Baby It's Cold Outside

Last night, after our trip to see the lights at Clifton Mills we decided to come home and have some hot chocolate. We were all pretty cold, but Allie was especially cold. See, we had just come home from gymnastics and so we were in a hurry to get ready to head out with Kevin and Tami. Well, we didn't grab gloves for either of the girls.....Allie had on her lighter winter coat AND crocs for her shoes! It was sooo muddy there and so her feet were wet fast. I know she had to be freezing. I felt so horrible! We finally made it into the "restaurant" part of the mills and we thought about getting hot chocolate. Not gonna happen when it's like $3.00 for a small cup. We promised her some when we got home. I had her go up and get her pj's on while I fixed her hot chocolate........I had to take some pics b/c she just looked so cute! :)

Tis' the Season

We've been busy this past week. It started out with the cookie baking and then we had some friends over to make gingerbread houses (a first for us). This weekend we went back to Indiana to have our Christmas gift exchange and dinner with my family and also with my Dad's whole side of the family. It made for a busy weekend, but lots of fun with family!! And then tonight we went out to Clifton Mills with the other Hubers here in Ohio to see the lights. Very pretty!!

Christmas Cookies....

I've never really baked cookies for Christmas before. I'm not all that great at baking in general. I thought Allie might enjoy it though, so I decided to give it a go this year. We just stuck to super simple cookies. Here are some fun pictures of Allie from this morning.

Visit with Ho Ho

Our first attempt to see Santa Claus (or Ho Ho as Allie calls him) equalled two crying little girls. Our second attempt was a little bit better. I sort of bribed Allie by telling her she needed to be a good example for her newest little friends, Bethany and Melody. Then, if she was good, we could go to Build A Bear afterwards. It worked!! Avery, on the other hand, was still scared to death of Santa. The only reason she's not crying is because the guy taking the picture actually did a good job of distracting her.

Oh Christmas Tree

On Saturday we headed over to the Greene, an outdoor mall, to see Santa Claus. Our girls wanted nothing to do with him! Allie did see that her cousin, Abby, got a sucker and book for sitting on his lap so she at least walked up to him and grabbed a book from him. It was sooo cold outside that night, you can tell the girls were freezing in these pictures.
I guess going out to see Santa and his reindeer finally got us in the Christmas spirit because we put up our Christmas tree, lights and decorations up over the weekend. Allie was really excited to put up the ornaments.....Avery just wanted to take them down.

Europe Trip - DAY TEN

Our last day of the trip! We contemplated skipping these places and just staying at Ramstein another night, but decided not to in the end. We still skipped quite a few places this day because we slept in and Derek really wanted to get to Bastonge where the Battle of the Bulge was before sunset (and we didn't even take any pics there). We really didn't take many pictures at all this day because we were just ready to get home! It was a fun trip, but too much traveling and not enough relaxing. Next time we'll just have to pick a favorite spot and spend a week there.

{Trier, Germany}
Roman Baths
Porta Nigra

{Luxembourg City, Luxembourg}
Luxembourg Cemetery where General Patton is laid to rest

{Brussels, Belgium}
Town Center - they were putting this tree up the first day we were here!