Belated Christmas Wrap Up (again) - Part 1

I guess I just can't get a Christmas post together before Christmas. I didn't do it on time last year either. I realize I am super behind - I still need to recap JJ's first birthday party - which was almost two months ago. But I might as well recap some Christmas stuff first, right?

After a year off in 2011, Joe and I hosted Christmas dinner again this year. It was definitely a lot different than hosting pre-baby, but we had lots of help and it was sort of a light year. I used the same exact menu as in year's past, but instead of printing labels, I decided to make life a little easier for future entertaining. I got some wooden plaques from Michaels and gave them a couple coats of chalkboard paint:

The big ones I used for Joe's 30th Birthday Party (of course I have no pics from that), but the small ones came in handy for Christmas.

The menu included: baked beans, mashed potato and sweet potato bar, candied carrots, green bean casserole, and the traditional ham and turkey.



I also dressed up our pantry chalkboard door with some Christmas cheer:

Instagram photo - so the fuzziness is artsy, right?

I started instagraming a couple months ago and am starting to get addicted. I follow the YHL-ers and saw some comments about dipping the chalk into water first to make it brighter. It definitely worked!

Ok this post has the potential to get really long, so I will save the crafty baby things for Part 2. I will leave off with JJ's official meeting Santa pic:

As you can tell, he was thrilled! Happy New Year everyone!