Say Cheese

It took me at least 20 odd shots to finally get one picture that seem to look good of the kids together.

Christmas cookies

On Monday I made some cookies for Lily's class for her snack day. I made a couple dozen extra so the kids could decorate some of their own cookies. I gave them each three dixie cups each with different color frosting and some sprinkles. They had a blast and it gave them something to do on their day off of school. When Brandon came home there was only one cookie left with his name on it, not literally. I had to throw a few in the garbage because I saw two of the kids licking the spoon then putting frosting on the cookie with the same spoon. I threw them out with out them seeing and when Noah throw out the empty cups he was horrified to see cookies in the garbage...Oops.

Lily helping Noah redecorating his cookies

Thanksgiving Fun

I get asked what my favorite day of the year is by the kids all the time and they all know the answer...Thanksgiving! We started 4 years ago staying home and spending the day together. We usually start off with a large breakfast and then we start decorating the house and tree. Typically every year "knock on wood" Brandon and the kids leave me for an hour to go to Walmart (only store open that day) to get some more Christmas tree lights or something I forgot to pick up at the grocery store. After dinner we take a drive and check out Christmas lights. When we get home we have dessert and then we enjoy a Christmas movie. This year with having a small baby and going to bed by 9pm we didn't get a chance to see Christmas lights or watch a Christmas movie.

My little turkey-gobble gobble

Clint, Karen and Josh came out the day after Thanksgiving for a visit. It's always nice to spend time with them. Lily always talks about her favorite Uncle Clint and who could blame her. He plays with her doll house with her and helps her put candy canes on the Christmas tree. Lily even wanted to be in their family picture! She loves her Uncle!:)

Christmas Tree

Well it's that time a year again...picking out our family Christmas tree. We typically go Sunday or Monday before Thanksgiving. This gives the tree some time to let the branches lay into place. The past 4 years we decorate our tree and house on Thanksgiving day, such fun we have. Monday night we entered the garden center with no one in sight except the cashier, hence the pictures of the kids. At the store all the trees were netted up so you couldn't get an idea what the tree looked like. A guy came out to help us and asked us if we wanted him to cut the net so we could see the tree. I at first said no but within seconds retracted my statement and said yes please. Brandon gave me a sigh and a look that made me believe he was thinking I was being high maintenance, so I then decided we would just go with it and be surprised once we got home. Well it's not the prettiest tree or even remotely close but a lesson learned always check the tree before taking it home and don't let Brandon rush me while shopping. It definitely doesn't get mistaken for a fake tree, that's for sure. But once we decorated it, covered the large gaps with ribbon and large ornaments it became one beautiful tree.

Back to Work

This past Sunday was my first day back to work. The two weeks leading up to it I was nervous and sad to leave Oliver. He's 10 weeks and still relatively demanding but Brandon did an incredible job with him. It was a good thing that Brandon didn't mind all the phone calls home asking him to give me a play by play of my little man. Though I missed the family it felt amazing to be back to work and seeing my coworkers. Can't beat getting my nails done and getting my fix of the daily gossip about the Kardashian's and the Real Housewives of whatever county!

Happy Halloween

Our Halloween festivities started on Thursday October 27th the kids had their school Halloween parties. That night the kids watched Charlie Brown's Halloween Special and had popcorn. I found a brownie haunted house kit for the kids to do on Friday when they had the day off of school. I had the crazy idea it would be like a gingerbread house and it would be prefab brownies, no such luck the kids read the directions and it came with a brownie mix and two aluminum tins shaped at haunted houses with some icing and candy to decorate the houses. The kids had fun making them. It became a competition, who had the best haunted brownie! After that we carved our pumpkins. I should say they drew the faces and I carved away. We finished the day meeting Brandon at a park close to Brandon's work at 4pm and getting some pizza for dinner.

Saturday we meet Shaun and his family in Sussex for some trick or treating. It was from 6-8pm it became really dark by 630pm and I wished we would have brought a flashlight. We all had a lot of fun and the kids got a lot of candy. Monday was our trick or treat from 4-7pm. This year we gave Colin $15 to come up with a clever costume. I did try to give him some ideas but he didn't want to hear it. He wanted to make stuff out of duck tape and spray his hair green. Noah was batman and he didn't want to wear the mask over his eyes so I used black eye shadow to make it look like the mask. Gabe was a clone and Lily was a butterfly. Colin's friend came to our house to go trick or treating with us. They came home on the bus at 4pm and they all got their costumes on ready to go. Brandon and I drove them to a subdivision close by and Colin and his friend went running to as many houses, while Brandon and I took the rest of the kids. Then we went in our subdivision, the little kids only made it a couple of blocks while Colin and his friend took bikes and made their rounds.

I heard someone ask Colin if he was a head of lettuce. LOL