Been doing some baking....Just a Word of Caution

It's so fun this time of year to do some baking--goodies that we usually only get once a year. It's also fun to have the kids help me. They just love to "help". Anyway, I took some pictures and just thought I would tell you--Eat At Your Own Risk--this is the "environment" that the goodies came from. :-)















This is what happens when a curious 1 1/2 yr old gets a hold of the BUTTER!

Fun Visit

My brother Joel and nephew Grant (who is WAY taller than me) came through last weekend for an overnight stop. It was fun to have them even though it was a short visit. Grant was so thoughtful and he brought the kids each a present. Sam a BB hoop, Chloe a coloring kit, and Lydia a baby. You can tell from the pics the kids had a fun time. Thanks Grant!





Lydia went up to Joel--pulling on his pants saying....."Game, Game". When he looked down at that inquiring face--you really only can say "Yes". :-) So she picked one of her favorites.



Here is Grant showing Samuel the right way to shoot a basketball. Notice Grant's nice "goose neck" in the last pic.

I Married My Best Friend . . . 12 Years Ago Today

Time sure does fly by. . .can hardly believe it's been 12 years already today. I wouldn't trade it for anything! Through all the good times and some difficult times, I am so thankful that the Lord gave Jeremy to me. What a treasure he is.

Happy Anniversary, Jeremy!

Sample Collages for Katie

Happy 7th Birthday, Samuel!!

Last Sunday night our oldest turned 7--hard to believe!! We had a Dinosaur Themed Party. Sam is really into dinosaurs right now and rattles their names off like no big deal. I just nod my head and smile because I don't really have a clue. :-)

We had lots of family over and the kids enjoyed a "dinosaur egg" hunt in the basement and then we ate Dino Nuggets, Pizza (for the adults), and of course cake and ice cream.

We are so thankful to the Lord for giving us Samuel. He is such a special boy to us and we are incredibly blessed!

Thanksgiving

We woke up to a beautiful Thanksgiving morning....looked out our kitchen window and saw THIS....


Both dogs were outside barking--and this raccoon wasn't about to come down (thankfully for the dogs). Anyway, Jeremy called his brother Jalon and he came over and "took care" of it.

We spent most of the day down at the lake and the kids enjoyed playing on the lake which already was about 5 inches thick.

Christmas Baking

Yesterday was a VERY busy day--baking, craft day, and our Kid's Club in the evening. It was busy but a lot of fun. I forgot to count how many different items we made total, but it was a lot. Good thing I cleaned out my freezer last month. I needed all the extra space for goodies.
Only a couple minor problems with the food items (one of which is pictured below in my last post--DO NOT make the peppermint brownies--did not hold together nicely at all). :-)

You'll notice in the pictures there are a couple of the kids dressed up. Grandma has some GREAT dress up stuff and the kids kept themselves busy for awhile with that while we baked. Sam was a little outnumbered but he still managed to have fun with it. Uncle Jalon and Cody picked out his "special hair piece" for his BD. He loved it and I think it made "dress up" more fun. The kids had a fun day playing together with no problems amongst themselves--which made our day even more pleasant. :-)

Sugar--LOTS of Sugar!!

OK...here's what's on the menu for tomorrow. This is subject to change based on my day today :-)

Chocolate Pizza
Chocolate Mint Cookies (they are a choc. cookie with a York Peppermint sandwiched in the middle)
Swirlicious Chocolate Peanut Toffee (so Jill and I can keep donating to the dentist)
Chocolate Dipped Toffee Bits Cookies
Peppermint Bark Brownies

Parade

I was just looking at the last time I posted and realized I skipped the whole month of November. Hopefully we can get you all caught up on the "happenings" around here.

The Tuesday before Thanksgiving, Moorhead has their annual "Christmas Parade" and Andrew and JoAnna have made it a tradition to take the grandkids--feed them pizza and then take them to the parade. This year it worked out that the whole family could be there.

Now let me say that going to a Parade in the winter up here is just crazy. Some of the candy is frozen before the kids can even get it into their bags (either that or the tootsie rolls are really old!!) Anyway--this year was one of the warmer ones at a whopping 32 degrees (give or take a few) It is a good time even though it's cold.