Christmas with the Alford's

We had a busy but fun weekend. Mommy's break actually started a little early because of a late night ER visit with baby boy. Wednesday night Tuff woke up about 45 minutes after he went to bed, screaming. He acted like he was in so much pain. This continued for 2 hours before I finally decided to take him to the ER. Turns out, he had an inflamed ear. He's had quite a few ear infections in the past, but never one that caused him to act like he was in that much pain. Poor buddy. A finger prick, antibiotic ear drops, pain drops, and another antibiotic later, we were headed home. Buddy snuggled right up and went straight to sleep. Since we were out so late and didn't get back to bed til early morning, I stayed home Thursday. He seemed to be feeling better once he woke up Thursday morning although he had pain drops to keep his ears from hurting him. Thursday night we headed over to Baba and Poppys house to hang out with them for a while. Friday we got up and got prepared for Tuff's friend Easton to come over and play. We had this for lunch...

Taco Ring

I found the recipe here. It turned out great. I have tried the same thing before with chicken and it wasn't so good so we never had it again. But when I saw the same recipe with hamburger meat instead, I had to try it out. I really enjoyed it and everyone else seemed to enjoy it as well. It was very easy to make and will definitely be made again at our house! :)

Tuff wasn't so sure about baby Easton. He does so good with Ada and he did very well with Little Miss last weekend as well. I'm starting to think he knows the difference between a little boy baby and a little girl baby. He ended up warming up a little more mid way though their visit but he never showed as much attention as he would have towards a baby girl. I told Jordan we better have a girl next because I think Tuff prefers a baby sister. Haha.

This is the best picture I got of the 2 of them. Tuff looks so big next to Easton.

Friday night we went to the candlelight service at my sister's church and then back to my aunt's house to exchange gifts. Jordan and I got gift cards to Red Lobster, McDonalds and Walmart. Tuff racked up on a few outfits, cute pjs and a CUTE hat from Aunt April. We had a wonderful time eating, opening gifts and enjoying each others company.

Me and my Boogies

Our sweet family

Once we left my aunts house we headed home to get ready for Santa. Tuff was full of excitement that night. We bundled up in our Christmas P.J.'s, took some pictures infront of the tree, and baked cookies for Santa.

Tuff was up bright and early Christmas morning at 6:15. He was so excited to see all his toys from Santa.

I think he was pretty pleased with all his presents. He wasn't too into opening them this year. He pretty much made me and Jordan do all the work and then he wanted to play with everything after it was opened. Santa brought him a 4wheeler, a tool table, and a football. Mama and daddy got him 2 puzzles, ABC blocks, flash cards, 2 movies, a vacuum cleaner/ironing board, a flash light, and several coloring books with crayons. He's really been enjoying all his new stuff. :)

Christmas Day afternoon we headed to MeMe and PaPa's for Christmas dinner. We had ham and all the fixings. Yum. Then we stopped by Jordan's Nanny's to see his family. Yesterday we met up with Jordan's mom, dad and his sisters/their families at Outback for lunch. (This was Jordan's moms gift to all of us). We had a good lunch and good time. Afterwards we headed home to relax for the remainder of the day and night. Tuff didn't get an afternoon nap and Jordan and I only got 4-5 hours of sleep the night before so we were all in bed and asleep by 8 last night. It was a much needed night of rest. Now I'm back to work for the week. Jordan is off this week so Buddy stayed at home with him today. They are enjoying a nice daddy/son day. :)

Hope everyone had as wonderful of a Christmas as we did!!!! I sure am blessed with 2 wonderful boys, great family and great friends!!!! I couldn't ask for more!

Thought I'd leave ya'll with a picture of our family last Christmas!

Isn't it amazing how much baby boy has grown???

The Alford's

Wordless Wednesday

The Alford's

Christmas Traditions

I think most everyone has routine family traditions for Christmas. We have a few regular Christmas traditions every year. But since we've became a family and moved into our own home, we've added a few to the mix. I thought I'd make a post about Christmas traditions.

I'll start by telling about traditions in our own home....

Tradition Number 1: Christmas Card

Who celebrates Christmas without sending a Christmas card? If you don't do this, I highly recommend it. It's fun to look at the changes from the previous year/card.

