A New Year’s gift for all!

Yesterday was so much fun.  Haley (babysitter) and her mom and siblings invited us over with a few other friends to decorated gingerbread houses.  I’m sure I’ll get the mother of the year award for this admission, but we’ve never done this before.  You can’t imagine the setup – the houses were already put together so the kids could just focus on decorating, there was every kind of candy imaginable there, an endless supply of white and green frosting, and lots of help!  As I suspected Ethan was very into the decorating part and wanted to get everything just right – Rachel gorged herself on fruit loops, dots, Hershey kisses and frosting.  She’s my kind of girl!  Haley was kind enough to snap about 647 pictures of the process, and 27 hours later I’ve just gotten through them all.  Thanks, H!

Ann – thank you so much for opening your home to us and for giving us a great sugar rush.  And tell Kurt that Ethan said thanks for bringing a little more testosterone to the group!  What a fun memory for us this year.

God worked a Christmas miracle and had us all feeling somewhat presentable by Christmas Eve!  We thoroughly enjoyed time with family, and of course the kids enjoyed ripping into all of those presents.  Ethan is still having a hard time understanding that Christmas is over because he says it is supposed to snow at Christmas (I think we went too far with the Christmas movie watching this year), but it is indeed over.  This was the first year he got into the whole Santa thing and I loved it.  He kept asking how Santa would get his telescope down the chimney, and insisted we set out coffee instead of milk.  I really do love this time of year.

Haley and Julianne spoiled the kids – again – with gifts (despite her face, Rachel did enjoy the purse!)

Tuesday night we loaded up the kids and drove around looking at Christmas lights

Apparently some of the lights were a bit too bright (this photo was taken just before Rachel vomited all over herself, the blanket, the car seat, etc.)

We spent Christmas Eve at my mom and dad’s house with family – I was able to take a grand total of 4 pictures before my camera battery died.  Ginny – have any pics you’re willing to share?

Christmas morning was awesome…Santa came through on the telescope and stickers, and brought along a kitchen for good measure

We headed to my Granny & Pa’s for Christmas lunch and met up with all of my aunts/uncles/cousins/2nd cousins.  All my Pa wanted for Christmas was a picture of him and Granny with their 13 great-grandchildren.  Wish granted!

Cousins playing outside

Pa & Levi bonding

Unfortunately my Pa had to be taken to the hospital after lunch, but thankfully he’s feeling better now.

On Saturday we headed to Clay’s mom’s house to celebrate with his family.  We had to cut our trip a little short because of some asthma trouble for E, but had a great time.  And thankfully we were able to enjoy those Christmas morning cinnamon rolls that I think about all year.


Rachel keeping it real…

Merry Christmas to all!

In the throws of the terrible-horrible-no good-throw uppy-diarrheaing-ER visiting-fainting-stomach cramping-very bad week.  For all of us.  But still wishing you a merry Christmas from the SFB!

We’ve been Christmasing it up around here and I love it!  Friday night we hosted the dessert portion of a progressive dinner for the youth group at church.  I made fudge, smore bars, lemon cheesecake squares, peanut butter cookies, hot chocolate and apple cider and it was all quite tasty.  I think there were a little more than 30 of them here smushed into our living room.  They just piled up on the couches and the floor and had a great time. 

Saturday morning we all went to a Christmas party at the church building.  For some reason I had worked it out in my head that brunch food doesn’t have as many calories as real food, so I ate…a lot…and it was good.

Saturday afternoon we headed to the Galleria to see the 94 foot tall Christmas tree.  I knew it would be big, but good grief!  The kids just kept staring it at and Rachel said, “peby (pretty) apples!”  She’s still convinced that the ornaments are apples.  And I’ll go admit that I’m a horrible mother and have never taken my kids to see Santa and sit in his lap.  So, since we were there and Santa was there we decided to drop two weeks’ worth of Starbucks money to let them sit in his lap and be slightly terrified.  But Ethan was happy to tell Santa that he wants a telescope, and Rachel stayed true to her wish – stickers.  We were the last people in line so we watched Santa walk away when we were done.  Ethan said, “Oh good.  Santa must be leaving now to go to the North Pole and make my telescope.” 

Tonight we had our Christmas program at preschool.  It’s always a little crazy trying to coordinate my pre-k class and making sure I’m watching all of Ethan’s stuff.  Thank goodness Ethan had a nice audience with Clay, Rachel, Mimi, Nana & Poppa!  The music teacher has 2 kids so she knows the importance of keeping it short and sweet.  E did a great job and we even bumped into Santa again on the way out.  Rachel wanted nothing to do with the big guy.

(at least my kid wasn’t the one sticking his tongue out or picking his nose…not in this picture anyway)

And since they were dressed and wired we decided to try and get our Christmas card photo when we got home.  Thankfully we got one that turned out a little better than this…

or this…

or this…

Okay, that one was pretty cute, but didn’t make the cut.

Merry Christmas activities!

Last weekend our house underwent its usual post Thanksgiving transformation.  The entry went from this…
…to this…

The piano went from this…
…to this…

And the fireplace went from this…
…to this…

Have I mentioned that I love the holidays?!?

Today was a rather long day – this is day 4 of Clay being gone on a business trip and I had to send a kid home from preschool today because he spit on a little girl in class.  But, there were 2 things that made my day merry and bright.  My wonderful parents kept the kids all afternoon and had them spend the night so I could run a million errands and clean house for the progressive dinner I’m hosting tomorrow night.  And the second is that when I was in the Hobby Lobby restroom the lady beside me said, “Excuse me miss, can you spare a square?”  Awesome.

The only way to truly appreciate the newfound friendship my kids have is to come over and notice the slightly reduced size of my laundry pile and dirty dish pile.  I have found myself recently with a little bit more uninterrupted time because E & R are actually tolerating each other.  We still have a lot of yelling, telling, smelling, you get the idea, but they are enjoying playing together as well. Ethan asked me to take this picture because they made a “10″ with their toys (backward, but still picture-worthy)

Last week we rode our bikes to the donut shop one morning (Robin – I’m not sure about Isaac, but we just got brave and tried donuts and Ethan hasn’t had any reaction – yea!)

Their newest love is putting all of the couch cushions on the ground to make a bounce house – I think I’ll check into those free jump hours at Pump-It-Up