Back Again

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year! I'm sorry to have been gone for so long. I didn't mean to be. I had all these aspirations to have tons of Christmas crafts and recipes to share with you....and a full Holiday Home Tour in the days before Christmas and to have posts made and ready for when I left town after Christmas.....but what happened? I got busy. (As I am sure, most of you did too) SO busy! Suddenly everything had to be rushed, because Christmas was days away and I hadn't finished even half of my shopping. I had baking to do, Santa to see and way too many presents to wrap and make. So as difficult as it was, I decided to just let go and worry about blogging once we got back from our annual Christmas trip to Hood River. So here I am at last. And I thought I would show you some of the highlights from the last few weeks to catch you up. This is what the Shephard family has been up to.

Our annual trip to Molbak's to see all the Christmas decorations.....and two very squirmy children!

The only snow of the season so far.....so sad that our snowman could only be a few inches tall!

Gingerbread house decorating. Princess couldn't understand why we were letting her eat so much candy. But I think she was ok with it.

Someone else got some too.

Princess in her gorgeous Christmas dress.

Sister love.

Nervous about meeting the big guy in red.

The Paper Plate Angel Wings that I meant to give a tutorial on. Oh well. Maybe next year!

Princess drinking her "Baby Champagne" at the Nutcracker.

She absolutely LOVED the Nutcracker. I think ballet lessons are in our future.

Snowflake Lane with our Auntie Heidi! Someone was a little wary of the giant mouse.

Spreading out Reindeer food before Christmas so that they knew where to land.

Christmas Eve. It was my favorite night of the season.

Listening to The Night Before Christmas read by our Nonnie.

She couldn't wait for Santa.

Christmas morning! Santa came! Santa came!!!

But wait, Santa left one more surprise present in the garage.....Our new puppy Tank!

Little Peanut got her first haircut. This is how we do haircuts around here...half naked, with Sophia the 1st and a hunk of cheese.

I am loving her sweet little bob haircut. So fitting with her personality.

And that pretty much sums up the last few weeks around here. Hope you all had a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year as well! Here's to a wonderful 2014!