Christmas Cheer

School is finally out, so it was time to start some Christmas baking. I enjoy making some goodies for a few of our neighbors each year, and this year the boys were a big help. Cole picked out a recipe for cookies & cream fudge, and we all thought it would be fun to make pretzels dipped in chocolate and sprinkles. Cole and Alex each made a batch of the fudge (with my help of course).

Anna Grace helped by crushing the Oreo cookies.

While the fudge chilled in the refrigerator, Alex and Anna Grace assembled the gift boxes for the fudge. Then it was time to make the pretzels. We thought that it would be something simple and fun, but we quickly learned that it was not as easy as it seemed!

Our first batch of the pretzels ended up dripping gloppy goops of sprinkles everywhere before we finally learned to let the chocolate cool a little before adding the sprinkles. As you can see, we made quite a mess.

I think I will be sweeping up sprinkles for a week!

Then, it was time to deliver some of our goodies. Cole was in charge of delivering the fudge, Alex delivered the pretzels, and Anna Grace delivered a card to each doorstep.

The kids are getting really excited about Christmas, but Anna Grace is worried about the rainy weather.  She is concerned that Santa is going to make a mess in the house because he will be so wet!!  Hopefully we will have dry weather for Christmas Eve! 

A Day with Cinderella & Sleeping Beauty

Anna Grace has two close friends turning 4 this week, so she was invited to two birthday parties today...at the same place but at different times.


There is a children's boutique in our town that does beautiful dress-up birthday parties. All of the little girls get to dress up as princesses and accessorize their outfits with shoes, scarves, and hats. Then a favorite Disney princess walks into the room to host the party. The first party this morning had Anna Grace's favorite, Cinderella, and this afternoon's party was hosted by Sleeping Beauty.




The little girls enjoyed letting the princesses apply make-up and then serve them pink tea (pink lemonade) out of real China cups. The princesses also played dancing games with the little girls and taught them everything they needed to know about how to be a princess- including how to curtsy, twirl their dresses, and use princess manners. Anna Grace had a great time today, although I think the only things she ate all day were ice cream and the icing off her cupcakes!






Tomorrow we will have a reality check when she does not have a Disney Princess to make her eyelids sparkly and serve her finger sandwiches with tales of Tinkerbell!

Two Thanksgivings and a Tree Farm

We have had a busy week celebrating Thanksgiving and making our annual trip to a tree farm.


We started by celebrating Thanksgiving with Mike's side of the family last weekend. We always have a big family meal with lots of extended family the Sunday before Thanksgiving. The weather was nice, so we were able to eat outside and enjoy the fall afternoon with lots of cousins, aunts, uncles, and grandparents.


The boys played football and Anna Grace loved "helping" to feed the newest baby cousin.


Then on Thursday, we celebrated Thanksgiving again with my side of the family.



Even though we did not have a lot of extended family come to my mom's house, we still had a huge spread of food. This is my mom doing her "Paula Dean" pose with all of the food that she prepared.


After we ate, my mom and I took a walk with the littlest grand kids before we tackled the dishes.


I stayed at my moms while Mike took the kids home so that she and I could brave the after-Thanksgiving sales. We woke up at 2:45 in the morning to start our shopping. My goal was to get to Toys R Us before the items that I needed would go on sale at 5:00 am, but neither of my brothers believed that my mom would actually get out of bed and get ready in time for us to make it. She surprised everyone by getting up even before my alarm went off! I had a lot of fun pretending to do stretches and planning our strategy while she finished getting ready to go.

Today we made our annual trip to the tree farm to get our Christmas tree. We have so many fun family memories and stories from our tree farm trips. One year it was frigidly cold and snowing and the wind was blowing so hard that we jumped out the car and just pointed to a tree without really even looking to see if it was good tree or not. Another year, someone stole our tree after the tractor dropped it off by the cars and the tree we ended up with had a nest of baby spiders that crawled all over our ceilings!



This year, our trip was not quite as eventful and we brought home a beautiful tree.



We spent the evening putting on the lights and decorations.



As usual, most of the ornaments ended up on one or two branches on the bottom of the tree (thanks to little helpers) so I had to redecorate while the kids ate their supper.


We have lots of parties and other events planned for the coming weeks, so I am going to have to make it a priority to enjoy the Christmas season and take the time to remember the true meaning of Christmas. It is so easy to let these days rush by without taking the time to stop and reflect on God's blessings and appreciate the life that He has given us.

Three Little Turkeys

I did a post a few weeks ago about the pumpkins that Cole & Alex planted back in July. They hoed the garden, planted the seeds, and watered the plants throughout the end of summer and beginning of fall in hopes of having big pumpkins for Halloween. However, their big pumpkins never really grew very much. Finally, yesterday we decided that it was time to pick the only two little pumpkins that had turned orange. We were happy to have one pumpkin for each boy.





We decided to turn the little pumpkins into turkeys to use as center pieces on our Thanksgiving table. Anna Grace had a tiny pumpkin left over from Halloween so she had one to decorate too. Tonight the kitchen table was completely covered in construction paper, wooden sticks, and googly eyes, but the kids had a lot of fun creating their turkeys.

The boys worked late into the evening putting finishing touches onto their feathers, long after Anna Grace had gone to bed.





The turkeys will travel with us to Mike's parents for an early Thanksgiving tomorrow and then to my mom's house on Thursday.

We have so much to be thankful for...a roof over our heads, food on our table, and our three precious turkeys.

Halloween

No long post today- just pictures of Halloween...






...and one picture of Anna Grace before school this morning...