Christmas!

Like everyone else our family has been very busy with the hustle and bustle of the holiday season. Todd and I are gearing up for our 10 year anniversary on the 2nd and Haley turns 2 on the 5th! Time flies!

We had a great Christmas. Katelynn put out reindeer food Christmas Eve and Scott got the milk and cookies ready for Santa! Scott was the first one up at 7:00am. He quickly went to see if Santa had arrived then woke up his sisters. Todd and I enjoyed watching the kids faces light up as they opened their gifts. One of Haley's favorite gifts was "bum bum". (They have play-doh ready in nursery when you drop them off. Todd pounds the dough with Haley and says bum bum bum. Thus play-doh being called bum bum.)

I wish I look as good as Katelynn does in the morning!!


Scott was super excited to get Lego Batman for the Wii!

Later Christmas day we went to my parents and enjoyed a super yummy Christmas dinner!

The Annual Tingen Musical

Every year we go to Todd's parent's house for Christmas Eve. They have a wonderful tradition in there family of reading in Luke the account of Christ's birth. Everyone in the family, no matter where they are in the world read it at the same time. Todd's parents invite lots of friends and family for the reading and refreshment afterwards. Once everyone is nice and full, Todd's dad plays the piano and everyone sits around singing Christmas carols and those who wish to showcase their talents are more than welcome!

Haley was old enough to really get into it this year. She loved dancing to the music, then running to her abuela for a hug.

Santa Cookies!!

It has been a tradition in my family ever since I can remember to decorate Santa Cookie. My mom still does them with Wendy and my sister Laura and I still do them as well. I love doing them, but they are a lot of work!

I ended up making at least 100. Laura said she made 200.


I actually let Scott and Katelynn help me this year which is a HUGE step for me. I was always afraid that they would mess them up. This year I decided to relax a little and not worry about how the cookies looked. After all the worst thing that could happen is we get suck eating great tasting Santas:) Anyway, Scott and Katelynn did a fantastic job and will be helping me for years and years to come:)

Family Photos

We have for the last 2 weekends been trying to take our own family photos. We set up our dining room as our studio with a plush brown blanket between the blinds of the window and put our coffee table under the blanket as our platform. We went to wolf camera and bought a remote switch for our camera so we could snap the shot while we were in place instead of setting the timer and scrambling to get set. Brilliant in theory and probably would've worked if we have 3 cooperative subjects. It was soooooo stressful trying to make the kids laugh, smile, and sit still.
After taking at least 100 photos and not one we liked, we called for reinforcements....family! We went to our neighborhood play area where there was a perfect setting for our photos. They turned out so much better and we got it done ten times faster. Lesson learned...next year, ask for help first!! I made a little video of our adventure. Enjoy!

Tinkering with Photoshop Elements

A couple of years ago Todd and I bought at Cannon Rebel digital SLR camera. We have loved every minute of using it. We've also invested in photoshop elements and a book on how to use it, which we've also had a couple of years. I thought it would be great for digital scrapbooking. I have not invested much time in learning it, so I decided to get at it. So here are couple of attempts at digital scrapbooking . It's very simple, but hey, I gotta start somewhere.


We decided that we would save money this year by taking our own family photos. More on the woes of that later. Anyway, I took these photos today. This photo is my favorite of the ones I took today.

Santa is a Cow?

My friend told me about breakfast with Santa at Chick-fil-a, so we decided we'd go together. If you brought in a toy you got to have a picture with Santa. Here it is!

So not exactly what we expected. I don't know why after all it is Chick-fil-a. Anyway, it took Haley some time to warm up to the cow. First we just said hi. Then we touched him. Then we watched other kids sit on his lap and by that time she was ready to do the same. She didn't want to get off his lap. It was cute and Haley had a good time playing with her friend Sara in the play area.

Thanksgiving in Tennessee!

My side of the family met in Tennessee at my sister's house for Thanksgiving. My brother Scott was the only one not there and we missed him! Thanksgiving day there was of course eating......Sleeping.........

Holding of the new baby cousin, Trisha. (The only other girl cousin there besides Haley among the 8 boys!).........and


Identical cousins battling it out playing Guitar Hero!


This is my nephew Jacob. He's 11 years old. Scott will be 8 in February. It has been so fun watching these two grow up. I know exactly what Scott will look like when he's 11. They must have a lot of Wade in them for them to look that much alike :) Thank you Laura for having us all up for Thanksgiving. We had a blast!