Happy New Year!

Days before New Year's Eve, we kept debating on what to do. With plans finally in place, the next decision was the menu. Finger foods was the plan, so I turned my new favorite resource, Pinterest.
I've made several food items from Pinterest so far. Each time it hasn't been something I would make again, plus the perfectionist in me gets a little mad that it doesn't look like the picture (and I thought the pictures would be a good thing!). Anywho, I ended up making something I haven't made before that Daniel recommended - Texas Caviar. I watched it being made in a cooking class I took once so I tried my hand at it. Easy to make, super easy if you have a food processor. It included fresh jalapeños in the ingredients. I decided to not take the easy route of canned and got fresh. I channeled my inner Rachael Ray and de-seeded, chopped and got with it. I was cleaning up and almost touched my eye to scratch it, but I caught myself. Phew! I narrowly missed that painful moment. I literally hand washed for 5 min to get the hot juices off. Smart girl ( so I thought). I went about my business and got ready. 5 min later guess who scratches their itchy eye (you know you saw it coming)...me! I blindly found my husband and begged him for help. Help, as in pull this contact lens out of my eye before I pull my entire eye out. It only took him a few times to succeed in the lens pulling and then relief.
I tell this story only because it later made me laugh. It felt like an episode of " I Love Lucy".
So went our friends home, with my glasses on, for a night of food, kids playing, and board games. We made it until 11:30pm and realized we had to take our sugar/sleepy high child home. To our huge surprise, he didn't fall asleep on the way home. We 3 made it home just in time to see the fireworks on TV at
midnight and give each other group hugs.
The next day we prepared to be a week out of our home. We had our house leveled in the middle of our home. That requires us to leave, and about 15 workers move in.
We spent the week at my parents house. It was weird waking up in my old bed. One night Grant and I played games in the original Nintendo. We even taught him how to blow in it to get it to work...haha. I'm sooooo glad you don't have to do ThAT anymore! The week actually went by fast and we got to be back in our own beds by the weekend.
Daniel had his birthday on that Sunday. Grant picked out a Smurf cake.

Grant said, "It's actually kind of beautiful!". All I could think about is how we would have blue teeth, but we went ahead anyways.

See, much blue.

This time it was my Mom's birthday.

Grant helped blow out the candles.

Like my husband said, "Maybe we should just have cake and ice cream EVERY Sunday!"

So This Is Christmas - Part 3

We spent the actual Christmas holiday at Grammie and PePaw's home in East Texas. We had shared that news with Chris, our elf, so he could relay to Santa that we were 'on the road'.

On Christmas Eve, we went to Daniel's grandparents home for what I always call overcrowded eating. When MY family gets together, its a maximum of 10 people in a household. When HIS family gets together, you always multiply that number 10 by a number other than 1. Just something I'm not used to. I could breathe a little easier this time as I watched Grant play with cousins around his age.

We then went back and put out reindeer food (you know, the nice mix of oatmeal and glitter) for Santa's reindeer. To our surprise, the dog ate it all! I tried to get a good picture of her covered in glitter, but she was eating it like she'd never eaten before! I couldn't help but think of the nice pile of glittery poo that would shine in the yard the next day. Grant started to get a little mad as I laughed, but I assured him there would be enough to lure in Rudolph and his team.

Grant made cookies for Santa with Aunt Erica and GiGi.

Grant actually slept in a bit while we checked out what he got from Santa.

It took a while for him to get up and going but then once he did, we couldn't slow him down!

Cookies and juice were all gone. Santa must be have been hungry!

Grant spent most of the day playing and pretending with the robot dinosaurs he asked for.

He was tired of me taking his picture...

Grant also got this McDonald's cash register play set. Its a pretty cute set if you have a little one. For the next few days he would randomly scream, "Donald's is open for business!" So he'd take my order, we'd exchange Ronald McDonald money, and he'd yell, "Donald's is now closed!" (He hasn't gotten the MC part down...sometimes he calls it Old Donald's....as you can see we don't go there much!)

"Cheeseburger and milk? Coming right up!"

So This Is Christmas-Part 4

hWe returned from East Texas after the holidays and prepared for our next Christmas celebration. However, we had to try out some of our new toys first.

Santa brought Grant a 'big boy' swing, an upgrade from his baby swing that hangs on an oak tree in our front yard. It was raining, but we got it up and tested it out before the real downpour hit. He is so excited he can hop on that swing, on his belly, and twirl and swing without us.

