The Johnson Family: 2012

Sunday, December 30, 2012

Oh TWO-dles

It's so hard to believe my sweet girl is already TWO! She is so full of life, so smart, so sassy and oh so girly (with a little tomboy mixed in.)

We love everything about our

Audrey Kate!

We celebrated with a small gathering of friends and family at our house yesterday in Classic Minnie Mouse fashion....

I love paper invitations, but decided to give Paperless Post a whirl to be more economical and to be honest, I loved the ease of not having to mail out invitations and I loved how guests could RSVP and send messages easily.

I pretty much made everything with things we had and a few things I picked up last week after Christmas.

We had 'Minnie' snacks...

and sweet cupcakes...

playtime with our best friends...

birthday presents...

and sweet treats!

The dress Audrey is wearing used to be a a skirt of mine that I could no longer squeeze into. I asked a friend, who made Audrey's first birthday dress, if she could upcycle the skirt into a dress for Audrey and this is what she came up with. When it arrived in the mail, I immediately knew I wanted it to be her birthday party dress and it made me think Classic Minnie Mouse, so the pinning began.

HERE is my pinterest inspiration party.

The polka dotted fabric was leftover from the photo booth we had at Ben's first birthday party.

I made the paper fans out of butcher block paper, cupcake liners and buttons.

(I hung them over our dinning room pictures by hot gluing a piece of a thin box to the back, placed a small hole in the box and hooked them on small On Command hooks.)

The garland was also made from cupcake liners.

The Minnie Mouse treats are double stuff Oreo cookies, mini Oreo cookies and melted chocolate.

I made the cupcakes and used fruit-by-the-foot for the red bow and mini Oreo cookies for the ears.
(if you make these, make sure to add the bows and ears the day of the party. I noticed on our leftover cupcakes that the decorations are soggy.)

Monday, December 24, 2012

Christmas Eve

On Christmas Eve we Surprised the kids with a trip to Bryson City to ride the Polar Express.

They had no clue until about 30 mins after we arrived at the Train Station

We live a little over an hour away and we left with plenty of time to get there and time for the kids to nap in the car.

They were still asleep when we got there, so Danny went in and got our tickets, including the Golden Tickets for the kids.

When they finally realized what we were doing, they couldn't wait to board the train!

After a trip to the "North Pole and a visit from Santa Clause, we headed home with 3 very excited children (who had no intentions of going to sleep.)

Danny read Twas the Night Before Christmas, which he does every Christmas Eve, the kids sprinkled reindeer food and set out cookies and water for Santa.

the Magical Reindeer food was Cindy Lou who approved.

Bryson City on Dwellable

Friday, December 21, 2012

Owen's School Christmas Party

Polar Express

I volunteered to help organize Owen's class holiday party this year. I wasn't real sure what all to do or how to go about pulling it together, but with a little help from some FB friends and pinterest, Owen's class was able to have a simple and fun party.

I emailed his teacher about 20 ideas for decorations and activities and she picked the simplest 5 activities and asked for no decorations.

We had 5 centers...

1. Cookie decorating with gingerbread cookies from West End Bakery.

2. Make and decorate a train

3. Polar Express Bingo

4. Zingo

5. Snowball race

One other mom and I put together a treat bag with reindeer food and a peg game for each kid.

We had about 20 minutes to set up while the class has PE....

They were excited to see their class transformed!

Afterwards, Mrs.Jones read the Polar Express to the class and then I joined Owen for lunch before heading home.

Thursday, December 20, 2012

and just like that....

She is 2!

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Gingerbread Houses

I think the kids like eating the candies and icing more so than the decorating, which is probably why both houses are missing some embellishments :-)

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Keep our babies safe!

My kindergartner and one of his best friends walked out of school today holding hands and talking about who knows what, as I trailed behind. So thankful for this moment today!

Friday, December 14, 2012

the difference 1 year makes

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Audrey and the tree

Audrey is currently obsessed with our Christmas tree and all the ornaments. She likes to take them off, play with them, try to feed them to the dogs as treats and rearrange them on the tree. This is why it looks like an almost 2 year old decorated our tree.

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

Santa!

Monday, December 10, 2012

Christmas Card

I know a professorial photographer is worth every penny and I envy the talent of their art, but honestly, we just don't have the extra money to hire someone to take our picture and pictures of the kids. With that said, I woke up last Tuesday, looked at the weather report and thought I would give taking a Christmas picture myself a whirl. It was the first Tuesday of the month, so admission to the Arboretum was free and it would be somewhere fun to go run around.

I called Danny and had him go buy lollipops at Cracker Barrel and I headed to the mall to find something for the boys to wear ( I don't love what I picked, but I didn't want anything dressy and I only had about 15 mins to make a selection before picking Ben up from school.)

I rushed home from getting Ben, gave him and Audrey a bath and then went to get Owen from school.

I got Owen dressed in the car, wiped the dirt off his jeans and shoes with a baby wipe and quickly started bribing the kids with lollipops and promises of frozen yogurt from YaYa's. Gotta do whatcha gotta do!

It was a bit humorous looking through the 300 pictures I took Lots of funny expressions, sticky faces and less than cooperative poses and smiles, but in the end, I got a Christmas card that makes me smile!

Since picnik.com is no longer, I have started using picmonkey for random collages and simply editing. I am just learning the site and imagine there is lots more I can do to utilize it. I did notice they had a link for making Christmas cards, so I took advantage of it and made my own. We have a small print shop about a mile from our house and they were kind enough to print me 52 5x8 flat cards for $28. Score! Well, at least until I went to buy stamps for 52 cards and realized I still had a small fortune in Christmas Cards. Oh well...tis the season for lots of cuteness!

the perfect tree

The Saturday after Thanksgiving we loaded up the van and headed to Mehaffey Tree Farm in Waynesville. We have made it a tradition to go to a local tree farm and choose and cut our tree. Well, the the workers there cut the tree....we aren't that woodsy.

It was a sweet and fun morning and we practically had the farm to ourselves, making for lots of running through the trees and lots of sweet memories!

The Johnson Family