I took this video last night. This is the tail end, but it shows a little of the sweetness :) The Husband was tickling Jack before bed, and every time Jack would cackle, Ella would start laughing, too. It was really sweet :)

We had an incredibly sweet and simple Christmas morning as a family of four this year. We chose to only do stockings (although to be fair, the gift I got The Husband wouldn't fit in his stocking), and I really liked how the focus wasn't on a lot of gifts.  We ate breakfast (I fixed cinnamon roll waffles--thank you, Pinterest), sang "Happy Birthday" to Jesus, Jack had room time while I cleaned up the kitchen and The Husband organized things upstairs and in the garage, and then Jack dug into his stocking (The Husband and I exchanged gifts the night before). We gave him a toy truck, a dinosaur coloring book, a lacing game, and an ezpz placemat (parents of toddlers, check them out ! They're awesome!).  My parents came over Christmas afternoon, and they brought lots of goodies with them. The kitchen in the picture above was their gift to my niece 4 years ago. The Husband put it together for her before we were married. She's outgrown it now, and my sister...

Oh, y'all.  As a mommy to an 18 month old and an almost 6 month old, I feel I'm fairly busy.  The days The Husband works afternoons-into-evenings are definitely the hardest for me. It's really nice to have help with dinners, baths, and bed-time routines. But, there are three days when I do those things on my own, and in order to preserve a small amount of my sanity, I make a crockpot meal for one of those nights (and we eat the leftovers the next night). Today, Monday, happens to be one of those days. I'm tired already thinking about tonight, haha! Anywho.  One of my all-time favorite crockpot recipes came from this website ,  which I found on Pinterest.  I changed it up, and we all love it. This morning, The Husband saw I was getting out the ingredients before he headed to work, and he left with a grin on his face. (Side note - I'm not a huge fan of meat, but if you are, check out her recipe instead. Or use mine and add whatever meat you want!)....