We got so much love and sweet comments from Facebook that I wanted to record them here for posterity.

Tami Rinker Schemper- Can I just say that not only are you the cutest pregnant lady I've ever seen, but you are also the prettiest mama that just gave birth that I've ever seen... you are truly glowing! Love you

Irene M. Phillips- Congrats lady!!! She's beautiful!

Marchelle Klein- Aw. Congratulations!! My daughter is Grace Elizabeth :)

Elizabeth Parker- Congratulations Lanzone family!!!

Jasmine Reischling- Congratulations Lanzones! Ellie is so beautiful and we are thankful for a healthy baby & mama.

Sarah Bultman Verhoeven- So excited for you guys! She's a cutie! I can't wait to squeeze her!

Lindsey Acosta Miller- Congratulations Megan!!! So happy for you!!!! She's precious!

Kami Leukhardt Hauser- How wonderful!!! Congrats! She looks sooo beautiful and already so well loved by her big brother and sister!

Susan Newnam- Congratulations Lanzone family!!! We are so happy for all of you and are anxious to meet Ellie. Hugs from NM

Cathy Willis Bell- Congratulations! Beautiful baby and beautiful name!

Kim Houlihan- Praise God and congratulations to you all! She is beautiful!!

Kristin Morey Bailey- Beautiful girl! Congratulations!

Trisha Haddad- How wonderful! Congrats to you and Andy, and to big bro Joey and big sista Hannah!

Adelle Morse- Congratulations Megan! she's absolutely beautiful!

Melissa Liu- Wonderful news! Hope you are recovering well! Let us know when we can bring you a meal :)

Sarah Buskirk- Congratulations! So very excited to meet Elizabeth Grace!

Lorri Hughes- Congrats...how exciting.

Ella Kutlovskaya Linden- Congratulations!!! How cute:-)

Maryb Erwin- Welcome to the world, beautiful Elizabeth!

Derek Stucker- Congratulations! :D

Kristine Smith- Megan! Congratulations. :o) I was just thinking about you today & wondering if you'd had your baby or not. Can't wait to meet her.

Kelly Johnson- Congratulations!!!

Cara Johnson- Congratulations Megan!!! I am so happy for you and your sweet family :-)

Ronya Kamerlander- Congratulations Megan. Elizabeth is beautiful as well as her name.

David Logan- Congrats Megan! She is beautiful. I just got Andy's message and I will give him a call tomorrow. We are excited for the whole family.

Traci Beith- She is beautiful and I love her name! Blessings (and sleep) for all of you.

Suzanne Ewens- Yay!!!!!

Orwa George Junior- My family sends our blessing and congratulations Megan.

Debbi Schweizer- She is beautiful, Megan! So happy for all of you.

Kara Gibson Hoffman- Beautiful name, beautiful baby, beautiful family!

Helen Krause Anderson- God is so good! Sweet way to end 2011! Congrats! So glad we had a reup at Uncle Ted's celebration. Beautiful family! God's best blessings!

Deborah Allison- Blessings to your entire family!!!

Dorissa Kuipers Radersma- We are so happy for your family!!! So glad everything went so well. Can't wait to hold that precious little girl!

Brooke Logan- Congratulations Megan! She is precious! Hope you are doing well.

Megan Krause Lanzone- Thanks everyone! It was so fun getting home from the hospital and reading all of your sweet comments! We're so blessed!

Lauren Meszaros- Beautiful addition to a beautiful family!! Congrats Megan! Big week for the Krause crew :)

Brandon Buskirk- CONGRATS!

Heidi Vermaire- Congrats on the birth of little Ellie Grace!

Katie Unland- Congratulations Megan! We are so happy for you and your family. We are excited to meet Ellie...she is beautiful!

Tami Rinker Schemper- I think it's time for a new profile picture... little Ellie is going to feel left out. ;)

Kelly Welch Spear- Congrats again! We're so happy for you!

Stephanie Philip- Ellie is so cute!!! Congratulations!

Genevieve Ligtenberg- Congratulations, Megan and family. She is so beautiful! I can't wait to meet her! :)

Michelle Clayton Gregg- Congrats Megan! She is beautiful! Loved the pics!

Leah Krause- Congrats to Lauren Meszaros on her engagement and to Megan Krause Lanzone on her beautiful new baby girl!!! What an eventful day for the Krause cousins!

John Sparks- Hurray!!! Well done and thank God!

Ruth Kimberly Enas- Congratulations to all of you. Hannah is so grown up. Miss you guys

Kendra Koziol- Congrats! She is beautiful!

