Christmas Goodies

Things have been crazy around our house this week. I had my EEG, Kayla turned 5, my visiting teachers came, preschool, trying to finish everything for Christmas, packing for 10 days in Idaho (BTW winter clothes are much bulkier than summer clothes), and trying to get Christmas cookies and candies made. It's been crazy but good family time.

I found this idea for making chocolate covered carmels on a family website and thought it sounded like fun. It was a great project for Kayla! Allie just wanted to eat everything. We had such a good time we kept taking pictures so we got a lot of good ones.

Now, how should we start.


We have chocolate and white chocolate for dipping and drizzling. We ground up mixed nuts and toffee bits. Plus we have Christmas sprinkles for dipping.


Look at Daddy and Kayla go!


Allie wants to make one too.



Say cheese!!!


Look at those pretty carmels.


She is a monkey


Caught red handed.


I also melted some Dove chocolate and made chocolate nut clusters-Yummy!


Nate and Kayla got creative with the extra toppings and started decorating these cute Christmas pretzels. They also did some gluten free pretzels.


Now how exactly are we going to fit all these goodies, four people, suitcases, presents, games, and whatever else in the van to come to Idaho?

Yummy Ice Cream-Again

On the 19th we made it to Cold Stone. Kayla knew she wanted butterfingers in her ice cream, and Allie had to have chocolate. They loved it. We didn't tell them we were going there. When we pulled up in front of the store the girls yelled in unison, Ice Cream.

Happy Birthday Kayla!

Makayla is the big 5 years old! She is so happy to catch up to Morgan. All day long our phone was ringing with birthday wishes-she LOVED it!!! We gave her a soap/paint set for the bathtub, but I think the pictures must be hiding on a different memory card cuz I can't find them. Our plan was to go out for ice cream at Cold Stone again, but Mommy was having troubles. Instead we made Kayla's favorite peanut butter cookies and used Christmas M&M's in them. It was lots of fun!



We also made Daddy's favorite cookies. For those we melted chocolate and somehow I was not short on volunteers to lick the spoon.



It is so fun that the girls get along so well. They love to play together.

Owee Daddy!

This afternoon, Nate sat down on the stairs to put his shoes and socks on. Kayla came up behind him and climbed on his shoulders. He of course took her for a ride around the room. They went back to the stairs so he could finish putting his shoes on. Makayla sat to the side and just behind him. I looked over as Allie came down the stairs. She immediately swung her leg up to climb onto Kayla's shoulders.
Nate managed to catch Allie, but she did bonk her head against the railing. Tears ensued. Allie wouldn't let Nate comfort her but came running to me. She clung to my shoulder crying, oweee Daddy!
Isn't it sad how the person who saved her from flying onto her head on the hardwood floors is suddenly in trouble for hurting the girl who has no fear.

Cold Stone

Instead of cake we went for ice cream at Cold Stone. Allie and I shared her free bowl of birthday ice cream-chocolate peanut butter (two of her favorite things in the world). Even with two of us we couldn't finish it. Makayla had the employees thinking she was so cute when she said, "I want the same thing as my baby sister." She managed to finish her child size bowl-that's a lot of rich ice cream. Nate got some chocolate lovers with chocolate ice cream, brownie, chocolate syrup, and chocolate flakes. We went at 3:00 in the afternoon after Allie's nap and before Nate went to work the night shift. It was a great time. The girls weren't tired and they got bowls of sugar. An added benefit of going so early in the day was the girls had time to burn off the sugar before bedtime. It was a great day!

Happy Birthday Allison!

We gave Allison this little Sesame Street musical Christmas toy. She loves it. She kept bouncing around and singing with the characters. I'd say she was pretty happy!

Our House

We took a drive to see our house on Tuesday. The workers were there so we didn't get out of the car. We didn't know for sure how many windows would be in the family/great room since we added the brand new option of a corner fireplace. There are three like in the original plans, but our windows are just closer together then in houses with the fireplace on the wall opposite the kitchen. They've also got the garage walls up, stairs into the house, the front door cut-out, and more of the inside walls framed. Nate wanted to go again Wednesday, but I managed to talk him into just going this weekend when more would have been done.

No-nee

It may sound like a nonesense word, but to Allie it means snowman. Nate put five little snowmen in front of our house, and Allie just loves them. She is constantly running to the window to look at the "no-nee."

The disgusted look is because some of the snowmen are burried under the snow. Poor things. Anyway, she won't get into the van without running to check the snowmen.

We'll be lucky if the blinds can survive til Christmas with our snowman watcher.

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Girl

Makayla found the clown nose from when we went to the Barnum Bailey Circus a few years ago (I'd put it in the Christmas box with the reindeer antler headband. She loved them. She even had to wear them to go see our house.


This funny little circle in the snow is from Makayla dipping her "nose" in the snow.


What a cutie!!!

Medical Update

In case you haven't heard, I have been diagnosed as having seizures. On Dec. 17th I go in for an EEG (which is where they put electrodes on your head and monitor your brain while you are hopefully sleeping). Apparently that test will tell us if the seizures are epileptic or nonepileptic. The doctor said both are equally common but treatments are very different. Then of course there are different kinds within those two main categories. We are hoping for news by Christmas or New Years at the latest. This is not a fun video to watch, but it will give you an idea of what my seizures are like if you want to watch it. The doctors were glad we had them so they could diagnose me better.

I deleted the video. It bothered me to have it on here.

They're Framing!

Friday night after getting home from my doctors appointment there was a message on the answering machine from Richmond Homes. They said the framing was started and should be DONE by next week. How cool is that? Anyway, we of course couldn't wait to go see it on Saturday.

This is the view from the street. Notice, they poured the driveway too. I'm a little surprised they didn't pour the RV pad while they were at it, but I guess they still need access to all sides of the house.


I went up into the garage to take these next pictures (If it hadn't snowed more today, the workers might have really wondered about the little dainty boot prints) These two pictures are looking from the garage through the front room to the girls bedrooms. One of the bedrooms is all framed.



I just thought it was interesting to see how they do things. This is going to be the front porch with the cold storage underneath. Now you know how it is done.


I think seeing the house at this stage definately made things more real for Kayla. It's starting to look more like a house.

Gingerbread Men and Women

Last year at preschool the kids decorated gingerbread men and I had to make some GF ones for Kayla. The recipe I'd found was pretty good. This year I decided to go ahead and make the cookies while I was feeling good-just in case. I also decided to use a recipe out of our favorite new cookbook. Well, they look delicious...






Makayla and Allison like the cookies, but Nate and I weren't quite so sure.
I actually liked Nate's description-gingerbread flavored sand. Oh well, I guess we'll go back to the other recipe next year.

House Update

When we went to see progress on the house we found they had done the basic water, phone, and other lines to the house. You can't really see from here, but we also never posted the basic walls so here they are. The wood is sitting in the backyard to start framing. Hopefully when we go this weekend there will be some more progress.
The place was so muddy only Nate got out. The girls were so cute singing Christmas songs in the car I had to take their pictures too.