Life With Aly & Luke

This was it. This was the year, and probably the only year ever, that I was a stay-at-home mom during the busy Christmas season. I didn't have to cram every memorable activity into four Saturdays, so we were going to have as much fun as we possibly could and make some memories! I didn't want us to miss one Christmas movie, one cup of hot chocolate, one sugar cookie, or one chance to sit on Santa's lap. I think we were very successful, but luckily we have some time to recover. Making memories can be hard work!

During this Christmas season, my baby boy finally starting walking for real. It's been a long, hard road for this top heavy boy, but he's an official walker.

My big girl turned five! This blows my mind!! We had an awesome day that started with a bedroom filled with balloons, a pancake breakfast, lunch at Cracker Barrel so the birthday girl could have some dumplins, a trip to the movie theater to see "Puss in Boots", and ended with dinner at Shogun where she got on a chair and danced to "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" while the whole restaurant clapped. It was a perfect day.

This has been the year of Pinterest. Every mom's dream come true and worst nightmare. Dream come true because it gives you the most amazing ideas and recipes. Worst nightmare because it is physically impossible to actually follow through with all of those amazing ideas, even though you strangely feel pressured to do so. However, Pinterest did give us our first annual North Pole Breakfast and for that, I am eternally grateful. My sister-in-law, Kristi, and I joined forces and gave the kids a fun way to welcome back our Elf on the Shelf.

They woke up to their surprise and it took a little while to sink in. They were a little overwhelmed!

After the North Pole Breakfast, our Elf's name was changed from last year's "Mr. Elf" to "Chippy" from the Elf on the Shelf movie. Chippy showed up all through the season bringing surprises and a little mischief into our home. This was my favorite...