Cherry Ferry- YAY! Its a girl!!!!! Whooo hoo we were right! :D

Nichole Beutlich- Congratulations on the birth of Ellie!! She's beautiful!! Hope the adjustment is going well!! Thinking of you!

I am happy to announce that Elizabeth Grace arrived safely this morning. She was born safe and healthy in a fairly uneventful delivery. Ellie, as we'll call her, tipped the scales at 7 lbs. 12 oz. and measured 19.5 in. long. Mother and daughter are both resting and doing great. Joey and Hannah greeted Elizabeth soon after her birth and were very excited to meet their baby sister. Praise the Lord for his many blessings!

This Christmas season has been different than years past because we didn't know when this baby would make an appearance. We had a lot of Plan A's, Plan B's and even some Plan C's. Whenever I talked to people about my due date (12/29), I always said how I just hoped I made it past Christmas. Ta-da...I made it! Thankfully this baby was very cooperative and stayed put through all of our activities.

For Christmas Eve, we went to church with my parents, my brothers, and my sister and her husband. Then we headed over to my parent's house.

Here's the belly at exactly 9 months!Growing up we always opened all of our presents Christmas Eve because Santa came to our house while we were at church. We do most of our presents Christmas morning now, but we open presents from my side of the family Christmas Eve. Again, I was so glad to be able to enjoy this special evening with my whole family as opposed to being in the hospital or being the sleep-deprived mom of a newborn!
Christmas morning was filled with more excitement. Joey and Hannah knew that Santa was going to come while they were sleeping, but we found out Christmas morning that Joey thought there would only be one present under the tree from Santa for both of them. He was shocked by the pile of presents! Hannah was thrilled with all of the princess outfits and accessories...
and Joey flipped out any time he got new Legos.
Now that Christmas is over, we are looking forward to our best present of the year...this baby!

Two years ago we found a house close by that was DECKED OUT for the holidays and even had a Santa that you could meet. Last year we didn't make it back because we were out of town, but I was really hoping we could make it this year before the baby came. Good news! So far the baby has been very cooperative and is staying nice and cozy in my tummy while I cross things off my to-do list.

We got directions online and headed back to the same place. When we got there we found out that it was not the same place, but another house that does the same thing. Whoops! Turns out we liked this house maybe even a little better than the last one. This one was also DECKED OUT!

Hannah LOVES driving around and looking at Christmas lights this year, so she was entranced. Here she is waving to some of the light up animals.

While Hannah was thrilled about the lights, she told us that she was NOT going to sit on Santa's lap. That was fine with us. When the time came, however, apparently she got caught up in the moment, and all of a sudden she was sitting on Santa's lap telling him what she wanted for her birthday. Yeah, Santa was a little confused about that too, but at least he has until March to shop for her!
On the way home I asked Joey if he thought that was the real Santa Claus. Joey said, "Yeah! Or it was just some dude in a Santa outfit."

Yep, one of those.

Last night Andy and I went to the adult Christmas party/White Elephant Gift Exchange for our church. I look forward to this party every year and was so glad that the baby stayed put and we could go! Thankfully we had four babysitters ready and willing to come over: Bubba, Nana, Uncle Benjamin and Uncle Timmy.
While we were enjoying our Christmas party, they were having quite the party of their own. Their favorite part of the night was playing this ball game where you roll/throw/wing the ball at the other team and try to score a point.
A celebratory high-five!
Our kids sure are blessed being surrounded by such fun, adoring fans!

I mentioned this last year, but we are doing the Jesse Tree again this year. This post explains it a lot better, but it's a series of devotions that you do every night for advent showing how all of the Old Testament stories point to Jesus. Someone that has done Jesse Tree for years, told me that her family eats Christmas cookies during the nightly devotional. That sounded like a great idea to me, so as soon as we got back from our Thanksgiving trip, I started making Christmas cookies. The kids love this Jesse Tree/cookie tradition too and Hannah calls the Jesse Tree, "Jesse Treat!"

Since that first batch of cookies a few weeks ago, I've made several more. Like a lot more. Man, Christmas cookies are good! Here are some of our favorites.

1. Although they take a bit of work, sugar cookies are hands down our favorite Christmas cookies! In fact, I had to make a double batch just for the four of us this year. I use the recipe my mom used when we were growing up. She got it from the old Betty Crocker cookbook. My new Betty Crocker cookbook changed the recipe, so I just wrote the old recipe in the margins of the new book.

