Thursday, December 31, 2009

Cheers to 2009



Bottoms up & here's to 2010!

Thursday, December 24, 2009

The innocence of chidren

I love how my kids tell the truth 100% of the time. It's like it's never occured to them to lie.

Case in point: Just yesterday Brandon wanted to show me how he jumps from his bed to Olivia's, because he can do it really well now. I asked when he had learned to do that, knowing it wasn't exactly something I condoned. He said, "At night time when we're supposed to be sleeping." Of course.

I had to follow that up with, "What else do you do when you're supposed to be sleeping?" Olivia said, "We talk."

"Talk about what?" I asked.

"We talk about Jesus." Okay, my heart just melted :) "What do you talk about Jesus?"

"We talk to Jesus about Bailey and when we get to go to heaven & see him again." Bailey is my family's dog that was put to sleep after 12 happy years last December 26.

I reminded them that they're not allowed to go visit Jesus for a VERY long time, not until they are VERY OLD and mommy & daddy have been there a VERY VERY long time!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Christmas Pancakes

Last Christmas the kids got me a griddle so I could make pancakes. I love it! I could make them before, but one at a time in an omelet pan wasn't fun for me.

I tried my hand at using cookie cutters for pancake molds this last fall. Super cute, but kind of a pain. I could only do about two tablespoons of batter at a time. I kind of gave up, but bought Christmas cookie cutters just in case.

So two weeks ago my mom gave me an early Christmas present: real pancake molds! They are awesome & from William-Sonoma! They don't appear to be on their website anymore.

Olivia & I made pancakes with them. She LOVES to help out in the kitchen. They were super yummy. My only regret was that I decided I didn't feel like making them from scratch using the recipe on the package that would've made a bunch. Instead I used my pancake mix that I barely had enough of so we only got eight. Enough, but I would've liked leftovers!







Monday, December 14, 2009

Countdown to Christmas, pt 1

I've mentioned my Advent Calendar already. I'm trying to take a picture of what we're doing each day so I can scrap it later. I'm going to have to go back & take pics of some of the things I don't have a picture of.

I'd like to share what we've been up to for the first half of the month:

1: Find Elfie & tell her what you'd like for Christmas


2-Pick out a Christmas movie, snuggle under a blanket, & watch it together
(no picture yet; they watched Frosty the Snowman)

3-Read "Twas the Night before Christmas"



4-Look at the ornaments on the Christmas tree, then have some hot chocolate.
**Disclaimer: I hadn't actually decorated the tree yet at this point, so we changed what it said to "Put the ornaments on the tree". It's so nice to have children who can't read!



5-Make a yummy Christmas cake.


6-Sing some Christmas carols--loudly!

7-Let's make a gingerbread house!





8-Roast marshmallows in the fireplace. Yummy!



9-Drive around & look at Christmas lights in your pajamas--snuggle up with your favorite blanket.



10-Have some Christmas candy! Enjoy!

11-Watch "The Santa Clause" & laugh together. Have some popcorn too!

12-Make Christmas popcorn. (This was supposed to be popcorn balls. However, I ended a LOT busier than intended so we were going to put Christmas sprinkles in popcorn. But life happened & we couldn't. Hats off to my mom for doing it for us while babysitting!)

13-Read Christmas stories together. (Note to self: buy more Christmas books!)

14-Make some Christmas cookies.

gifts

Today was our last day of MOPS for the year (back in January). So it was Moppet teacher appreciation day. I was planning on making chocolate dipped pretzels for gifts. Sounded great in my head--I even bought a kit to make them--but when it came down to it, I wasn't sure how it was going to turn out & how exactly the kids would be able to help.

So on Saturday my friend Tanya mentioned making "turtles" by melting a Rolo on top of a waffle pretzel & smooshing a pecan on top. Fabulous! The kids peeled the wrappers off the Rolos for me & put them on top of the pretzels. We baked them for 4 minutes at 350 & then I added the pecan since they were still warm. I let them cool on the parchment I baked them on for a few hours & then bagged them up.Yum! Thank you Tanya!

Last night I stayed up WAY too late making the tags for the gifts. I gave them to the girls at my table too. And I'll be bringing some to work on Wednesday as well. I'm pretty proud of my tags! I did a search on Splitcoast for "ski slope dsp" (designer series paper) from Stampin' Up. The basic design was a card. Fortunately I had the stamp too!


Thursday, December 10, 2009

SNOW!

In Roseville?

Monday morning we woke up to a light dusting of snow. Unfortunately, from what I've heard, it snowed at about 4 in the morning. So by the time I woke up take pictures at 6am most of it had melted away.

This was us:








Unbelievable! I hear that we got about 2" of snow!

So then my mom watches my kids for me on Tuesdays when I go to work. She had already told me she was planning on bringing them to McDonald's for lunch as a special treat (i.e., she didn't feel like making lunch!). On her way to pick up my daughter from preschool, she could see the snow up in the hills & had an idea, "how about going to McDonald's in Auburn!". Auburn is at about 1200', so they got "real" snow.

The kids didn't have snow clothes on, but they didn't care! They had lunch & then a snowball fight on the lawn for about a half hour. They wrapped some blankets on their legs for the fifteen minute drive home & had a blast! Do I have an awesome mom or what?!



Sunday, December 6, 2009

Zittel's



We've been going to Zittel's Pumpkin Patch in Folsom since we moved here in 2001. At first it was just David & I, and then we brought Toby. Brandon joined us in 2005.

It's not as big as Bishop's. But it's still lots of fun & super close. Abbie had a great time collecting pumpkins; I think she thought we had to put all of them in the wagon, LOL!

Tuesday, December 1, 2009

my new desktop



Some things just make me happy. Like my desktop on my computer :)

David even has me send a copy to him to have on his computer at work. He says it's so he can see the calendar...sure. I think he just likes pretty things on his desktop too. He can embrace his feminine side, just don't tell him :)

Get your own here.