Merry Christmas Alex and Jillian!

Twas the night before Christmas and in the Acosta casa

Princess Jilly set out cookies for Santa made by her and mama

The stockings were hung by the chimney with care

In hopes that St. Nicolas soon would be there

St. Nicolas did come and he left quite the loot

For that pretty princess and her baby brother, so cute!

First up was cute Alex, awake before dawn

We took him out first so he didn't have to wait on

His eyes-how they twinkled! his dimples how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!

We soaked in these precious moments with our son

After all, it was Christmas, his very first one!

But alas arose Jilly with such a clatter

As soon as we went in her room, she started to chatter

The first words out of her mouth, "did Santa come?!"

Wondering about gifts, "did he bring me some?!"

Sure enough, she came out and found all the gifts from her letter

And the look on her face, it couldn't get any better!

She got a little red trike and Minnie Mouse helmet

And to take care of Minnie, a baby care set

And for her baby brother she said, "Here Bubs, one for you.

I hope Santa brought you stuff from your letter, too!"

For over 2 hours, we watched them open presents that brought smiles to their faces

And silently I thanked God for all His good graces

It was the best way to spend Christmas with our babies we adore

A nice, quiet Christmas for our little family of four!

It was the merriest of Christmases, such a happy day!

All we did the rest of the day was sit around and play!

Hope yours was as great and filled with delight

Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Home for the Holidays

Oh, there's no place like home for the Holidays...

Since J doesn't get much time off for the Holidays, we stayed in town and celebrated the Christmas season right here in good ol' Aggieland.

There really is no other place I'd rather be than right here with these 2...

It's Alex's first Christmas and Jillian's first Christmas where she "gets it."  As much as we missed having our extended family around, it was a nice change of pace to focus on our family of four and we established and strengthened our own Christmas traditions.  

Truth be told, we were so busy making these Christmas memories that I just ran out of time to blog about them. But J and I have committed to making these into our annual traditions so I want to be sure to capture them to look back on for years to come.  Hope you have a big cup of cocoa and a comfy chair because there were so many great memories to share!

Last year at this time, I was 5 weeks pregnant and Jilly bought a Christmas gift for her baby sibling, who we had just nicknamed "Bubby."  I opened that gift last Christmas, but the real gift is the little person who is now wearing it!

Christmas 2012 on the left and Bubby's 1st Christmas 2013 on the right

It was time to break out Jillian's Christmas tree and help her put up all of her cute ornaments.  She was so eager to help and Bubs was eager to supervise.  

After putting on the tree topper, it was just right.  Jillian also loved adding her gingerbread doll, named Ginger, to the decor this year!

Oh, how time flies when you're having fun...look how big she has gotten compared to her tree!

Jillian and her tree on Christmas 2011 (top left), Christmas 2012 (bottom left), and Christmas 2013 (right)

Bryan is home to the World's largest gingerbread house, and we were excited to meet up with our friends, the Malnars, to visit this man-made wonder! 

As much as I would love to do 25 days worth of activities leading up to Christmas, I figured that "12 days of Christmas" was a lot more practical for our family. So we started with slipping pieces of paper into the Advent calendar with 12 days left.  Our first activity was writing letters to Santa.  Jillian had never really written a letter to Santa, but she was really excited to tell him what she wanted (and I was excited to get her everything on her list)! And Bubs was happy as can be too!

Since Alex is a boy and Jillian is a girl, there aren't too many clothes hand-me-downs.  But these Christmas PJs were a perfect hand-me-down...don't they both look so cute?!

Jillian in the Christmas PJs in 2011 and Alex in them in 2013

With only 11 days left till Christmas, we had our first ever North Pole breakfast. Santa mommy had everything made before Jilly woke up and daddy helped set it up. She came out of her room, looked in her Advent calendar, and was so excited to read the note for this day's activity. And of course, she ate the marshmallow snow first. But all that sweetness paid off when she gave a big, sweet kiss to her baby brother!

9 days till Christmas and we went to Santa's Wonderland with the Hayes and the Malnars!  Jillian loved looking at the lights and listening to the music, but Bubs was not really feeling it. We stayed as long as we could, and had a good time with our friends!

With 7 days till Christmas, we loaded up our sleigh and drove around looking at Christmas lights!  OK, so Bubs slept the whole time, but Jillian, Julian, and I had a great time!

My favorite pic is the top left where Jillian was saying "Mommy, Baby is too heavy for me to smile!"

Only 2 days till Christmas, and while I was off of work for a 2 week break, Julian and his co-workers were working their butts off.  So we took them Christmas breakfast treats, complete with holiday cheer!  I'm not sure what brightened their day more, the donuts or the 2 cute kids in Santa hats!

And with only 1 day left till Christmas, we baked a birthday cake for baby Jesus.  I have to say that this was probably one of my favorite activities we did because I feel like this one showed Jillian what Christmas is really about...the birth of Jesus!  Jillian was a great little baker/helper...and Bubby slept right through it!

All of these fun activities really added the magic and wonder of the season.  It was so magical to be home for the holidays.  Everyday was such a joy as we were all in the holiday spirit, and making memories with these 2 was...well...priceless!

And it all helped lead up to the anticipation of the big day where we couldn't wait to see what Santa left under our tree...

But I know for me and Julian, there are no greater gifts than these 2!

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas

Wishing you and yours a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy 2014!

With Love,

The Acostas

Photo Credit: Sarah Burns, Butterfly Chaser Photography

Cupcakes with Granny

Over the Thanksgiving break, when my mom was in town, Jillian got to bake cupcakes with Granny! My mom is an excellent baker, and I hope she passes the trait down to Jillian (even if it skips a generation with me because my baking is not up to par).

