I'm back!

Happy 2012! I hope everyone had a great holiday break, I know we did! We took a 10-day long vacation to visit family and friends in Pittsburgh for the holidays. It was really great to unwind, recharge and just enjoy spending time with everyone.

These two had an especially good time over the break. They were spoiled rotten for Christmas with tons of gifts from both sides of the family. I feel like I could easily open my own Toys R Us in my house right now.

(Sorry in advance for the photo bombing!)

We made up for lost time and spent lots of time with family. It was nice to just sit around and laugh with each other. We also ate a lot of really good food, which I will be making up for over the next few weeks :)

I'm glad we ended up not getting a Christmas tree. Yaya and Papa (my husband's parents) had at least 4 decorated trees that I can remember. There may have been more.

While we were in town, we also got to celebrate our little niece Avalene's second birthday.

The party was "snow" themed, so we pretty much added lots of snowflakes to the existing Christmas decorations and made our own little winter wonderland. My sister-in-law, Shannon, was the mastermind behind pretty much all of the decor.

I just loved her winter scene on the table, complete with little snowy cupcakes!

Above the table, we strung lights and little tissue paper poufs.

I used my Silhouette to cut out lots of snowflakes to make garlands and hang from the ceiling.

And for the party favors, Shannon used mason jars, hobby trees, and plastic animals to make snow globes. There were so adorable!

For the food, there was a pasta bar with all of the fixin's. (PS you know you're a blogger when you stand off to the side taking artsy pictures of mushrooms and olives.)

We had such a great time but like always, the time spent with family was too short. I'm looking forward to a new year with lots more great memories!