Traditional Sugar Cookies
3/4 cup butter or shortening (or a combination of both)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla
2 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. salt

Beat butter, sugar, eggs, and vanilla together in large bowl. Stir in remaining ingredients. Cover and refrigerate at least 2 hours.
Heat oven to 400 degrees. Roll out dough and cut into desired shapes. Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake 6-8 minutes.
Let cool and decorate as desired. I mix powdered sugar and a little bit of milk and food coloring to make the icing. Don't make the icing too thin or it will run all over, but it gets pretty messy no matter what!

I'm not going to lie, having the kids decorate the cookies gives me a little bit of anxiety because it's SO messy and sometimes the cookies end up DOUSED with sprinkles, but the kids sure do love decorating the cookies! And thanks to my friend Kelly, our sugar cookies now always include Darth Vader (frosted with chocolate), Yoda, and Storm Troopers. Very festive!

(Although my kids would have probably loved it, no cookies were frosted with peanut butter. I think that was left over from lunch.)


2. Andy's favorite Christmas cookies growing up are those peanut butter kiss cookies. His mom gave me this recipe. They are so easy, and the kids love unwrapping all of the Hershey kisses.

*Picture taken from the Hershey website.

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies
1 can (14 oz.) sweetened condensed milk
3/4 cup peanut butter
2 cups baking mix (like Bisquick)
1 tsp. vanilla
white sugar
Hershey kisses

Heat oven to 375 degrees. Stir milk and peanut butter in large bowl until smooth. Stir in baking mix and vanilla. Shape dough into 1 1/4 inch balls. Roll in sugar and place on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 8-10 minutes. Immediately press a Hershey kiss into each cookie and let cool.

3. At our Mom's group this year, someone brought a tray of Christmas treats to share. It was there I found a new love-the almond tart. Seriously, these things are delicious! I made a batch to take to a Christmas cookie exchange, but then came down with a cold and couldn't go.

Confession #1: I was kind of excited that I now had all the almond tarts to myself!

Confession #2: I found out that they make a delightful morning treat with my hot tea.

Confession #3: I have never been able to limit myself to the first three I always take.


Almond Tarts
1 cup butter
1 egg
1 cup sugar
2 cups flour
1 tsp. baking powder
2 T. almond flavor
Maraschino cherries, cut in half

Mix and press in greased mini muffin tins, 3/4's full. Gently press one cherry half into the top of each tart. Bake at 300 degrees for about 25 minutes, or until light brown. Turn out when slightly cooled.

Recently I have found that the secret to amazing cookies is to bake them until JUST done. If the cookies get a touch of brown then I've probably baked them about 30 seconds too long. This takes a bit of trial and error to get the timing right, but it makes a huge difference!

A side effect of all these Christmas cookies is our overflowing recycling bin. We honestly go through about a gallon of milk a day! It's astonishing, but it helps me to think that all these Christmas cookies are really building up my family's bone density! See, Christmas cookies are healthy!

In our house, getting a Christmas tree is extra special because we only do it every other year. It seems like such a waste to buy a Christmas tree when we are going out of town, so we just get one when we are staying home for Christmas.

I love getting our tree from a Christmas tree farm and picking out which one we want chopped down. Unfortunately, we found out that this is the last year the Christmas tree farm near our house is going to be open. I guess we have two years to figure out what to do next time.
Here are Joey and Bubba scoping out the trees.
Hannah Belle was a little nervous about walking up and down the dirt hills, so Joey was helping her down.
And here's the family. I think it's funny that the palm trees are more prominent than the Christmas trees. Welcome to Christmas tree shopping in Southern California!For this picture, Bubba and Nana wanted one with just the grandkids...that's why just my tummy is in it!
Once we got home, we got down to business decorating. Andy and Joey worked on the lights.
Then Tinkerbell joined in to help with the ornaments.
I have never found a Christmas tree topper that I like as much as the one we had growing up. It was a beautiful handmade star that floated above our tree. My great-grandfather gave it to my mom years ago. My grandma has an identical one, and she gave it to me when we went to visit her last week. I love that this special star is now hanging over our tree!

Our Legoland passes are due to expire next month so we are trying to get in a couple of more visits before then. We went last Thursday, and I had no idea that Legoland has a special snow area during the holidays. I was thrilled when we happened upon it as we were walking around. First we visited Santa and his reindeer.
Then came the snow!

This was a snowball throwing area with little targets that spun around when you hit them. Joey was a big fan.
And then there was the sledding.

After Legoland we stopped by to see Andy at work. The kids LOVE getting to see Daddy, probably because he always has some kind of special treat for them hiding in his cupboard.

Good times!