Tradition Number 2: Elf on the Shelf

This is a new tradition for us this year. Although Tuff is still a little to young to understand the whole meaning, it's something great to start with him. If you haven't heard about the Elf on the Shelf, go here to read more about it. Typically, the elf keeps an eye on the children every day and then takes off to tell Santa every night whether the child(ren) were naughty or nice. Then every morning, the elf is in a different spot in the house and the child(ren) are supposed to find him when they wake up. It's fun. Like I said though, I think it may be a little easier for Tuff to understand next year. It also comes with the book that tells the story. You are supposed to name your Elf too. We decided to name our Elf, Snitch. Pretty fitting, huh? :)

Tradition Number 3: Christmas Morning at Home

Jordan and I are definitely on the same page with this one. We believe Christmas morning should be spent at home with immediate family rather than having to stress about where to be and what time to be there. It's important to take time with your husband/wife and child or children on Christmas morning. Well, it's important to us anyways.

So far, these 3 traditions are really the only traditions we've made for our own home. Maybe as Tuff and his future siblings get older, we will start some more. When it comes to family traditions for us, it's not too crazy. My side of the family goes to the candle light service at church EVERY year on Chritmas Eve. I remember when we were younger and traveled for Christmas, we would go to random churches just to be at a candle light service on Christmas Eve. I will always remember being a part of the candle light service on Christmas Eve. Now that's something Tuff will remember one day too. After candle light service we all get together, open gifts and eat. Usually on Christmas Day in the afternoon, just us girls and our families will head over to mama and daddy's for lunch or dinner. Or just to spend time together. I think I've told ya'll before but Jordan's family celebrates every holiday the Sunday after the holiday. So that's his family tradition. This year his mom has decided to take us all out to eat instead of cooking and we will do any gift exchanging then.

That pretty much sums up our traditional routines. I think I've mentioned in a previous post about having some things monogrammed for Tuff this year. I'd like to start making that a yearly tradition. At least until he's too old to wear monogrammed stuff. Ahhh... everything he got turned out SUPER cute. Here are a few shots of the 2 shirts....

April and I also had some jumpers made for the boys to wear in some pictures with Ada and a new dress she had made. We are actually meeting after work tonight to do that. I will post pictures of that hopefully tomorrow.

So what are your family traditions?

The Alford's

Chicken Tortilla Soup

I thought about going ahead and posting the recipe for the Chicken Tortilla soup I was talking about in my previous post and then it slipped my mind. Since the first commenter on my last post asked for the recipe, I decided I'd post it for everyone. She also mentioned she tried a recipe from a magazine and it wasn't so great. Well, I actually spent alot of time researching a recipe for this particular soup and everything I found had SO many ingredients and required too much time. With a 17 month old, I don't have alot of time to be spending in the kitchen. Anyways, here is the recipe for the soup I made. Which turned out great for me! :)

Ingredients:

3 chicken breasts

1 onion - chopped

½ small can jalapeño peppers - chopped

2 cans petite diced tomatoes

1 bag frozen corn

2 cans white kidney beans - drained

2 packages fajita seasoning (next to the taco seasoning packets)

chicken broth

Boil chicken breast and shred. Keep broth from chicken to the side. In a seperate pan, sauté the chopped onions with about 2 tablespoons butter and 1 tablespoon vegetable oil until translucent. Add the chopped jalapeño peppers and fajita seasoning. Stir until seasoning is evenly distributed over onions and peppers. Add to crockpot with shredded chicken, tomatoes, corn, kidney beans and chicken broth. I didn't use a specific amount of chicken broth. I just added until I thought it was soup-y enough. We like our soup more juicy than thick. Lastly, salt and pepper to your liking. Cook on high in crockpot for 4 or 5 hours.

Serve with shredded cheese, sour cream, and tortilla chips.

Hope this was helpful for anyone else looking for a simple, but great recipe! Let me know how it turns out for any of you who decide to make it!!!

The Alford's

Weekend Fun

The weekend went by way to quickly, as usual. :( We had a pretty busy but fun weekend. Me, Mom and Tuff started Friday night by hitting the town for some last minute Christmas gifts, dinner, and groceries. We were home by 8:30 so I thought it went pretty smoothly. Mom made a comment while we were leaving Walmart when she saw several front parking spots, "Man the economy is bad!" Ha. Thankfully, we have all of our Christmas shopping done.

