The Hughes Family: December 2011

Well the Corell side of the family has a tradition each Christmas to make homemade cinnamon buns. These things are "good enough to make your socks roll up and down" (as my Uncle Blake would say!). Totally NOT healthy and take a lot of time to make, but SO worth the effort. :) This is the first year that Katherine has really been old enough (and would sit still long enough) to help! So she helped me roll out the dough, put the cinnamon and sugar on and then watched very intently as I rolled up the dough, cut the buns into discs and dipped them in...Crisco. Yes, I just said CRISCO! YUCK! Just thinking aobut that makes my arteries feel clogged. But it sure does make the cinnamon buns DE-LICIOUS! I only use Crisco once a year, so it's ok right?! :) The girls had a blast and I managed to capture some pictures of us while we baked. I can't wait until next year when we will have the entire month of December off from school so we can bake up a storm! Christmas cookies, cinnamon buns, and Christmas candy...LOOKOUT! :) My Grandma Corell would be so proud. :) I know she is looking down from Heaven just a smilin' ear to ear. :)

Here are the future bakers!

Katherine putting come cinnamon on. (Her hair was a mess since we just got home from school.)

All ready to be rolled, cut and put into pans for the last rising! We did a good job!!

Caroline: "Look Mommy, Kafrine baking."

Caroline gets a turn!

Well it has been a while since I posted and since then we have had Thanksgiving and are steam rolling into Christmas! Whoa! We have been very busy, but mainly the girls have been SICK! I swear it has been about 9 weeks straight of SOMEONE in this house being sick. Not cool I tell ya!! I was hopeful that we had finally overcome this as we had one week of mostly healthy kids this week, but sadly Caroline has yet another fever tonight. Ugh! I am pretty hopeful that it is just teething as I know she is cutting her second set of molars, but I am not positive. They have not had anything too serious, just colds, ear infections, bizarre fevers and one horrible stomach bug. Fun times in the Hughes Household!

On a positive note, we have had a lot going on! This past week Christopher celebrated a birthday and CiCi managed to pull off a surprise visit!! She and I had been in cahoots for a few weeks, but Christopher and the girls were clueless. It was so much fun! She was able to spend the week with us last week and now is sadly back in Virginia. We miss you CiCi! We also had Chris's company Christmas party last night and had a blast visiting with all of our workers and their families. Chris is definitely blessed to have such great people working for him.

Today we took the girls to see Santa at the Mall per their request. Caroline did not have a clue what we were doing, but Katherine knew exactly what she was going to do...she just HAD to give her Christmas list to Santa! She is a riot! ;) So we got the girls as dressed up in their new Christmas dresses and off we went to the mall. We didn't get there as early as we had hoped and therefore we faced the dreaded line...ugh! Luckily it moved fairly quickly and after about an hour we were up to meet Santa. Katherine was THRILLED and walked right up to sit on Santa's lap...Caroline on the other hand, not so much. She first tried to buckle herself back into the stroller and then she put a death grip on me and refused to let go. SO, I was inadvertently subjected to a picture with Santa. Of course since I had to be in the photo I told Chris he did as well. So we had a family picture with Santa! Katherine told Santa that she wanted a Princess Dress for Christmas (shocking, I know!) and Caroline just gave him the look "Who the heck are you and how do I escape?" Santa then asked Katherine if she had been a good girl this year and if she was keeping her room clean. She told him she had been good, but she didn't have a clean room. He immediately said, "Well I guess you'd better clean that room up so I can come visit and leave presents on Christmas Eve!" Katherine came home and immediately cleaned up her room...remind me to Thank Santa next time I see him! :)

We have also had another amazing feat in the Hughes household in the past few weeks...Caroline is potty-trained! I am totally amazed since Katherine was around 3, but I am LOVING the diaper-free household! Way to go Caroline!!!

As for an update on the girls, Katherine is still my super sweet, yet very strong willed little bundle of energy. She goes non-stop from 6am until she crashes around 9 at night. She LOVES anything princess, pink, dance or dress-up related. She still has a mess of super thick, curly blond hair and the biggest blue eyes you have ever seen. She is so incredibly smart and is working diligently to learn how to read. I swear she amazes me everyday. She also makes me absolutely insane, but I have a feeling she is more like me than I would like to admit. ;)

Caroline is our very sweet little cuddle-bug. Her favorite place to be is on my lap. She is super easy to get to sleep and is still a great sleeper...unlike her sister! She is also very smart and can count to 30 all by herself! She knows her days of the week, most of her ABC's and has started learning how to spell her name...which is pretty darn long! She absolutely adores school and her teachers. Her favorite things include "The Little Einsteins" show, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, Dora the Explorer, baby dolls, and anything dress up. I call her my little accessorizer as there are very few days we can get out of the house with a pocketbook, bracelet, necklace and sunglasses on. She also loves to run around the house with her baby doll in the stroller with her pocketbook, sunglasses, high heels and princess dress on. It cracks me up. She is hilarious and you never know what to expect out of her mouth! I am so sad to say that she is very much a "big kid" now and no longer my little baby. Although she does love to be carried like a baby every once in a while. :)

I guess that about does it for an update on us! Hopefully I will be better about updating in the next few weeks so you all can see the madness that is Christmas around here!! :)

Here are some pictures of the girls! Blessings until next time!