Christmas. This is always the most loud and hectic of the Christmases. It was so funny to see the difference in family gatherings when Dustin and I were first married. His family is so calm and organized, and my side is well...not. I wouldn't have it any other way though! Its funny how chaos keeps me sane.

Of course, Addelyn made out like a bandit on her first Christmas...this child is definitely not deprived! As I was wrapping all of her gifts in the weeks before, I thought to myself, "I'm wrapping all of these gifts, just so that I can unwrap them later!" Her unwrapping skills were actually better than I expected, but she had more fun "eating" the paper than ripping it off. I'm looking forward to next year when she knows whats going on a  little better. This Christmas was by far the best one yet, because we had our baby girl to spend it with. If you ask me, that's the best gift a mommy can have!

I'm such a proud momma!

Eating presents is better than opening them!

New years resolution? More blogs. Less fat.

So, miss priss turned four months old on the 27th, and I'm a little late posting (nearly a month, to be exact!) but that seems to be the trend as she keeps me busier and busier! This has been her busiest month yet, by far! Naturally, she's sleeping less during the day (but more at night, thank goodness!), and is becoming more and more mobile every day. I'm all about "go big or go home" so the day of her four month check up, was a BIG day for her. In one day, we had her four month shots, tackled solid foods for the first time, and moved her into her own room. Considering all the changes occurring at once, she handled it like a champ.

Growing like crazy!

The first food we tried was rice cereal, and she really didn't know what to think of it. Dustin and I had so much fun giving her each bite and got most of it on camera. She didn't tolerate it for very long, but it was a good first effort. Once she moved on to veggies, she became a little more interested in taking each bite and swallowing it... although we're still working on keeping it all in her mouth, lol. She LOVES her fruit though. After Christmas, I'll be transitioning to home made baby food which should be an entirely new and interesting endeavor by itself. Blog to come.

First solids!

Bedtime routines have been established, and she sticks to them well, for the most part. Normally, she falls asleep shortly before 8:00, and we just put her right to bed, but on nights that she's still awake, she gets a bottle, we read a book, and its lights out. As she's starting to realize she can "talk" she'll sometimes babble and growl for a while before she falls asleep, which Dustin and I love to listen to over her monitor. She's definitely getting more vocal, and went from silly growls to flat out yelling over the last few weeks. She cracks us up more and more every day. She's very resilient, and doesn't let a faceplant or two stop her from trying to sit up. A week away from five months, and she's working on it hard. I think things will get a little easier once she can sit up on her own...until she starts crawling! Hopefully I can get it together and get a few more posts in before that milestone. I'm not holding my breath, but I'll make an honest effort to post more... its my new years resolution!

Mommy loves bedtime!