Saturday, December 13, 2014

Hot Glue and Egg Nog French Toast

I love finding things that are (1) easy, and (2) make me happy. Here are two recent ones:

from pinch of yum
I don't know why I've never heard of this before, but, why not?!
We ate our raspberries the day before :)
so we had fresh squeezed orange juice syrup (google it - it's easy and delicious) with pomegranates on top
I LOVE pomegranates at Christmas!
They're so pretty and yummy.
I discovered the joy of decorating with hot glue
for stockings!
Genius!! It took seconds to hang stockings that had no room to be hung.
and peels off easily afterwards.
(Also used it to hang red ribbon wrapped outside around a pole. Handy stuff.)
What else should I use you for, glue gun?
I carefully decorated our quality Walmart-for-20-bucks-10-years-ago tree
and then the kids improved it.
It's pretty much magazine quality. :p
(They love hanging their ornaments.)

Happy Day!

Monday, December 8, 2014

Christ in Christmas - Scripture Putty

I love the idea of making Christmas Eve about Christ
and Christmas morning about Santa.

When we read the scriptures we've been playing with putty. It is a great quiet activity to keep busy hands occupied.
(Lately, I've also been giving the kids a back rub one at a time while I read. Anything to make them enjoy this time!)
For Christmas they are getting their own scripture package.
We'll open these on Christmas eve with christmas pajamas.
They have a small fascination with bookmarks, so hopefully they like having one!
Also, in an effort to help them listen better, I told them if they hear a phrase or word they really like, to let me know, and we'll highlight it.

I'm toying with the idea of doing a real Bethlehem supper, but I don't know how that will fly with my eldest child, er, my husband. :)

Sunday, December 7, 2014

Birthday girl Macey

We got ready for the birthday celebration held Friday night
 Decorating gingerbread houses!...and accomplishing the feat of fitting 20 cute kiddos into our little  space:)
This was the perfect activity for Macey - I knew it would make her so happy:) and perfect for Christmas season!
Just between you and me, everyone was so impressed with the real gingerbread houses...
they are haunted gingerbread houses from Albertson's.
I went to go buy some gingerbread house paraphernalia there one day and they had them on clearance for a screaming deal (still good til next year). Talk about luck. 
The kids were so helpful getting things set
 Macey is such a friendly sweet girl, and was so good about welcoming everyone, and thrilled for this party!
 Ben was on call that night, and-phew-luckily didn't have to go in. I'm not sure how this would have rolled if he was gone. :) 
I loved watching Macey squirt her frosting on to her house, then squirt some in her mouth. house. mouth. house. mouth. 


 I didn't want to buy felt pads for 20 chairs so my dad suggested I get painter's paper from Home Depot and cover the floors. It worked perfectly and the best part...ripping up all the squished pizza, candy, cake, frosting and ice cream and throwing it away.
 Macey got a magnetic play ice cream set and a hot pink warm blanket "like Jessi's" and some Mr. Sketch smelly markers from us, and considering she's usually my hardest to shop for, I think we did pretty good. Now...for Christmas...
Love you sweet Macey.

Thanksgiving

It's fast Sunday, so naturally I'm writing about Thanksgiving and dreaming about food:)
This was, randomly, the week of arcade games. The kids loved it-and adults did too!

 We even went bowling one night, adults only, at the arcade for Amy's birthday. So much fun! I now have a desire to actually learn to bowl and get over 100 points sometime in my life. 
Lofty goals;) 

 We hate leaving Ben to work while we see our families and he hates it even more. But it makes it less sad when he sends pictures of his relaxing evenings at the pool.
The day before he came into town we ate at Panda Express and I got this fortune:
We love him:)
 We spent one day at the Museum of Natural Curiosity 


I learned to draw a 3d hand - this was hasty but trust me, it's cool.
 I love the sunsets at my parents' house over the lake. Ben sent us pics of the sunset on his walk before he came to join us.
 I got to try out the new trail in Kaysville/Fruit Heights and I Love it!
 The kids LOVED playing with the dogs
 We got to go to the Nutcracker one day. It really was such a great way to kick off the Christmas season. It's been too long since I've seen it. Ben was lucky enough (in his opinion) to miss the show and go fishing with his dad in Island Park.
I debated taking Cody with all the girls, but I'm so glad I did. He needs a little culture every once in a while and they are reading the Nutcracker in class now!

 Macey got a special CTR ring for her birthday made special from Jessi's work.
 Becky did everyone's nails during game night one night. She's better than a professional nail person and has more nail polish than a salon, so it's pretty much getting a free manicure.

 with glitter. so fancy.
 Monopoly is the game that never ends. No wonder I never played as a child...my parents knew.


 One day Grandma Bonnie called and asked if the girls would like Elsa dresses for Christmas from Disneyland (she was there). I thought about it and definitely decided Macey would NOT like one and Mackayla would love it.
Then, later, at a park we see a few little girls wearing Elsa dresses. I thought nothing of it, but Macey just sat and stared at them forever, quietly. Finally I asked what she was thinking and she kind of sadly said that she would love a dress like that. Nothing had been mentioned about these Elsa dresses to her of course, so this was out of the blue. Well, Grandma Bonnie already had sent their Christmas presents - not the Elsa dress for Macey and the Elsa dress for Mackayla. Oops. Luckily my mom had no ideas for birthday presents...this was a perfect save and hopefully not a slight to Grandma Bonnie's great idea. They are beautiful dresses.
 Thanksgiving dinner is always divine. 
These are my favorites:


 We had our annual taste tests of root beer and salsa.
A&W easily won but I really did like the random kinds of Brigham's Brew and Teddy's. Bundaberg is so disgusting.
 All the salsa's except the homemade were gross in my opinion. I do love Jack's from Costco and that wasn't here...

  I include this picture not only because this is Macey's dream come true but also because you can see her teeth. Her front tooth was so loose it was almost falling out but wouldn't touch it.
 Ben finally yanked it out when we got home:)
Kayla was so worn out, this is after we had tried to wake her three times for dinner but she slept on through til morning.

 After family dinner we went to celebrate all the birthdays this month at Jessi's house.

 Jessi is prego!



 What would a Thanksgiving be without a little vomiting?
Last year was epic proportions, so comparatively this was nothing.
The day we left Mackayla had a fever.
About a half hour into the drive she threw up all over and then about 15 more times during the drive.
I have to give her credit - she never cried just kind of said my name right before she threw up so I could catch it.
No one else got sick - phew.