Aunt Erica got him a Cars 2 scooter.

We already had a helmet, of course I was excited it matched!

My brother and his son, Fletcher, came in so we could have our Christmas. We missed Winonah, Greg's wife, who unfortunatley had to stay behind and work. These 3 kids were so much fun...and hectic. So much in fact that I didn't get many pictures taken.

I yelled "Group HUG!" and this is the shot we got!

Grant and Fletcher got matching race tracks from MiMi and PawPaw. They light up, glow in the dark, and the track can be changed up quickly.

One afternoon, we all went to the park to feed the ducks. The best part was seeing my sister get 'goosed' by a goose. Of course, that didn't make it on film.

This picture was taken right before he landed in the dirt...

then Fletcher landed in the dirt...

then this little lady started screaming and thats when you knew it was time to go home!

Later that evening, Fletcher came over for a 'sleep over'. Fletcher and Grant got matching scooters from Aunt Laura so we had to test them out.

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Things got a little wobbly at times, but they did a good job!At one point we decided to take the dogs for a walk and let the boys go a little farther on their scooters. Grant got tired of the scooter and wanted to walk Honey, our dog. I couldn't help but laugh because it looked like we helmeted our child to walk the dog!

The boys then drove the Jeep until the battery ran down just as the sun set. They went on a treasure hunt using my placemats as maps and then enjoyed a showing of "Happy Feet" from the bunk bed. Eventually, I had to tell those boys to stop giggling like girls go to bed.

The Adventures of Our Elf, Chris

This is the second year that our elf, Christopher (Chris) Pop-in-kins made his appearance. This time, Chris was more adventurous. However, not as adventurous as some of his elf friends, as a hear.

The first night, he was caught reading with Corduroy. I did not get to take a picture of everywhere Chris went, he was a busy elf!

The note that Chris is holding in this picture is from an accident that occured. Grant was admiring Chris holding Baby Jesus and tried to move Baby Jesus. He, in turn, ended up touching Chris. I quickly said, "Oh NO! You touched him!". Grant said, "No I didn't!" I said, "Are you sure?" He said, "I did not touch him!".

Later that day, randomly, Grant came up to me and said, "Mommy, I touched Chris." Ah, a conscience! So we talked to Chris and explained that it was an accident. The note Chris is holding said that he talked to Santa and told him it was only an accident and that if Grant did it again, he'd really get sick. There were no more 'accidents' after that.

The last day, Chris apparently was having a going away party with cow, lamp chop, pinky and the mole and left us a note.

So This Is Christmas - Part 2

This last week at school, things were off kilter just because our students were so ready for the break, as were we. Then we had a day without internet, and later that day we were without electricity. Rounding up 24 freshman in a pitch dark room for anything over 2 minutes is not my idea of fun.

Grant had his Christmas party at school and was quite worn out by the end of it all. He fell asleep not too long after we got home.

Friday, we had a half day at school and were supposed to wear our 'tacky sweaters'. I convinced Daniel to wear this, and it was a hit!

(Speaking of a hit) Later that night, Daniel and I were on the way to a Christmas dinner/party with some friends and we came across someone stopped in the road (and we were in the middle of no where). It was some of our friends on the way to the party and they had hit this monster of a bobcat.

We had to call out our party hosts to put it out of its misery. That made for an interesting topic of conversation at dinner!

It seems like its been awhile since we have earned our 'family badges' but I found out that was just because we got ahead this fall.

We earned the "Preserve Family Memories" badge by creating gifts for Christmas using pictures from this past year. Sorry...can't show you those! But they, of course, turned out really cute!

Saturday, we earned our "Start a New Tradition" badge (which looks nothing like the other badges, but whatever).

Grant and I made homemade Christmas cookies to give to others. Technically, this is not a new tradition to us, but I like this one so I wasn't going to make up a new one!

Grant did really well until rolling out the dough. I kept catching him throwing more and more flour on it....the table...the flour...his clothes....me...etc.

The cookies turned out so cute, and he did great decorating them. However, we sampled one and they tasted like flour. Yep, the flour invaded the taste. Yikes! So, my lovely neighbors, if you happen to read this, we thought of you but we didn't want to give you icky cookies. So now Grant and Daniel are finishing them off...they don't seem to mind.

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!)