Ginger Bread

Wesley had been asking to make ginger bread homes and men for awhile.  I was not really feeling like making the dough after I have already made many batches of other Christmas cookies so we made houses out of gram crackers.

Wes was thrilled.  I did not make the "glue" thick enough but he did not seem to find.  He asked me where we were going to put the insulation.  I had to laugh, he has been helping daddy build his shop and was more concerned about the technical stuff than decorating at first.  Once the candy came out however, he totally forgot about everything but sampling and gluing things on.

Felicity did not really want to help decorate but she did her fair share of of sampling.

Wes used green sugar to make grass and a broken candy cane for a chimney.

The finished products.

The after math.  Notice the kids are gone.  They were literally bouncing off the walls in the living room.  They were on a sugar rush that topped any other they have ever had.  

Twas right after Christmas

And all through the house

Toys and clothes were thrown all about

Stocking are empty and tossed over there

With boxes and paper for Felicity to tear.

Dad is asleep and Mom editing

more photos and snapshots of Wes and T.

The kids are snuggled tightly warm in their beds,

Memories of Christmas dancing in their heads.

When out in the kitchen there rose such a clatter,

Everyone woke up, to see what was the matter,

A mountain of dishes had crashed to the floor

Cookies, pies and leftovers aglor!

The clean up has started as our

Family goes home.

We miss them already

It's so quiet when we are alone.

In the last 5 days we have done so much

Laughed, played, eaten cookies and such.

Gifts were given and memories shared

with the loved ones who care.

It is important to remember the reason

they were all here

to celebrate the birth of Jesus,

Our Savior, who we love so dear.

He came as a babe to save us all

From our sins and to show

Us the way we are to live

And to love one and all!

So Thank you dear Jesus

 For the greatest gift of all

Eternal life with you

and forgiveness when we fall!

Not Me Monday

It's a bird!  It's a bat!  It's a rat!  It's Zoe the Sugar Glider!

And in this edition of Not Me Monday, she did not pee and poop on me!

  This is a blogger carnival started by Mckmama.  Get over to her site and check it out :) 

Oh little Zoe, my sister Brittany's baby Sugar Glider.  She weighs only 2 ounces and  if and only if she had peed on me, I would be able to tell you that at least an ounce of that is pee.  Yep that would be really gross so I am very ahem relieved (pune intended) to tell you that this flying rodent, (Please don't tell Britt I called her baby a rodent! ) did not pee on me and then moments later poo as well.  I only asked to hold her for a minute and she would never go potty on me and all 13 relatives would not just stand there and laugh if she had decided to!

When would something like this not happen?  Certainly not when we were playing this game.  I would never play a game with mini men's undergarments while letting a mini marsupial crawl on me!

I did however play and loose miserably at this game!

Is there a doctor is the house?  Kirstie would never dress up as a doctor while playing games and watching an Australian flying Squirrel pee on me!  She loves me and would never do such a thing.   She would not take away her 3 year old nephew's brand new Christmas gift and wear them while eating whipped cream and a cherry. 

Not even at Christmas would she and our younger sister eat a plate of whipped cream and a lone cherry!  We always eat pie with our cream. :)

Christmas was fun but I am so very thankful that my sister did not bring her badger looking squirrel from Georgia just so she could pee on me!  More on Christmas to come....later....

Not in a barn!

Christmas is upon us and I am trying to teach Wesley why we celebrate Christmas. I had no idea how difficult this would be.  We have a couple Christmas books and since Wes is loving story time lately, we have been reading them often.  We read the Christmas story about how Jesus was born in a manger to His mother and father who could not find a house to stay in.  I can not for the life of my convince him that Jesus was a baby!  He is positive that Jesus is a little man that he can carry around with in his hand or his throat!  Yes I said throat, you read that correctly.  He loves Jesus and talks about Him and prays but for whatever reason can not imagine that Jesus was a baby and he was most certainly NOT born in a barn!  That is just for cows and poop!  Hmmm....maybe next year I will be able to reason with Wes better.  It amazes me that a boy who makes friends out of nothing and names them Fred and carries Jesus around in his throat can not imagine Jesus as a baby.  He is too much!  Oh yeah and Mary and Joseph were not Jesus' parents, they are his friends.  There is no point in trying to change his mind.  Jesus is a man, NOT  a baby and did not have a mommy or daddy and definitely was not a baby in a barn full of poop!  I love his imagination and his personality, his quirky ways, and his contagious smile but man oh man is he hard reason with, maybe next year.  Then again look at who I am dealing with.  This is the same boy who wears 3-d glasses and walks to the beat of his own drummer.  :)  Any suggestions?

Even more cookies

My Grandma's recipe for rolled sugar cookies....soooo good, sooo fun, sooo cute, sooo messy!

