Thursday, December 12, 2013

O Christmas Tree

Every year the boys get to pick out an ornament.  I just love seeing what they pick based on the year's interests or even just what they did that same day. 

Garett's pick- the duckbill platypus from Phineas and Ferb.  Because that is what he watched that day.

 
Afro Bird- because we had a coupon for a free ornament and the bird has an afro so how could we NOT buy it?


Adam and Ryan both picked out a peacock ornament.


Garett showing off his new ornament. 



Now on to decorating the tree:





Ornaments from Christmas' Past

Cuties!

Turkey, Turkey, Turkey

Our friends shared a tradition with us- making turkeys out of food and then voting on the best one.  It was a lot of fun!









Gingerbread Houses From @#*!

Last year at Christmastime the boys and I made gingerbread houses just out of the blue one day and it was a ton of fun!  Neal was out of town or something but it worked out beautifully and all was good in the world.  This year I decided to keep the tradition alive.

A friend told me how she saves the kids' Halloween candy and use that for the houses so I snuck about half the boys candy and saved it.

I have a great gingerbread recipe with pattern so I made that.

For Family Home Evening we made stockings for all 6 missionaries in our ward and were doing the houses after.  I went and made the frosting while the kids waited.  While making the frosting I let go of the hand mixer so frosting ended up everywhere- including on me.  Strike 1.  Then I tried putting the frosting in my pipet bag which ended up not fitting my tips.  Strike 2.  We tried putting the houses together but just ended up with a gooey mess.  Strike 3.

So now I am completely mad and have to find another recipe and make that.  While making it I slammed the fridge door (I have hated this fridge from day 1) which later we found out cracked the condiment shelf so it kept falling off leaving condiments all over the floor anytime you opened the door.  I had to duck tape it on.

Finally I get the frosting done.  Garett has already lost interest and has preceded to just eat candy and his gingerbread.  We put the houses together and the kids start decorating.  Oh man.  I was still fuming- in fact I didn't even want to take pictures to remember this moment.  But the kids had an absolute blast so I guess it was all worth it?



Mom's house

Dad's house



Adam's house

Friday, November 29, 2013

Thanksgiving

We celebrated Thanksgiving with a few other families.  It was so nice to share such great food and company!  The kids all had fun playing together and the adults too :)  And as we drove home we realized we were there for 8 1/2 hours!  Thanks Jensens for putting up with us ALL day!


A few Jensens


The kids table



The Bakers

A Jensen

Bundys



Ryan's Birthday

Happy 7th Birthday Ryan!

For his birthday he got a fun surprise:

SNOW!


While he was at school, I prepared


I wanted a lego minifigure cake mom- whoops

 Then at school he got to celebrate:



We had pizza for dinner.  Then presents and cake.




 For Ryan's 7th birthday, he wanted to go bowling as a family.  We had a blast at Perfect Games and it was great just having the family so we could all have a fun time together.  What a great idea Ryan!







 Well, another year older, but Ryan you HAVE to stop growing up!