Tubing!

I realize I skipped Christmas and a few other important things, but I just don’t have time right now to do everything justice.  I’m just going to post our afternoon fun and come back to the rest of it later.

A couple in our ward owns a ski resort, and every year they host a party for everyone and open the sledding hill and lift for two hours.  They have a chili feed in the lodge, and we get to tube.  The kids had so much fun today!

L spent the first bit with us, then split off with her good friend and stayed with her the rest of the time.  She’s getting so big!

I love this pic of S!

J just looks genuinely pleased with himself.  He had SO much fun and was never scared of it.  (There were kids there, bigger than him, refusing to go down the hill.)

S also paired up with a friend to go down with.  She was a little anxious to try it without Mommy, but with a little persuasion, she was good to go.

Tubing!

Gingerbread House

I had a German teacher in high school who used to make amazing gingerbread houses.  I’ve always wanted to make a really awesome one myself, so a few years ago, I started trying.  It was more difficult than it looked.  I tried cutting out the pieces before baking, but then they were all puffy and misshapen when they came out of the oven.  I struggled with frosting that didn’t stick, and a million other little issues.  Then, two years ago, I sucked up my pride and asked a woman at church to teach me her wise ways of gingerbread house making. 

That was two years ago, and with the flurry of PTA last December, I didn’t make a house at all.  This year, I started off a little timidly, worried how it would all turn out.

I used my own, old recipe for gingerbread, because by her own admission, the gingerbread the woman from church makes doesn’t taste very good.  And what’s the fun in that?!  But I was worried it wouldn’t work as well as a building material.  I’d never know if I didn’t try, so I determined to try.

Not only did the gingerbread turn out well (and little mice kept eating the edge pieces from where I cut out the house pieces, so you can bet it tasted good!) but also the stained glass windows worked better than I could have hoped. 

Part of my Christmas present from my parents this year was a board to put it on, with a hole cut out of the middle for a light bulb, so I could light up my gingerbread house.  (Yes, everyone looks at me like I’m crazy when I say that, but I must have gotten the idea from somewhere, and when you see the end result, you will have to admit, it’s pretty cool!)

The house went together fantastically!  No, really, the roof didn’t slide off, the walls didn’t fall down.  It stuck and held, and never did it shimmy or look like it might collapse.  It was a Christmas miracle!

And I was a good mom.

I resisted the urge to tell my children to keep their paws off.

I put them in charge of the decorating.

And while we did end up with the wall of tortured gummy bears, I do think it turned out VERY cute.

(Oh, and if you noticed the crooked chimney, that was totally MY fault.  I forgot, when I made the big, picture window, that the chimney ought to go down the back, and when I realized it, J had already lumped gummy bears on the side of the house, where it also could have gone.  Oh well.  Lesson learned.)

I am super pleased with how it turned out this year, and I hope this is the first of many years of this tradition.  And yes, the first time I make a house without children, and it’s perfect, and pretty, and neatly decorated, I will probably also be crying buckets of tears, missing my kids.  So really, my gingerbread house IS perfect, just the way it is, this year. 

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving, for me, means I get to bake.  And family.  Family and Pie.  That’s all you need, my friends.

We went to visit my parents, and at S’s request, we made our way to the ice skating rink.  I’d never taken the kids skating before (though I wasn’t half bad back in college … um *cough* not SO long ago!)

Have you ever spent two hours holding either 40, 60, or 70 lbs in your arms, half bent over?  I alternated taking the kids in my arms, away from the rail.  Yeah, my arms were sore the next day.  But even with the bumps and bruises, we were all smiles.

Then, the next day, I got to go play with my brothers.  (If you ever wondered what my stance on gun control is, you won’t wonder anymore!)  Here’s a photo dump, mostly for them:

I love these two of my brothers!!!

I didn’t get any pictures of me.  I’ll have to remember that next time.  BUT the big news is that I killed a few clay pigeons, for the first time!!!  C got a 20 gauge shotgun from his grandpa, and it’s a nice little gun.  Also, I’m getting to be a better shot with my pistol.  I still can’t outshoot C, but I hit the center dot twice, and I do always hit the target, at least, now. 

Catch-up (Before Thanksgiving)

Ok, I’m behind, but that’s not exactly news.  Here are some highlights from our Thanksgiving this year.

Wait!  I missed a few things … not real important … just my kids’ birthdays!!!  So, without any further ado, two of my children got new numbers since the last time I posted.

He really was excited, he was just anxious to eat.  And I’m horrible at remembering and taking pictures, I didn’t get any of him opening presents.  But he did get presents, and he loved them.  (Of course, that was around the time my computer had died, so it’s possible I did take pictures, and they got lost.)

This year for Halloween, I was the super mean mom who spent hours making my niece an Elsa dress … and then made my girls wear their costumes from last year.  In my defense, I got a call in January asking if I could make an Elsa dress, and it took me 9 months to get to it.  AND, when I did offer to make them for my girls, they had already decided they were happy to wear their old dresses from last year, so it was fine.

My niece’s Elsa Dress:

My own lovely kids:

This was the first year I knew enough people in my neighborhood to go out trick or treating, so rather than crashing on of the local church trunk or treats, we just walked around the block.  J picked up on it pretty quickly, and they all had a ball.

You can see their jack-o-lanterns pretty well in this one:

At one house, S came back to me saying, “They gave us little notebooks!!!”  I thought that was clever.  But when we got home, we discovered they weren’t notebooks – they were New Testaments!  And only two of the kids got them.  Weird. 

They had scripture study with their hot chocolate before they went to bed.

Then we had our next birthday.

She was very pleased with her presents.  She also demanded the most complex cake I’ve made to this point.  Cake pops.  Oy.

I will spare you the details, but I will say the end result was the yuckiest cake I’ve ever tasted.  I am NOT a fan of cake pops.

They did turn out pretty.  But after this happened,

And everyone had a first bite,

They were more than happy to wash them down with milk and throw the rest in the trash.  (Yes.  They were that bad.)