Saturday I made a big pot of tortilla soup for lunch. Man was it yumm-o. A girl I work with made it for us at work one day and I got the recipe from her Friday. I have to admit though, mine turned out better! Good thing she doesn't read my blog. Haha. After lunch and naps, we got up and ready to go visit one of my best friends Kel, her husband and their little girl. I made brownies and sweet tea. Kel made the lasagna. It was nice to get to spend some time with them because I hadn't seen or loved on little Miss in tooooo long! :) Kelly and Justin adopted Little Miss in July and since the adoption isn't completely finalized yet, we can't share her real name or pictures. :( Hopefully soon though. Here are a few shots of Little Miss and Tuff hangin out. Tuff just loved her. But I knew he would!

Hangin out and eating snacks

Tuff giving her kisses ;)

We had a wonderful time with them and enjoyed dinner too. Thanks for having us Kel!!!! Next time we'll cook for ya'll!

Kelly and Justin invited us to visit their church on Sunday morning so we got up early and went. Tuff looked so cute in his new outfit that he's just now fitting into. I got a picture but it's not too good because I took it with my phone.

Sweet boy is getting so big.

He spent some more time lovin' on Little Miss at church.

Sweet Boy.

After we got home, ate lunch and had naps, we headed to Aunt April's for Harrison's 2nd birthday party. Tuff was such a good boy and seemed to have a blast. Here are some pictures from the big monkey themed party!

Sweet Ada in her Christmas dress

Gettin ready to party

The Banana Toss 

Birthday Boy

Tuff's favorite part, the balloons

Birthday boy with mommy

Presents!!!

Busted in the snack table.

Sweet boy lovin his mama :)

All the kiddos at the end of the party.

As you can see, Tuff was having no part of the picture taking. I think he'd had enough!

Hope you all had a wonderful weekend. We are getting closer to Christmas and we are ready for the family festivities at our house!!!

The Alford's

Blessed

I'm feeling pretty blessed this morning.

This is why.

Baby boy was 17 months old this past Tuesday. He is growing up so fast. I find myself constantly thanking God for blessing with me with such a sweet and fun-loving baby boy!!! I couldn't imagine life without him!

I'm so glad it's Friday. I hope everyone enjoy's their weekend.

The Alford's

On the road to recovery :)

I was so relieved to see MY primary nurse practitioner yesterday. I just loooove her. The last 8 days have been pretty miserable for me and I'm sure alot of that has to do with my stupidity of going to see anyone other than my very own NP. Lesson learned for SURE! Next time I will drop everything and schedule around whatever needs to be scheduled around to see her. As soon as she saw me, she was coming up with a fix. I got a nice little shot of steroid and a brand new antibiotic. As little as 2 hours later, I was feeling better! Woo hoo! Might I add that I slept like a brand spankin newborn baby last night. :) I'm so relieved. I'm sure everyone around me is feeling the same way. Haha.

The wintery mix they were making a big fuss about last night ended up passing us bye. Thank goodness. I could definitely live without wintery mixes. :)

It's Thursday and all I have to say about that is HALLELUJAH! Since my whole weekend last weekend consisted of my butt being on the couch, I'm looking foward to this one. We have a few things going on. Pictures for the babies, Christmas with friends, and possibly trying a new church on Sunday! :) I also want to take Tuff to see Santa this weekend. I'm sure he will be devastated when we try to get him up there on Santa's lap but an attempt has to be made. :) I can't believe Christmas is so close. Right around the corner. I got one of my gifts in the mail yesterday. A new purse. And yes, I'm already carrying it. I'd been wanting one pretty badly so I finally broke down and ordered myself one while I was online doing Christmas shopping for others.

Dalton has been playing basketball for about a month now and his schedules have been crazy! Almost all of his games are scheduled during my working hours. He finally has a game tonight at home that we will be able to make it too. I'm excited about finally getting to see him play. As for Courtland, everytime I get to make it to one of his games, he doesn't get any playing time. It's irritating actually. One, because I hardly ever get to go and Two, because every time I don't go he gets playing time. I was blessed with the luck of a Taylor (my maiden name). Taylor's never have had good luck. None of them. Ha.

Make sure ya'll check out the giveaway over at Babbling Abby's blog. I posted about it below. Have a good Thursday!!!

The Alford's