Tatem was right at home when we celebrated Christmas with Mark's family.  Everyone looks like her!!  haha!  Mark's parents made the LONG drive to Texas and spent a week and a half bouncing between Mark's sisters' and grandmas' homes.  Including hotels, they spent the night in 7 different places!

Look at this Christmas cutie!  Mark's mom and I tried to get the girls together, but after about 100 pictures, we gave up!  Mark's mom is holding her outfit to help her sit up. :)

Mark's parents with their tiniest grandbabies!

Christmas cuties eating breakfast at the little kids' table.  This was BEFORE presents.  I can't believe they waited!  

Landrie, McKinnnan, Gramm and Tucker

Landrie in front of all the loot!  

Cade, Colson and Jaxon were ready to open!

THANK YOU!!!

Mark's parents got the little ones these head lamps.  They were such a huge hit!  Landrie's still walking around the house wearing hers. :)

Tucker

It wouldn't be Christmas without posing with a present!

Grandma and Cade

McKinnan was excited when we adopted Landrie and when Tatem was born.  Our girls are her only girl cousins!!  Landrie loves to play with her. :)

Do you see her lips saying, "DORA?"  It was a Dora Christmas for sure, and Landrie was a happy girl!!

Colson tearing into a gift!  It took about 30 seconds for Megan and Greg's living room to be covered in wrapping paper!

Gramm loved this one!

Rusty and Jaxon checking out a rocket launcher.  It didn't take the boys long to realize one cousin could launch it from the first floor, and another cousin could lean over the railing and catch it upstairs!  

Thanks for letting us take over your house, Megan and Greg...and Dora. :)

Beth talked all about being a red head with Tatem. :)

My love:)

My two favorite little girls!!

During some downtime, I resurrected one of my favorite Christmas activities from my teaching days- gingerbread houses!  I use this method to make them and hot glue instead of icing.  It's much easier!

All kids like candy, right?  Well, Landrie and her cousin Colson seem to have an extra dose of candy-loving.  It didn't take long for Colson to dig right in!!

Of course, Landrie had to try it too!  (Notice that all her candy was licked before she put it on her house.  No one was stealing her candy!)

 Mark's mom and sisters!  I love these girls!

The original five Longs!  Beth, Mark's mom and dad, Megan and Mark

I promise Mark's not standing on a stool!  :)

By the end of the day, we were all winding down.  Our crew loaded up the car again and headed off for more Christmas celebrations!

We squeezed every minute of Christmas out of the week that we could.  We even slept over spent the night (Sweet Tatem was so excited that she was up ALL NIGHT) at Megan and Greg's to get the full effect.  :)  We met back up in Houston with Mark's parents at his grandma's house.

Tatem loved seeing Grandma Todd!

Three generations of Long girls!  Is it possible?  Everyone is smiling, even Tatem!

One last group picture!

We hope y'all had a very Merry Christmas too!

Santa!!

Landrie was so excited to see Santa this year!  When she's excited, she gets a very dramatic voice.  We'd ask,"Who are we going to see??!" and she'd get right in our face, with her eyes so big and say, "Hanta!!"  It was so much fun that we took the girls to two times to a Breakfast with Santa two weeks in a row.  The third Saturday she was going to a birthday party, but when we asked who she was going to see, you guessed it..."HANTA!!!"  haha!

Breakfast with Santa #1

Landrie was thrilled to have a chocolate cookie with her pancakes!!

We practiced talking with Santa all morning, but when we got there, she was a bit apprehensive.  Once we put TayTay in his lap, she realized he must not be so bad. :)  She told Santa that she wants a Dora bike.  It sounds a whole lot like "dirt bike" when she says it, so we had to clarify. :)

Pleeeeeese?

 The next weekend we headed out to a local high school.  Their drill team does a Breakfast with Santa as a fundraiser.  The students run the whole thing and they have lots of carnival-style games too.

SO cute!!

Is that a smile or a growl??  :)

Just as our parents were SO EXCITED to give us that special Christmas gift that we'd been begging for, God LOVES to give his children good gifts.  I imagine him grinning from ear to ear with anticipation over your reaction when you find out the good news.  I cannot WAIT for one day when when several of our sweet friends have their long-awaited "Christmas morning" and get their gifts from God!!  

2010

Last year we got to ride on the Santa float in a parade!

2009

Landrie was so tiny!  This was at Mark's Christmas party for work.  The mayor thought Landrie was so cute when she saw her that she carried her over and got another shot with her!

We are already having a great time celebrating Christmas with our family!  I hope you have an amazing Christmas weekend, celebrating the best gift of all, Jesus!!

12 Days of Christmas gifts for teachers!

Last year I did a post with TONS of ideas for Christmas gifts for your kids' teachers.  I pulled on all my former teacher knowledge and put together a long list!  As I was driving home from Tatem's physical therapy last week, I realized I want to get Tatem's "teacher" a little something for Christmas!  She's just so, so sweet with Tatem.  Hmmmm... I wanted something little but sweet...  I thought of the old post!  So, here it is in case you need some ideas, whether they are for your child's teacher, a work gift exchange or your baby's physical therapist!!

Just click here :)

Pumpkin Recipes!

I'm linking up with Kelly's Korner today!  She's doing favorite holiday recipes, so you know it'll be a good one!  We've all got our favorites, but this year I discovered two new ones that were a big hit at our house and with friends.  :)  They both involve pumpkin and cream cheese, so how can you go wrong??  


Pumpkin cookies with maple cream cheese frosting! 
I'm hungry just writing the name of them!  These are a yummy, bite-size cake like cookie that remind me of those soft frosted cookies you can get in the grocery store bakery.  The cookie is very soft and not too sweet, and the frosting is HEAVENLY!

