Just rolled out of bed

So, the other day right after the kids got up from bed they wanted their picture taken. They were playing so nicely with each other, it was cute! You can also see their "crazy" hair, which most people don't get to experience except me. Anyway, I think the picture is humerous.

Christmas baking!

Nesting has set in and I have been able to bake up some goodies for the family celebrations on Christmas Eve and day. YEAH! So, I just thought I would share some of the things that I have been doing in the kitchen- with and without kiddos. :-)

First, there is Grandma Bea's famous sugar cookies. When I started making them 4 years ago, I wasn't too excited about making them, due to all the work, but made them because Chris loves them. But, as the years progress I have gotten to actually like making them... now we just have to maybe get to decorating them after they are cooked. he he

Roll out the dough, and cut them out

Bake them!

And continue till you have LOTS! I still had another couple of batches to do after this picture... the kids were really excited about these!

Up close and personal

I also decided to try a challah bread for Christmas day... I've never made it before so hopefully it will taste okay. But, I must say that it looks pretty good!

It's risen and ready to go into the oven

Baked and ready to eat! YUMMY! (let's hope!)


Here are my two little helpers! Yes, they are ALWAYS excited to be able to help me whenever I allow them. So, when I made Grandma Mary's Holiday Rolls (as I did for Thanksgiving too) they were more than excited to assist! And, they did a great job.

I also made some chocolate kiss cookies... one of my favorites.

Almost ready for the oven

Some of the finished products. The kids and I enjoyed some of these right out of the oven!

I pray that you all have a wonderful and blessed Christmas! And in the spirit of celebration of Our Savior's birth I hope that you will be able to enjoy some delicious food as well. Praise be to God for the Birth of Our King!

Are we crafted out yet?

As I mentioned in a previous post, I have had to re-vamp some of my "play-time" with the kiddos. We are still working hard at doing some crafts around here, which I am having fun with! I found some wooden, magnetic Christmas coloring things at Michael's recently... the kids had a blast the other day coloring them! It was funny, Jonathan only wanted to use the color orange- his favorite color- so, I am sure you can spot which ones he colored right away!The final products:

We had some FUN visitors!

At the very beginning of November we were blessed by two sets of wonderful visitors! First, was my sister and her husband. Justin, my brother-in-law, was out for a TDY (a.k.a military lingo for a business trip) so my sister tagged along. It was great spending a few days with them! One of the days we took the kids to Monkey Bizness- one of their fav places to play:

Chris was also able to join us that day, as he had off work. What a GREAT dad!!Our second set of visitors were my grandparents, from my mom's side. My cousin had decided several months ago that she would take them on an extended trip around the country in a humungo luxury (rented, of course) RV. They made several stops over the course of the month and one of them was here in Colorado! Gram and Pa, as I call them, live out in Boston, so the last time I was able to see them was at our wedding 4 years ago! It was wonderful introducing them to our children and seeing them again.

I feel so incredibly blessed with all the family I have been given. Thank you to all who pour your love, kindness, prayers and thoughts upon me and my family! I appreciate you ALL being so wonderful!

Thanksgiving!

This past Thanksgiving we stayed here in the state- usually we travel to Illinois to visit Chris's family. But, with me being 7+ months pregnant, I wasn't really up for a 17+ hour drive in the car. We headed down to Colorado Springs on Wednesday evening and stayed until Thursday night.

Thanksgiving morning began with Grandaddy watching two different parades with the kids... which they loved! Jonathan was very excited about the drums in all of the various bands he saw, so my dad got out his bongo drums. The kids had a blast!When Brent and Quinn arrived with Padriac and Landon, the fun really began! Quinn and my mom had bought/brought some crafts for the kids to do. The first was making their own Thanksgiving plate, complete with turkey stickers:Quinn had also made up these corn on the cobs, which needed to be finger-painted:The final products:Landon, who will be a year old at the end of this month, was just hanging out during all of the craft time. So cute!Grammy and Grandaddy with all of their out of the womb grandchildren (as there are two more to be born in this upcoming year):And of course, around 1:30 we enjoyed a scrumptous turkey dinner. We all hung out, fell asleep watched some tv, looked at ads, etc.. for the reaminder of the afternoon. But, right before we jumped into the car to head home, Chris read the kids numerous books to get them calmed down for the car ride:

I hope that you all had a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving! We found ourselves truly grateful to all that has been given to us.

