Happy Birthday!

Christmas is always filled with presents and 3 days later followed by my birthday. This year was so much more peaceful then last year. I guess being in my 30's is better then turning 30. I really struggled with that number last year. And now I'm enjoying my age. Life is great. Mike was very patient and willing to make anything I wanted for my birthday cake. We've had so many sweets around I wasn't sure what I wanted but coconut cream pie sounded good--must be the pregnancy hormones talking. I had a recipe from Grama Maggie but all it listed were the ingredients. Mike patiently let me talk him through the process of making my birthday pie. He did everything from scratch, the crust, the pudding and the cream filling along with toasting the coconut on top. It was delicious! Thanks Maddy & Jack for not throwing up like last year, Thanks Mike for spoilin' me and Thanks Mom and Dad for creating me!

Christmas Wrap Up

Christmas was great this year!!This was our first Christmas in Boise at home. I love being in Utah with family and enjoying the holiday traditions but it was so nice being at home and not getting sick and making new traditions and lovin' every minute of the holiday.

Let it Snow, Let it Snow, Let it Snow. It did just that, the interstate between Boise and Salt Lake was closed at least 3 times during the holidays. We were glad to avoid driving in the snow and staying home and even getting out several times to play in the snow.

Christmas Eve we spent at the Cardwells. Angie cooked a fabulous meal with smoked turkey, my first and definitely not last. It was so good! She insisted I enjoy the day and wouldn't let me cook anything. Maddy and all the boys had so much fun all night. Making Santa cookies was top on the list. After dinner we rolled out the dough and the kids went to work.

Camden & Maddy

Dean & Hudsen

Maddy, Jack & Dayten

I love this picture. Everyone is concentrating so hard on decorating the cookie. Love Camden taking a try of the icing!

Mom & Maddy
Dean & Mike playing the Wii--sorry Mike maybe next year you'll be good enough for Santa to bring you one!

After dinner and cookies we ran home to put the cookies by the tree and open our Christmas jammies. I have always wanted to do this tradition and decided this year we were all going to have matching jammies--well at least jammie pants. Thanks Sarah for helping me, I'm still trying to figure out how to cut out patterns.
We all went to bed and I too was so excited I couldn't sleep. Maddy woke up about 8:15 and wanted to go downstairs to see what Santa brought. Christmas morning was so busy I forgot to take pictures. Aunt Anna made these sock monkeys.
After the gifts were opened we had a yummy breakfast. Another new tradition for us, normally we have eggs goldenrod or pancakes. This year I got some cinnamon chip bread from great harvest and we had french toast and bacon and hot chocolate. After breakfast, the kids wanted to open the gifts and start playing. Jack got the geo-airplanes to go with his geo-trax, Mike loves building and playing planes and trains just as much as the kids.
We enjoyed a wonderful Christmas, watching the snow fall outside and staying in where it was warm and cozy. Some of our favorite gifts:

Mike: golf caddy, egg poacher and Dr Pepper in his stocking

Kinz: Cricut!!!, rice cooker, new chair for the nursery

Maddy: Scooter, Leapster, dolls, pants!

Jack: GeoAirport, scooter, remote control car, leapster

And most of all we are grateful for our Savior the time we had to reflect upon his birth this season. Going to bed, Christmas night Jack asked if we could have Christmas again. It was that great!

Santa Clause & More Gingerbread Houses

Just wanted to remind everyone what sitting on Santa's lap last year was like!

What a difference a year makes!
Maddy drew pictures to Santa of what she wanted for Christmas. I should have scanned it in before we mailed it but oh well, Santa knows what she wants! She has been so excited for Christmas and seeing Santa is just the beginning.

Even Jack was excited to write a letter to Santa.


Macy's will donate $1 to Make a Wish foundation if you drop your stamped letter to Santa Clause. Since we were at the mall, we dropped off our letters and to the North Pole they will go.

On Saturday, we signed up for a Lowe's Build and Grow workshop to build a wooden Gingerbread House. The kids both got goggles, an apron and a kit to make a house. We all had so much fun, be sure to check out the next free workshop here.

Jack hammering the windows in place.

Maddy getting everything lined up just right.

The finished product!!

It's Gingerbread Time !!

I love gingerbread cookies! I vaguely remember having them on our tree growing up. My mom would bake them til they were really hard, tie some ribbon on the them and up on the tree they would go. Unfortunately I don't remember the smell but just the tree having cookies on it! While I haven't made any to use as decorations, it is always tradition to make them and eat them! Here are some pictures from Family Home Evening of us doing just that. Don't mind the messy counters...the kids want the cookies rolled out and frosted quickly and no time to clean in between!

This year we experimented with a gingerbread house too. Lots of work but we all had fun decorating it once Mike was finished constructing it!

Merry Christmas! Already our house is missing some candy. We'll see if it is still standing at Christmas!

Christmas Mini Album

I'm out blog surfing today and found the cutest Christmas mini album book, here's the cover. For all of us who are stampers or want to be stampers or just want to enter to win a free give a way, check it out here.

Snow Flakes

We have all been praying for snow and this is what we woke up to, so today we are thankful for snow! Even if it didn't stay white on the ground, even if we didn't get to make a snowman and even if we didn't have to shovel it off the drive way. Today we are thankful for eating snowflakes (or attempting to anyway)!

Happy Black Friday!

We've mostly avoided the stores today but did make a couple stops but no way did I help the economy today! I'm happy to say most of my shopping is done. We had a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner and I'm looking forward to left overs tonight and tomorrow and probably for a while. Our guests left and only got to eat 1 meal. Oh well, no cookin' for me this weekend. Maybe we'll have time to put the tree up. We had 9 for Thanksgiving dinner, Mike's parents, and his sisters and brother in law; Tonya, Brian and Heather. It was so fun having them and Maddy and Jack wore them all out. Playing Cranium last night was sooo fun, I forgot how fun that game is. We miss them already and are grateful they made the trip to see us. Here are some pics from yesterday.

Kinzee, Mike, Brian and Tonya
Mike & I loved having someone to play and entertain the kids. Here is Brian building a train track for Jack.

Heather was captured all day by Maddy. They played everything but here's a photo of potato heads.

A good picture of Grampa smiling, watching Maddy.

Aunt Heather taking a break!

Grama even brought up a craft for us. She did a darling scrapbook page for her enrichment and I wanted 1 well 2, 1 for each kids book. So while "tom" was cooking we did the layout. So cute, I'll have to post a picture later when the pictures are on it.

Mike makes the rolls at our house and M& J love to help eat the dough and flour on the counter. Here's Jack helping Mike make rolls!

And finally the feast is here. We had: Cranberry Jello salad, Orange Candied Yams, Stuffing, Turkey, Rolls, Green Bean Casserol, Potatoes and Gravy. We were all very full. Maddy said that the rolls were her favortie part of dinner.

Here's 2 of the chef's preparing the dinner. Mike carving "tom" and Julie making gravy.

Eating dinner--notice no one is worried about the camera just fillin' up their plate!