A Win!

We went to eat dinner at a local BBQ restaurant while also watching the Seahawks game (we don't have the NFL package and their games rarely air at home).  A certain little boy became quite squirmy (understatement) in his highchair (to his credit, it was after an hour of sitting) requiring us to leave in the beginning of the 4th quarter.

Happy news a short time later while starting baths, Ryan found out, via the internet, that the Seahawks won!!! 

Happy Birthday!

Bakers & Birthday Boy

The boys are often in the kitchen helping me bake.  Therefore, it is so fitting that Santa would have brought them aprons!  While Ryan went to the store with Owen the big boys and I got to work to bake his birthday cake.

Baking is way more fun when you have helpers as cute as these two....

Notice the evidence of hot chocolate on Logan's face...

 

Hayden worked so hard to keep it a secret when Ryan returned from the store.  He had 'swift' lines like, "Don't look over at that counter daddy." "ummm, that is just a pie that we made." 

Since we're going out for dinner tonight, we decided to sing and have cake a night early.  As Ryan was sitting at the table (totally unaware as to what was going on, wink, wink ;) Hayden asked him to close his eyes so he could put something on his head.  "Don't worry Daddy, this is just a baseball hat" he assured him as he pulled the elastic string to place under his chin.  It was very sweet as they tried to preserve the secret and in their mind's, daddy was surprised!

Happy Birthday to our boy's real-life super hero and my love!

Grinch

A bit belated, but here we watched the Grinch while drinking 'grinch juice.'  (I found the idea online--lime sherbet blended with a touch of 7-Up).

 

Merry Christmas!

Wishing all our dear family and friends a very Merry Christmas!  We hope that this next year brings health and happiness for you and yours.  We pray for a more peaceful world in the coming year.

Christmas Eve

I kept the bloopers for your entertainment. 

 

Take 1:

 

 

Take 2:

 

Take 3:

 

The boys sprinkled reindeer food on the front lawn.

Do you notice how big Owen's feet look?  He had his footie pjs on so we put Logan's shoes on instead.

Heading inside to watch a quick Christmas show.

 

The boys dashed to bed after daddy read T'was The Night Before Christmas, because they heard sleigh bells outside.

Elves

Our little elves have been busy making presents to give away.

Candy Cane Playdough for friends which they hand delivered.

Pomanders for a couple of neighbors.  The boys chose a shape for each side of their orange (Hayden picked a candy cane and snowflake and Logan chose a snowflake and heart).  I poked holes using a skewer and then the boys pushed a clove into each hole.  They are beautiful and so fragrant.

LOOK CLOSELY:  You'll see Owen dancing in front of the speaker in the background.  He LOVES to dance and insists on doing so right next to the speaker. :)

Some Christmas ornaments for Grandparents.  The snowmen are the boys' fingerprints.  After the paint dried they used markers to draw faces/hats.

Merry Christmas Great Grandmom & Great Grandpop

Christmas Cookie Cheer

We made several types of goodies to deliver to the neighbors on our street.  A shortbread/sprinkle cookie, saltine/chocolate bark and pretzels topped with a rolo and M&M.

Icing and Sprinkles

We had some lovely old pals over to decorate cookies.  Lou Ellen, who is helping Logan with some icing, taught in the same elementary school as myself in Baumholder, Germany.  Our husbands both had follow-on assignments to McGuire, AFB, NJ and currently, they are stationed at a base 45 minutes north of us.  Kensley and Hayden used to play together as babies.

It was a really fun morning!

 

Polar Express

 

 

 We turned our family room into a dinner theater last weekend.  We heated a bunch of appetizers (from the frozen section at the store), moved our table, spread out a blanket and watched The Polar Express.

Easy and fun!

Snowbirds

We took the boys last weekend to the beach for kite flying and sand building/digging.  Without the summer crowd or heat, it was lovely!  We will definitely become winter beach bums....I think all those 'snowbirds' are on to something.

Life With A Logistician

When your daddy is a logistician....

Prior to decorating our [graham cracker] gingerbread houses Ryan helped the boys develop their plan including a legend showing a total for [ supplies ] each candy.  (note: the boys didn't have to follow this plan...just got them thinking).  You'll notice above Hayden drew a peppermint circle and wrote 13, a candy cane and wrote 2 and 14 next to a gumdrop. 

I remember staying up late one night to prepare goodie bags for Hayden's birthday party.  It was a bug theme and we had many different bug stickers to divide amongst the bags.  Ryan, who was in the thick of his graduate work (to his defense) actually paused for a moment to share an algorithm we could use to divide up the various bugs.  I quickly reverted to my tried and true method, one for you, one for you, one for you... etc.

Darkness

Thinking about the parents' whose hearts broke last Friday.  Those who urgently traveled to the firehouse to reunite with their children only to be met with a nightmare.  To have driven home with the backseat empty is unbearable.

And for those children, I fervently hope that somehow a shield transcended around them, in their final moments, and protected them from fear and pain.

May those innocent, sweet angels and heroic teachers/staff, guide their families from the depths of their grief.  Praying that they can somehow find air to breath again.  Praying they can emerge from the darkness.  Praying their shattered hearts can be woven with the threads of happy memories. 

NOTE:  I got the 'Prayers' picture below off the internet.  I realize the caption reads Newton instead of Newtown but I am not sure how to change it since I cut and pasted the picture

Peppermint Lane

Welcome to our Peppermint Lane!!

I had wanted to decorate gingerbread houses this year but wasn't sure how to go about making the houses.  Then, I came across graham cracker houses on a friend's blog and knew that was the perfect solution.

It was much more difficult building the graham cracker houses then it may seem.  We were thankful that I bought this (Family Size):

Believe it or not, we almost went through the entire box!!!  Some packages were set aside for snacking since they were broken (I think the box was dropped at some point).

 

Ryan carefully chisled edges to create triangles for the roof.  Many ended up cracking during this process and ultimately became snacks.

Hayden did a pretty good job putting his house together and just needed a little bit of help (mostly for the roof).  It was comical at times but in the end we had three decent structures.

 

The next day we made another batch of (royal) icing and started eating decorating.

 

 

Hayden's

Logan's

 

Laura & Ryan's

 

 

This was way too much fun to not do every year!