Cookies & Milk Party

Tyler, Harper & Court's 4th Annual Cookies & Milk party was so fun. We were pretty close to not having it due to living in our very weird rental but when the girls starting asking if the real Santa was coming back again for cookies at their house with their friends, I knew we had to keep the traditions going. So, the baking, decorating & planning began. Tyler & Harper were actually pretty big helpers this year and helped to plan some of the details.

The cookie table!

The girls helped with the reindeer cookies and helped to roll out the sugar cookie dough for the stars, candy canes & christmas tree cookies.

The Peppermint Hot Chocolate Reindeer favors...

Dad got suckered into doing 90% of these!

What a sweet hubby!!!

The toy drive

This is the first year we decided to do a toy drive and the idea actually came from the girls in a round about way. Recently they have been putting lots of their old toys in bags and saying they want to give them to other children since they do not play with them anymore. So, we searched around for a children's charity looking for toys for the holidays and found Hemby Children's hospital... more on this below.

The kids milk bar

So, we were ready! It was going to be as low stress as it can be to have 100+ people in your house. We were prepared and did not have a ton of last minute stuff to do. Then this happened...

Yep, that is our tree at 9am the day of the party.

Broken ornaments everywhere and the stress level began to creep up.

But we survived. Cleaned up the mess and had some assistance securing it to the wall so it would stay up for good this time.

Then Santa arrived...

Tyler & Harper with the "real" Santa.

They love Santa this year!

Court does NOT love Santa this year.

Santa & the kids

Watching Santa leave... he had to walk down the street to get in his sleigh.

Cookies & Milk Party 2011

We do not have any pictures of the chaos of the packed party... guess we were busy entertaining. But it was fun. Can't wait to do it all again next year.

The aftermath of the playroom!!!

The day after the party we all went to go donate all of the amazing toys our friends brought to the party. We had a box filled to the top of new toys for the kids at Hemby Children's hospital to enjoy and it was such a rewarding experience. The children there are sick and will be spending Christmas in the hospital and these toys will help bring them a little cheer. We wanted to make sure the kids could all go with us to understand where the toys were going...

Daddy had to carry the heavy box in...

Donating the toys.

We took a tour and got to see the special floor that the kids get to stay on and left feeling very blessed for 3 healthy children.

Guess we better rest up now for the 5th annual Cookies & Milk party...