So This Is Christmas

We are a few weeks in to December and a few things have made its presence: 20 degree temperatures, the roaring fire in our fireplace, Christmas carols and our elf, Christopher, from the North Pole (which you will hear more about in another post).

Every year, Grant and I have made a gingerbread house from a kit, but this year I was lucky enough to come across a gingerbread train. I liked it much better! We decorated while Daddy took an evening nap.

On a Saturday morning, we had Breakfast with Santa at our church. They always do a great job of putting this together. I was excited my sister and her family got to join us.

Here is Grant and I mixing some food for Santa's reindeer.
He also made an ornament for me and this reindeer hat for him. Vivian enjoyed the food and getting to see Santa as well!
Here is Grant talking to Santa about his wish list of robot dinosaurs and a newly added pogo stick (I'll have to talk to Santa about age restrictions on that one!)

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving came, and what was I thankful for? Besides the obvious, a week off! We started our vacation by making a late night trip to visit Daniel's family. Daniel's Dad had to referee a football game nearby, so we had to wait until after dark to go. To keep Grant and I alert, we did all sorts of things out of the ordinary. He chose to break out the stroller and walk his baby penguin around the neighborhood. I loved the look on my neighbor's face when she caught me pushing Grant out in it at that time of the night.

Here, we caught up on some needed rest and ate until our heart's content. We visited with family and watched Grant play and entertain the crowd.

Grant and his Aunt Erica built a fort for a showing of "Finding Nemo"

Upon our return home, we got all sorts of things accomplished like backed up cleaning duties, laundry, and movie watching. Grant was a good help. I found him reading in bed one night, so cute.

My Mom and I went Christmas shopping one day and hit the pre-Black Friday sales. I found the weirdest things while we were out.

Like this Hilary Clinton nutcracker and this Bill Clinton corkscrew. Real classy!

And for the nostalgic ones, a Farrah Fawcett Barbie doll in her classic red swimsuit pose.

I came home with things MUCH better, and cheaper than this!

Wednesday we prepped for Thanksgiving. I made cream cheese lemon bars (a recipe from Pinterest) and Daniel tried his hand at coconut meringue pie again. We tried a few years ago, a couple of times and meringue just never worked. This time was a great success! Good for us, bad on my waistline...so good! I can report that the lemon bars were only OK. 'Regular' lemon bars are better.


Thursday was Thanksgiving Day. We woke up and Grant actually didn't care to watch the parades. He joined me in watching Beauty and the Beast which happened to be playing on the Disney Channel. I spent the majority of the morning singing the entire score of the movie.

We went to MiMi and PawPaw's house for Thanksgiving and my sister and her family joined us. Grant wanted to say the prayer, and I thought I filmed it. However, this is the only thing that came out: A picture of him scratching his nose and Vivian in the background looking shocked. Oh well, it was a great prayer of Thanksgiving.

We spent the majority of the day with the family and then went home just in time to watch the Texas vs. Texas A&M game...the LAST one. I seriously haven't watched an entire football game this season, Cowboy, UT, whoever...but this one I felt I must pay attention to. I was so glad I did! Watching this last 2 minutes got my pulse up and some loud cheers. I was glad to see TX pull out the win, but also happy for A&M that they didn't get stomped on during the last game of the rivalry. Great way to go out.

This weekend we decorated our home for Christmas, wrapped presents, and ate more pie and had Pinterest recipe attempts. Here is Daniel putting out the lights outside as the temperature began to drop drastically. I always hated decorating the for holidays wearing summer clothes!



I also tried to get some pictures of Grant for our Christmas card. He was NOT happy about it. I even tried bribing him with ice cream. I came away with 1 usable picture and he got 'bamilla' ice cream.

He acts as though its painful...

...then he just turns on his attitude!

Let's Go Rangers, Let's Go!

There were a few plans set in motion for this weekend, but all of it changed due to one 8 1/2 x 11 paper. However, that was just OK with us!

Friday rolled around and Daniel's grandmother came in, GiGi, so we decided to break open the pumpkin I've had for a while now. Who knew that stabbing a vegetable with a knife could be such a great stress reliever!

Last year, Grant gagged when we carved a pumpkin. This year I told him, "If you feel like you're going to be sick, run into the other room." I started pulling out the pulp and he said, "I think I have to go somewhere!". However, he stayed and did just fine. Here is GiGi and Grant checking out the pulp.
GiGi pulled out seeds so we could roast them. They didn't turn out so well, or did they?? I never had them so I don't know what they are supposed to taste like!
Not too bad!



Game day came and more in-laws came to join the fun! Daniel, his sister Erica, his father James and GiGi all went to the World Series game. Daniel's mother, Grant, and I stayed home to cheer them on there.

After they left, but before the game started I spent some time with my Mom and Dad while my Mom and I worked on my Halloween costume (which you will see on the next post). I got back home just time for the pre-game show and some dinner. Grant didn't care much for the game, as you can see...

The Rangers were losing pretty bad by the time Grant, Grammie, and I started to wind down for the night. Grant was just about asleep and I was just really starting to get into the game when the electricity went out because a transformer blew. So I located the one candle I have and found some matches (while using my cell phone for light). I dug in Grant's toy box for our flashlights, which he plays with and throws in there. I found a few and we all ended up falling asleep waiting for the lights to come back on. An hour later, they came on.

The rest of the family arrived home several hours later and recorded a huge loss for the Rangers. However, they made some great memories.

So all of this, I believe, earns us our Family Night Fun badge. Even though we may not have all been together at the same time, I believe the weekend's events gave us some things to remember.

Needed Night Out

Lion King 3D came out and my husband was more excited than anyone. I refused to go to the movies on opening night with 1 million children, so we opted for the drive-in theatre instead. This turned out to be a good decision because the weather was cooler.

Grant was excited once we got there, except this is about the only time he wore the 3D glasses.

I was so excited to see they had the guilty pleasure of funnel cake. So good! Daniel got cotton candy and Grant said, "Is this food?" I wasn't sure how to answer that.
Grant decided I was more comfy that the bed of the truck. There IS more padding that way.

Near the end of the movie, a front blew in and it started to rain. Great end to another odd week.

Looking Toward Fall

Beauty in the Common Things: cooler weather. In this area, we've had 68 days with 100+ temperatures. The record is 69 days set in 1980. Such a relief to have high in the 80s. I'm going to cross my fingers that we don't end up breaking that record.

Dinner Plans: taco salad with Wholly Guacamole 100 calorie packs (my new favorite find!)

Listen In: review of college football. Bring on the Longhorns...if only we could watch them.

This month's family fun badge was "Learn Something Together"

Since we are a science minded family, I went with a simple science project: Sink or Float.
We got an empty bucket and filled it with water.

We then gathered nick-nacks to try out. In this case a stick, a leaf, scissors, a toy car, a card, a pine needle, a toy cow, a necklace, dice, cheerios, a pencil, a foam star and a nail.

Before we could make our hypothesis on each object, Grant threw them in the water. That is ok though, he enjoyed it.
In our log book, we would write that the heavier items sank and the lighter items would float (even the old drenched paper card)

The rest of the weekend was spent in the sandbox or playing with our cat, Kitty. Grant kept trying to get Kitty to look at the camera.

After the fun, came the catching up on chores. I scrubbed the floors while Grant took my order from his kitchen. No matter what I order, its always $10! But who cares, look at that smile!