Cabin Fever!

Overnight we received a blanket of ice covered in beautiful snow. It was terrible to try to drive on (speaking from experience), but made for another great day together as a family. What to do when cooped up all day? Cook, of course! I was going to make cupcakes, but didn't have my cake mix, so we made cookies from scratch! I've never made the Nestle Toll House recipe from the back of the morsels bag until today, and they were a hit!

Elia paced back and forth with her hands folded behind her back in anticipation of the timer going off.

Still waiting...

First batch done!

Elia asked to put cookies in the muffin pan, and may I just say they were delish!
With a wind chill below zero, we bundled her up for a VERY quick snow angel.

Our daughter is in there somewhere, I promise.

Ready to collect the snow for a little snow ice cream! (She wanted to put it directly in the Radio Flyer, but mommy insisted on the zip lock bag)

Paula Deen's recipe is the best I've ever had!

She approves!

Happy Birthday, Nana!

Nana and Poppy came over to celebrate Nana's birthday with homemade pizza and "Better than you know what" cake! Nana received a Night of the Museum DVD from Elia (did she get that for hersel, or for Nana??!!) and The Pioneer Lady's cookbook. Happy Birthday, Nana!

Nana opening gifts
Laughing at mommy doing "tricks" to get her to look at the camera.
It's a party everyday in Elia's world!
Gifts!
Let's eat!
Although not her party, Elia is always willing to help blow out the candles.

First snow of 2011

Huge snow flakes fell on this second weekend in January and we just had to pull out the sled and the (too small) snow suit! Elia just wanted to go down the driveway in her sled, and make a snow man with her daddy. Now, a fire and hot chocolate! Love that this happened on a weekend.

This was the successful slide. Most of the time she landed in the snow face first!

This is her snow man. See his tiny head? That was her contribution!
This is very serious work for daddy.

She was thrilled to finally be outside!

Just got hit by daddy's snow ball!

Happy snow day!

The Boys

Christmas Eve

Dinner on Christmas Eve-Eve!

Bluff Dweller's Cave

Christmas in Bella Vista

To avoid the brain-numbing display of our children opening endless gifts, I'm going to try to capture the fun they all had during our time in Arkansas instead. Julian and Elia spent time with their cousins, Sarah and Ethan, on Christmas Eve during our family Christmas. This is what happens when too little girls sneak into the kitchen...a plate o'chips!
Why not have a party near the front door?
One word: Cupong.

I still crack up when I look at our "goofy" family picture! Classic.
Looking at this does not get old for me!!!
The girls!
Rapunzel, let down your hair!
These profile shots tug at my heart every time.

Are you getting an idea of this girl's personality now? That's her response when I said to say, "cheese"!!
This was the only photo that I was able to get with Elia sitting still!

On Christmas morning, just as the children were about to open their gifts, it began to snow! Elia ran to the window and said, "I wished it would snow, and I just knew it would"!

There are 95 more pictures just like the one above, but I will spare you! Let's just say it was chaotic, fun, and over way too fast!

It was a light dusting, but they were thrilled!
While Julian and his dad rocked out on the Wii's DJ Jam Party Thingy-magig, Elia just HAD to "play" in the snow...

Food at Christmas Time!

Food is a major part of the holidays for most everyone, and our home is no exception! Here is just a sneak at all the baking and making that went on at the Tellez home!

This was Elia and her cousin, Alexa, making chocolate mint and almond candy.
When Isaac's mom was down for his graduation, she made our our "favorites"! This was the night of chile rellenos!

Christmas Bags

Well, I have a little time on my hands (finally) so I'm catching up with all of our events over the past few weeks. One of the things Elia and I most enjoyed (but that I may NEVER do again as they were so time consuming!!!) were her bags for teachers and classmates.

I decided to go "green" this year & use good ole recycled brown paper bags (simply because I had an abundance and they were super cheap!)

Despite my obsessive tendencies, I wanted Elia to be creative and decorate each bag herself. Ok, I may have helped just a bit, but for the most part she was the artist! Then we filled them Christmas goodies!
We used card stock, a square dye cut punch, ribbon, stickers, and ornaments to embellish our finished product!
As if the 3 year olds wouldn't be satisfied with simply a bag full of candy and trinkets, I decided to make each child an ornament with their name and the school's name, along with the year, and Elia's name. I'm sure it will be passed down for generations (it better be after all that hard work, ha!!)
What I do hope & pray is that even if the children don't remember every "project" we do, they can look back on our pictures and know that I wanted to cherish each and every moment with them. I try to make even the smallest task a major "event" in our home so that we can create precious memories that the kids will take with them throughout their lives.