Santa came early to the Mautz house...

We put out our cookies and milk, and sprinkled our reindeer food, and to our surprise...Santa came early to our house :) He knew we were leaving to go to Atlanta for a week and a half and he wanted to make sure he stopped by before we got on the road.

Ansley was super excited for Christmas this year. She LOVED everything about it! Ansley must have been a good girl this year because Santa brought her exactly what she had asked for, a new pottery barn chair, and the Leapster Game System!

Aly had no idea what was going on and was just there for the fun :) She definitely was a good girl and Santa brought her some new books and toys to enjoy!

Santa even surprised me with a trip to Chicago in March! I am so excited and have been wanting to go to Chicago for some time now. This will be another nice trip without the kids. I can't wait!!!! Thanks Santa :)

Right when we finished opening presents, it started to snow! This was the second year it had snowed in Charlotte when we have done our Christmas early. It always makes it feel so special. (little did we know we were going to see a lot more snow in the days to come).

We had a wonderful early Christmas and was looking forward to our trip home to spend the rest of the holidays with the Mautz & Willson family.
Here are some pics of the girls enjoying their early Christmas morning...

making sure our cookies & milk are out for Santa to enjoy

Santa came!

Santa even enjoyed a couple bites of cookies

Happy early Christmas morning!

a very happy girl!

tasting my book to make sure it is perfect for me to use as a teether

Aly was very interested  in Ansley's remote control car

look, Santa brought me a new hat in my stocking! He knew I was going to need this on our trip to Atlanta :)

yes, that is a twix she is trying to eat :)

Rob framed this picture for me, it is one of my favorites. Thanks to my friend Mandy who took the picture (more on this in a future post)

enjoying a ride on her new train :)

let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Ansley loves her Leapster, to the point that she is anti-social!

Cookie Exchange Holiday Party

Not only did I have Ansley's birthday party planned right before we left to go out of town, but I was also in charge of her class holiday party. Luckily, my good friend Kristina was also in charge of the party. Her son has a Halloween birthday, so we figured we would be perfect in planning the class holiday party together! We both know how to go all out during the holidays :)

Since I planned Ansley's class party last year and it went so well, we just figured we would do the same thing. We asked everyone to bring in 2 dozen cookies for a cookie exchange and then we decorated ice cream cones into Christmas trees (also did this last year)! It is super easy to plan and everyone seems to really enjoy it!

I think everything came out great! I was definitely exhausted by the end of the party....

All the yummy cookies!

 recognize this from the last post? Just reused it, and we put reindeer food on it for the kids to take home

the girls dancing :)

Kristina & Elizabeth

definitely stuffed her mouth with a hershey kiss...

extremely excited to show me "angel"

Ansley & Elizabeth

Chantal made this adorable shirt and we got a lot of use out of it!

 

Ansley's 4th Birthday Party

I had a really hard time this year trying to get everything done for Ansley's birthday party. I decided to keep it small, just our playgroup (which is pretty large). I hated not being able to invite all our other friends but with it being at my house and our group has grown so much I just couldn't handle much more people. I kept everything pretty much the same as the past parties, our theme was "Cookie Decorating." It is really fun to watch the kids as they are getting older and to see them decorate the cookies :)

Ansley had a blast and really enjoyed being with all her friends. She got some great gifts, she is looking forward to playing with them after her REAL birthday. We let her play with a couple now, but knew she was getting more presents with Christmas and her actual birthday that we said she can play with everything after her we get back from the holidays.

We have definitely decided that this was our last "home" party for Ansley for a while. It is just so much work with two kids and our house is small and it is getting harder to accommodate everyone inside. Next year, it will be somewhere else...

Everything was so crazy before the party started, I forgot to take pictures of the decorations... I did get a couple and got some good pics of Ansley.

enjoying her first of many cookies

Treyton digging right into the sprinkles

Cowen was very proud of his cookie!

Libby LOVES icing!

Ansley & Caroline

The birthday girl with such a beautiful smile!

so happy!

Aly & Ms. Kristina

Christmas in Davidson

Ansley is in our church's children's choir and LOVES it. They got a chance to show us all what they have learned during "Christmas in Davidson" which was the first weekend in December. They sang 4 songs for us and it was so cute. Ansley was super excited and did such a great job :) They also sang in church that weekend, but Ansley got a little freaked out by the entire congregation staring at them on stage. I am glad I got a lot of good pictures from her performance at "Christmas in Davidson".

"Jingle Bells, Jingle Bells..."

singing "Ten little Angels"

"Mary had a baby..."

Aly trying to be patient in the pew while her sissy was singing

After Ansley was done singing we went across the street to the live Nativity our church put on for "Christmsa in Davidson"