Happy New Year 2011!

Happy New Year from our family to yours! :)

For New Years Eve, we met friends for pizza and then went bowling. The kids had fun, the parents had fun and it was a great night! Then we came home and had some "family time". And for the first time ever, Emma got to stay up and watch the ball drop with us! We had a great, memorable New Years Eve. Looking forward to many more great memories together this year!

Our Christmas Card Photo

Depending on the type of Christmas card you received from us you got one of these pictures in there. :) Maybe I can get the actual card scanned one day and put on here.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from the Branum's 2010!!

Emma in December!

Emma holding/hugging Baby Cole. She LOVES that boy!

She wanted her picture taken early one morning! Crazy girl!

Picnicing in the castle tent one day!

The Day after Christmas

The day after Christmas we woke up to this:

The view out of our bedroom window

out the front door our yard

see how deep the snow is?

our smiley girl...she was happy to get some snow cream! walking to the car to take a little drive and visit Target

our BEAUTIFUL church

below are LOTS of pictures of the church...it was just so pretty I had to take lots of pics!

the field behind the church

It looked like a winter wonderland here in Raleigh.

a HUGE snowman we found driving through a neighborhood!

looks like fun to me! :)

Christmas Day

All the stocking loot. Candy, stickers, jewelry an eye mask (she asked for it) little princess dolls. I love the dollar store and dollar bin at Target...it is great for stocking stuffers! :) Lots of loot for little money.

A Belle purse filled with beautiful Belle jewelry and Emma's favorite, stick on earrings! princess matching game Belle doll to go with the Beauty and the Beast movie.

Tinkerbell nightgown Belle nightgown

Belle nightgown on with Belle doll

I couldn't get a good picture!

earrings

look at her cute little smile! :)

Emma Belle inside her castle tent eating her princess ring pop. :)

Emma woke up about 11 Christmas morning (yay) came and got us and then we went down stairs. She got to the bottom of the stairs, sat down looking at the tree and almost in tears said "Why didn't Santa bring me any presents?" We set up all her Santa gifts to the side and she didn't see them. When I told her to turn around she saw a castle with all of her gifts inside. Santa knew just what Emma wanted this year!!! He brought her a castle with all types of princess gifts wrapped in princess paper inside. This was definitely one of the most fun Christmasses for us. I had a blast getting her little gifts that I knew she would like and she had a blast opening everything and honestly, for the most part, plays with it all. We had a filling brunch of breakfast Casserole, pigs in the blanket and sausage balls. Late afternoon we went over to the Corso's for Christmas dinner with their family. Juli made a DELICIOUS dinner and the kids had a blast playing together! We left their house about 10pm because it started snowing and some of the roads were getting icy. We let Emma lay in our bed to watch her Beauty and the Beast movie to fall asleep. :) It was a WONDERFUL Christmas for the Branum's!!!!

Christmas Eve

This is a pictureless post that is just for my records and documentation so we can remember what we did. :) We spent the day cleaning, cooking and getting ready for our Christmas Eve service, Christmas Eve meal with new friends. Josh and I decided that because we were having friends over for dinner Christmas Eve dinner after church that we would open our family presents before church. Emma received a few things from us that were useful. We got her her leotard, skirt, ballet shoes, and tap shoes for "ballet school". A thermos for her lunch box that she has been BEGGING for and little kiddy digital camera. I thought a camera would be a good idea since she is always wanting to take pictures but...it leaves much to be desired. I was not too impressed with it. Josh got us all a Wii and the Wii fit which we LOVE. We have had fun having family Wii nights of bowling and various other games. We gave Josh a scarf and gloves, and some Alabama items. I finsished prepping dinner and we all got dressed for our Christams Eve service at church. That service is one of my favorite things about Christmas. We had a great time remembering the Savior's birth and worshipping him. After Christmas Eve, a young couple that was just married and are up here for seminary came over to enjoy our traditional Mexican Christmas Eve. We had beef enchilada's and chicken enchilada's. I LOVE chicken enchiladas! It was a yummy meal. I think we all finally went to bed after midnight...even Emma. It made for a nice Christmas Day because I don't think she woke up until close to 11. :) This Christmas was our first Christmas not to go anywhere around the holidays and no one came here. It was a nice change for our little family just to be "us" with our own agenda and own traditions for the holidays. It really was a GREAT Christmas for our family and one I will always cherish. This Christmas season brought some welcomed relaxation for us and for that I am very thankful.

Our Home at Christmas

I took a few photo's of our home at Christmas. We got a new tree this year that would fit better in our townhome. It is tall and slender. I liked the different look and had fun decorating it.

Our tree with a little present under it. :) stockings dining room

the advent tree that Mom bought us in Finland before they were popular over here and a really neet ornament nativity made from a coconut that mom and dad got somewhere oversees. I love it!

These were just a few of our Christmas decorations. We LOVE celebrating Christmas and the birth of Christ!

A Budding Artist...maybe?

We got home from Michaels one day where we'd been purchasing some craft supplies. It was getting close to dinner time so I laid the bags down in our dining room and went into the kitchen to make dinner. While I was making dinner Emma did this.

When I walked around the corner of the bar Emma threw down the paint brush and ran up the stairs. Below is what I found all over my carpet. I quickly ran up the stairs behind her and shut her in her room so I could try to clean up the disaster that had occured. While I was cleaning the paint off the carpet and while Emma was in timeout she did this! Oh my...it was quite the eventful day. I was SOOOOO happy for Josh to walk in the door.

Singing at Church

Our children's choir got to sing in church one Sunday night in December.

They were PRECIOUS! The kids getting lined up to sing.

When I was looking at the pictures, I discovered that Emma was sticking out her tongue. I'm hoping she was just licking her lips! ;)