Picture from here

COOKIES (I just changed up the spices from this recipe.)

• 1 cup sugar
• 2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
• 2 tablespoons Maple syrup
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground all spice
• 1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 2 1/2 cups flour
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• Pinch of salt

I was debating between two recipes and accidentally started with the one I didn't want to use, but they turned out great!  I decided to go with the frosting recipe from Annie's Eats Pumpkin Whoopie Pies.  She's right, only do 1/2 or 3/4 and you'll have plenty!  I did 3/4 and had enough left over to frost some pumpkin bread.  Landrie wouldn't call it it bread.  She insisted it was cake. haha!

My little helper!

FROSTING (cut it in 1/2 or double your batch of cookies!)

3 cups powdered sugar

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature

8 oz. cream cheese, at room temperature

3 tbsp. maple syrup

1 tsp. vanilla extract

The other recipe is from my friend Bethany.  She made this ridiculous pumpkin dip one night and I fell in love. :)  It's perfect with apple slices or would be great with those little graham cracker sticks too.  I haven't been able to find them though.  Does anyone know if they still make them?  This is nice and light to go with all the rich Christmas goodies that we'll be eating!   Oh, and it makes a ton.  I froze 1/2 for later, so it would be a great one to make ahead. :)

Picture from here

Pumpkin Pie Dip

1-8 oz package cream cheese, softened

2 c. powdered sugar

1 c. canned pumpkin

1/2 c. sour cream (or substitute plain Greek yogurt) - I used plain yogurt because that's what I had.

1 t cinnamon

2 t pumpkin pie spice

1/2 t ground ginger

1 c Cool Whip, thawed

 

In large bowl, beat cream cheese with powdered sugar until smooth.

Add in pumpkin, sour cream, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and ginger.  Mix well.

Fold in Cool Whip.

 

Store in refrigerator.

 

Serve with Granny Smith apples, graham cracker sticks, or gingersnaps. 

I hope you have a Merry Christmas!  I'll be posting pictures from our family session soon, but Jenny already posted a sneak peek here. (Just look for the family in pink!!)  

Does it get any cuter??

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

A Beachy Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving we celebrated Thanksgiving and Nonny's 91st birthday!  This picture of Tatem staring adoringly at her great grandma is SO precious.  She just laid there and cooed at Nonny.  

My mom cooked a heavenly turkey dinner for all of us!

Halfway through dinner, Tatem woke up to join us. :)

My mom and I took Nonny back to her new apartment and when we came back, this was the adorable little one I saw.  Do you want to know something funny?  That was the Aggie outfit that I packed for Tatem!  It's a 3-6 month one.  When I told Mark, he said that explained why it was skin tight and so hard to get on!

Mark got us 2011 Maroon Out shirts, and I had an extra outfit packed for Tatem, so of course we had to get a family picture of our matching A&M attire.  I love it!!  (But I didn't love the last 3 seconds of the game. :(  )

Nonny's place is on the water, so P-Pa took Landrie out to feed the sea gulls one morning.  If you've ever done this yourself, you know why I only have this one picture.  As always, you can't find a single sea gull, then in seconds they swarm and you have to run inside!  Landrie was not too excited about it!

Landrie soaked up a ridiculous amount of love and attention from everyone around.  She enjoyed being the only toddler for most of the week!  How cute is she watching football with her daddy?

She and my mom made this sweet necklace out of colored noodles.  Landrie was SO proud of herself, and she's still wearing the necklace this week.  Today I caught her crunching away on one of the noodles!  Eww!

She helped my mom make her famous potato salad.  Landrie loves to help with anything, but especially loves to cook.  If I'm in the kitchen, she drags in a kitchen chair and says, "Mama, makin'?"  and wants to help with whatever I'm making. :)

One little happy Tatem loved some cuddle time with my dad!

Saturday lots of family came in town to celebrate Nonny's 91st birthday!  Thank you all so much for praying for Nonny in August.  She's moved from the hospital, to a rehab center and is now in an apartment in a retirement community.  We have so much to be thankful for!!  She's got her computer all set up and is back to checking email and even reading the blog.  Nonny, I hope you enjoy these pictures!!

Ali and Jonathan made the long drive in.  When I saw her at Kelly's wedding I was pregnant and she had some baby fever. :)  This weekend we got to celebrate that she is pregnant!!

My two precious baby girls...I still feel like I need to pinch myself.  I can't believe that God has overwhelmed me with an amazing husband and two daughters.  It's just a dream come true!

This one of Nonny with her three kids is so sweet!  

Mark, Craig, Jan and Nonny

Look!  It's Mark and our blog's #1 fan, right Donnie?  haha!

It was so great to stay up late and catch up with my aunts, uncles and cousins!

Bernadette, Kim, Kamlyn, 

Liesl and Kyla

My cousin's daughter Dreya pushed Landrie through the house on this train for ages!  I think Landrie's face says it all!  They both slept great that night. :)

I was behind the camera most of the time, but I did get one picture with my dad!

Whew!  We had quite a family-filled fun Thanksgiving this year!  I am beyond thankful for all of my sweet family!  

For those of you who are on facebook with me and saw all my Sunday posts, yup, even with that crazy trip home it was all worth it!  A trip that can be 6.5 hours without kids took us 11.5 hours, and we barely hit any traffic!  Our DVD player broke about 5 minutes into the trip, Landrie puked everywhere and Tatem screamed a lot.  We stopped 3 places in the tiny town of Edna, Texas alone!  I'd do it all again...but not this weekend please!!!  :)