Oh and just for a little neat idea, if you ever get new counters save the piece you cut out to put the sink in.  It works AWESOME as a cookie roll out station because it fits perfectly over the sink area! See Wes is using it here to make his cookies.

You do not even want to see my kitchen, well actually the kitchen is not horrible but the floor looks like we tried to spatter paint it and then dumped sand on top of that.  It's really bad and my feet are so nasty, because I am always barefoot in my house no matter how cold.  I hate socks!  Back to my baking with Wesley and Kirstie  help, of course.  Even little Felicity got to "help" out a little or at least got a little floured by Wes.  :)

What was only supposed to be a nice Sunday afternoon of baking and decorating turned into an almost 2 day affair!  We made, rolled, cut out, and baked them all yesterday.  Wes had a BALL!  He loved piling the flour on the dough before rolling them.  He got a little carried away.

Today the cookies were frosted or painted as Wes preferred to call it. I gave Wes his own cookies and bowls of brightly colored Royal Frosting.  The boy is good at blending colors!

And face painting!

Kirstie and I put a little too much more time into decorating our cookies. I thought mine were looking pretty good, that is until Kirstie came and put me to shame.  She is the artistic sister.

We said good bye to our master pieces as we packed them with their fellow cookie friends in Christmas tins to give as lovely calorie packed Christmas gifts. 

Oh I almost forgot we made ourselves, or rather cookie versions of ourselves.  Aren't we cute?  Poor Matt's head is a little deformed but he looks happy about it anyways.

So we had fun and now I have to wash the floor so my feet will stop sticking to the floor!  I hate washing my floors...wonder if Matt will do it?

Cookies!

Yummy Cookies. In the last two days Kirstie and I have made magic bars, cappuccino flats, chocolate chip cookies, peppermint balls, and chocolate sandwiches with peppermint filling. My faithful Kitchen-Aid is getting quite the work out.

Still on the menu for baking is rolled out sugar cookies, molasses cookies, and ginger bread houses and men! Maybe just maybe we will also make eggnog thumbprints, and raspberry thumbprints. Phew! That's a lot of cookies! We make them for Matt's co-workers, and our friends and family and of course just to munch on. We are continually trying to perfect our Santa bellies and what better way than to eat what Santa eats. Just kidding but it's hard not to look like Santa with all these yummy treats around!

What kind of cookies or bake good do you make just for Christmas!?!

Sitting in a Winter Wonderland

It’s one of those things you dream about from the time you are a little girl. You plan it in you head and envision exactly how it will be one. Taking your youngest into the freezing cold and plopping their plump diapered bottom into the arctic snow. Watching their little face contort while their lips freeze as they taste their first snowfall. Ok maybe not but still taking my little one in the snow for the first time is fun!

We had our first snowfall last week and it took me three days to get Felicity out in it. Wes on the other hand begged to go play in it as soon as we got home at 6pm Saturday night. I being the ever cautious worry free kind of mom played with him in the pitch dark till our unmittened hands were too cold to move.

We even made a miniature snowman.

Ok back to Felicity.

All bundled up in her hand-me-down reindeer snowsuit we ventured out into the 30 something degree weather. It actually was beautiful and almost sunny. First we chased Wes around trying to get some photos of him playing in the snow. Felicity was snuggly zipped up inside my jacket with only her head and one socked hand sticking out.

Once again, back to Felicity! It must stink being the second child; you never get all the attention. So finally after hours minutes chasing Wes, I set my completely unaware 7 month old darling in the snow.

She loved it. Stuck her socked hand out…

Got a handful of snow

And tasted its frozen goodness

Made a horrible face

And tried to do it again.

Silly girl.

Oh Christmas Tree

Cutting down our very own Christmas tree is one of my favorite Christmas traditions. We have bought two pre-cut trees and they drop their needles much faster and picking them out is not nearly as fun. This year we went to a little local lot and in under 1o minutes were flopping our tree in the trailer to bring home. But I am getting ahead of myself...back to finding our tree.

It was easy to find, you could easily see if from the road. It stood well above all the other trees. We were advised by the owner of the lot to try the old over grown lot of trees because it was much closer to the road. This particular lot had huge over grown trees that were easily as tall as our house.

Matt decided to lop the top of one of these monsters off. The owner had given us the ok to do so. Up the tree he scurried, that is after he nearly fell because the branch he was standing on snapped. He cut down the top ten feet or so off and dragged it to the car.

I of course had to stop him and try to snap a family photo. Which I might say is not the easiest thing to do with a huge winter jacket and baby wrap on.

Once home we had to cut a good three feet or more off and trim it some but I think it make a very unique and beautiful tree.

We hung all our special ornaments on it, put on the flashing white lights and the sparkling colored ones, hung the shine balls and twirling icicles. More importantly for the very first time we hung Felicity’s tiny ceramic pink booties, we bought at a great country store not far from here.

Aww…it’s being to look a lot like Christmas and I can hardly wait!