First, they made these adorable turkey cupcakes for Jillian's school's Thanksgiving lunch.  I saw the idea on Pinterest of course, and Jillian loved decorating them.  This was a whole family effort, with Granny baking and frosting, Auntie Shell decorating, and Mommy and Jilly Bear putting on the final touches.

The turkey cupcakes were a huge hit at the lunch and everyone gobbled them up (haha, see what I did there?!)!

And then, on Thanksgiving, Jillian got to bake with Granny again, but this time, it was reindeer cupcakes.  Jillian helped decorate the cupcakes once Granny baked them and frosted them.  She was the official cupcake licker, and nose trier, and mess maker (such important jobs if you ask me).  And in true Jillian fashion, she insisted that some reindeer have purple noses instead of brown or red.  Silly Jilly, I'm sure Granny loved baking with you!

It's in These Moments...

Last week, the kids' school had their annual Christmas program.  And for the first time, Jillian was actually performing in the school program.  I could hardly contain my excitement in anticipation of Jillian's first performance.  As I was leaving work, I told my supervisor about my plans for the night.  And she stopped me to remind me to cherish these moments.  She said, "It's in these moments, not in the big moments like graduations, that life is truly special."  And let me tell you, she was so right!

It was in these moments...

...that we saw Jillian light up the stage with her smile...

...that we saw her sing her song and dance her dance with such joy...

...that she waved to us in the crowd and could hardly contain her excitement...

Jillian did such a great job for her first Christmas program!  And because we live so far away from family, I have uploaded a video of her class singing "Where is Santa?"  It is the cutest thing ever (even if my videotaping skills need some major work)!

I told my friend, Katy, that I felt like the Mom in Mean Girls during this performance because we had been practicing this song at home and so I was trying to videotape her and coach her through the moves at the same time (hence the crappy taping job, haha)!

We were so proud of her!  She got lots of snuggles from Mommy...

...and congratulatory kisses from her baby brother, too!

Bubs got dressed up in his bow tie for the special occasion 

It was such a beautiful Christmas program and certainly one of those moments in time that we will never forget!

DIY Chalkboard

Hello everyone, hope you enjoyed the post about the rustic box that I made.  Sorry that it has been a while since my last post.  As some of you may know, I work at Verizon Wireless and we are in nightmare holiday season and that leads to long weeks with lots of hours up at the workplace.  So thank you for you patience and hopefully this post will hold you over till the next one.

Amber has asked me for years if we could somehow incorporate a chalkboard into our decor.  When we moved to the new house we were determined that we were going to get a chalkboard in here one way or another.  We looked for something that we could hang but we soon learned that when you have a house with a lot of arches and a lot of windows, that leaves you with one thing...no wall space.  With the valuable wall space we do have, we decided to put other stuff up there instead.  I mean, we love a good chalkboard but not over snapshots of our kiddos.  So we moved on from that and thought "hey what about painting a wall with chalkboard paint maybe that will solve our problem"...false. We also learned that writing with chalk on textured walls was pure utter failure.

Well it just so happened that while Amber was looking for some inspiration for our Christmas card photo (coming soon), she came across what could be a picture of our much needed wanted chalkboard.

First I started out with a 8ft piece of 1x12.  I chose this size because it gave me a lot of vertical space for writing and also because it fits height wise with your counter to cabinet space.

I like to use pine on a majority of my projects because it is a soft wood and looks great when you apply stain to it.  You can cut the length to whatever fits your taste.  I cut mine to about 20 inches because that is what the space allowed.  After cutting the piece of wood I sanded it down to make sure it was really smooth.  The sanding helps to not destroy the chalk and makes it easier to write on.  After sanding I started to apply the stain.  I used a Rust-Oleum stain from Lowe's called Weathered Gray.  I have been obsessed with this stain as of late and you will see many other projects with this stain coming soon. 

Love this stain! Highly recommended.

As you can see when the stain dries, it gives the wood a weathered look, but in a great gray color which is in right now.  When the drying was done (which was more like 30 minutes instead of the hour that it says on the can) I began to tape the border.  I used some painters tape that I had left over from doing Bub's nursery. And it worked out perfectly in this project because the width of the tape was the perfect size since I wanted to show off a little bit more of the gray border because again I am obsessed with the way this gray stain came out.  

No need to worry about taping the sides

When taping make sure to do a good job sealing the edge because you do not want a paint bleed to ruin your project.  After I double checked the edges, the board was ready to be painted.  I used a chalkboard spray paint by Valspar and have been really pleased with the results.  It goes on easy, dries evenly, and erases well.

I did four coats of the chalkboard spray paint because I wanted a very thick canvas that would stand several uses.  Something that I learned the hard way was to not let the paint sit there and dry for too long because it will adhere to the painters tape.  Make sure to apply the spray paint coats quickly one after the other and remove the painters tape immediately after the last coat to avoid "ripping" the chalkboard paint.  After the last coat was applied, I began to pull the painters tape off.

If you went to our wedding you know a little something about that towel underneath.

I made sure to let the chalkboard paint dry really well and after that I applied a thin coat of chalk over the whole board.  This will create a thin barrier between the paint and chalk when you write on the board and make it easier to erase the board.  After all the waiting, Amber was pumped when the chalkboard was finally done.  I am pretty sure she decorated it that night.  

All said and done this project cost me about $15 and I made three of them (one for us, one for our photographer, and one for a friend).  It was simple to make and only took about 1.5 hours including drying time.  I am really happy with the way this project turned out and hope you guys enjoy your chalkboard as much as Amber and I have enjoyed ours.