It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

Christmas is finally here! Abbie and Leah had the best time opening presents, playing in their tutus, and eating candy all day. We had fun watching them be excited and remembering our own excitement from Christmases growing up. I won't bore you with the details, the pictures explain it all:

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!

Dear Santa...

I finally got around to helping the girls write their letters to Santa and Abbie loved the idea, even though I don't think she really understands what the whole Santa thing is about. She knows that he is a man that lives at the North Pole that brings presents to kids in books and movies but I don't think she understands that SHE is going to get presents too. I'm sure after tomorrow she'll get it. Here's her letter...

And Leah's letter...

Going to put it in the mailbox, just in time for Christmas!

It was kind of convenient writing the letters this late in the game, I just helped them write things that they wanted that I knew they were getting and then they got a letter back from "Santa" the next day. The North Pole has quick postal service!

Leah's 2nd birthday

Leah turned two today and she was so excited to sing the Happy Birthday song, eat cake, and open her presents. We kept it simple since Christmas is in just two days and she's not old enough to expect more yet. Here are some pictures of our little "party".

I'm two!

I like cake!

I really like cake!

Opening a present from Grandma Butler. She loves listening to the songs on the CD that goes with this book!

Leah's first Cabbage Patch doll! Now, how do I open this thing?

That's more like it! Dancing with her new dolly to the music from Grandma!

Happy Birthday, Leah! You are such a happy girl, always smiling and bringing us joy. We are glad you are in our family and can't believe you are two already. We love you!

How many cookies can you count?

Jared did a cookie exchange at work and here's what we got after a night of baking. How many cookies do you think we made total? Whoever guesses the closest in the comments gets a free hand-signed copy of the Butler Family Christmas Letter 2008! Whoo-hoo!

Abbie had a lot of fun helping Daddy out

And here we are at our church Christmas party last week, it was a Hawaiian Luau, which was fun and guess what we had for dinner, Robyn and Paul? You'll never guess...

Have a great Christmas, everyone!

Two tutus, y tu?

I found this idea online for making no-sew tutus out of tulle and elastic and decided to try to make some for the girls for Christmas. They were so easy to do and really didn't take as much time as I thought. I can't wait to see the girls faces on Christmas morning when they are dancing around in them. If you want to try to make one yourself, here are two different websites for a tutu tutorial. http://plumtickled.typepad.com/plumtickled/2007/08/tutu-tutorial-t.html or
http://mamasdoodles.blogspot.com/2007/08/tutu-tutorial-tuturial.html. Have fun!

0h, the joys of playdough!

Who knew something so simple could bring so much joy? Playdough is God's gift to moms everywhere, this stuff bought me an hour to myself the other day! The kids love it, it's like they can't get enough of this squishy, colorful, moldable stuff! Now that it's winter, we'll be looking for more things to do indoors. Any suggestions?

Bow Give-a-way Time!!!

I don't usually advertise these things but my amazing creative sister-in-law makes these adorable bows and clips for girl's hair and she's having a give-a-way! Check it out to enter to win by Friday!

http://busybutlersboutique.blogspot.com/

Here's a sample of what she makes:

Getting ready for Christmas

Here are some random pictures to show what's been going on in our house this week. First, we finally got our tree up on Monday and probably like many of you, the bottom half is pretty bare with just the ornaments that the girls can play with.


Having some fun taking a ride on Daddy's back

The cutest Santa's little helper ever!

Abbie has been dying to open her presents and keeps asking everyday when Christmas is going to be here. I decided we needed an advent calendar or some way to count down the days so I found this idea online at http://www.marthastewart.com/article/baby-sock-advent-calendar?rsc=also_try . It was so easy and cute, I just bought a couple pairs of Christmas baby socks, put in some little treats, and hung them up on a clothesline. Ta-Da!

Time to break out the scrapbooks...

I had some friends over for scrapbooking the other night and look what I finally completed! It's been a while since I've done a whole layout for my scrapbook. I've worked on mini-albums or other little projects but haven't worked on my main book, which I'm 4 years behind on. Someday I'll be caught up, really. I just need a whole month to myself, uninterrupted, to focus on it. Anyone want to come take care of my family, house, and other responsibilities while I do that? Anyone?

This is four years ago when I was pregnant with Abbie and didn't have anything better to do than take pictures of what I was making, eating, and growing in preparation for our first baby. Those were the days...