Thanksgiving Prep

This year we are heading down to Colorado Springs to spend Thanksgiving with my family. My mom does a majority of the cooking, but she has allowed me to make some items for the meal. YEAH! I am making pumpkin pie, cauliflower casserole (I don't even like cauliflower, but found this INCREDIBLE recipe last year for Easter that I couldn't pass up making again for another special occasion), cinnamon rolls and Chris's favorite, Grandma Mary's Holiday Rolls (my name for them anyway). I try to make them for any holiday that we are not going to be at his house for, because like I said they are his favorite! Anyway, this time around I think that they might have turned out the best that they ever have. But, we shall see tomorrow. I also thought that it would be fun to make some "hand" turkey's with the kiddos today. I think that they ended up having a good time:

Jonathan was really proud of what he had made:All three finished "products!"

Happy and Blessed Thanksgiving!

Creativity

As my tummy continues to grow larger and larger, the ease of sitting down on the floor playing with the kiddos gets harder and harder. So, I have had to improvise in how to play with the kids. These past few weeks we have been spending quite a bit of time at the kitchen table doing "crafty" things. There has been a lot of coloring, playing with stickers, putting together puzzles, playing board games, finger painting, etc... Here is a quick glimpse of some of the creativity we have been having.

My mom purchased this GREAT 'create your own sock puppet' set. It was probably one of the best things I have done with the kids in awhile. We all had a blast, there was no prep and hardly any clean up and it was super easy:

Playdough is always a classic:

And finally, stickers, coloring books and crayons!

First Snow!

Last week our house received our "first snow!" Even though it was a slight dusting, the kids were overjoyed and more than excited to play in it. So, I got them all bundled up... and they played outside for awhile. Looked like they had fun, until Jonathan threw a snowball in Catherine's face.All bundled up and ready to go!

Baking season!

The "Baking Bug" has bit me big time these past two months! I received a wonderful baking cookbook for my birthday and I am on a mission to bake as many of them as I can! The kids have been having a blast helping me on my "mission." Unfortunately, I always think of taking pictures of the progress on the actual mixing, baking and after shots (before it all gets consumed)... but I always fail at doing so. I do have these pictures of the kids helping, though. I thought that they were really cute!!

I was making banana bread, so Jonathan was adding the flour and Catherine was mashing the bananas:This time was making a brioche bread, which is basically butter, flour, butter, yeast and more butter (hence the reason why there arn't any ingredients on the counter). It needed to knead for about 15 minutes... the kids had a GRAND time dropping the tablespoons of butter one at a time and watching it mix for so long:

Playin' in the leaves

A couple of weeks ago all of our leaves fell off the trees in our backyard. Jonathan very vividly, and quickly, remembered how much fun it was to play in the pile of leaves last year. He begged and begged and begged to go outside and jump into a pile of leaves. Unfortunately, I was fairly sick for a few days and Chris was out of town... so Jonathan waited to patiently. As soon as dad walked in the door from his business excursion he was out the door again with the kids raking leaves for them to play in. They had a good two days of jumping and playing until Chris bagged them up! It's the small things in life that makes our kids so happy.

The kids waiting so patiently for Daddy to finish raking:They loved jumping off the wall into the pile of leaves. Dangerous?? Probably. But, no one got hurt.The next day the pile continued to grow with Chris raking the entire yard.And yes, Jonathan did pull out his helmet- just to be safe in jumping off the wall- and his fishing pole. And another yes, he did jump off the wall with his fishing pole in hand- several times. Dangerous? probably. Again, no one got hurt. But, were they ever happy!