Gingerbread Houses

Tammy, Liz and Austin baked gingerbread from scratch so we could build gingerbread houses with the kids. So yummy! We all had a blast building the houses and decorating them with the kids. Mom helped us figure out how to get the walls to stick together and how to get the roof stabilized with cans while it dried. Whew! They were tricky little boogers. :) The kids were more interested in eating the candy than using it to decorate their gingerbread houses, so we adults let our creative juices flow. Derek decided he wanted two different styles of roof and Liz and Austin made a lamppost from a candy cane and the jewel from a gummy ring. Derek wanted to copy their lamppost and insisted on having a copycat gumdrop tree, too. It was fun to watch him stud his house with all kinds of random candy with wild abandon, haha!

 

 Uncle Austin and Grandma building their houses

 

 Clara was happy to help by sleeping. This is a 0-3 month onesie and it swamps her. She's not quite fitting into the newborn onesies either, but it won't be long!

 

 Grandma helped Derek, Uncle Colton helped Isaac and Uncle Austin and Aunt Lizzie helped Andrew. Emeri and Bryce ate snacks (and twizzlers the uncles slipped them) in their high chairs.

 

 Derek and the front of his gingerbread house

 

 3/4 from the right

 

 3/4 from the left - notice the different roof, lamppost in the back and gumdrop trees in the front?

 

 Anytime this kid sees a camera, he makes his "Cheese!" face, haha!

 

 Isaac had a blast decorating his house

 

 Andrew was far more interested in seeing how much candy he could snitch while Uncle Austin and Aunt Lizzie were focused on decorating the gingerbread house. Sneaky!

 

 I love the icicles on Liz's house! :D

 

Emeri was happy to watch and direct our decorations from afar, lol!

Ice Storm!!

Nope, this is definitely not snow. Roughly four inches of solid ice is completely covering the ground. Neighbors are giving their kids trashcan lids and laundry baskets to slide down hills and driveways. Austin, Liz and the kids have come over for the weekend, Mitchell was excused from work and we're making an ice party out of it. :) Poor Derek has a nasty ear infection and can't go outside til we get him to an urgent care center on Monday for some antibiotics. He's such a trooper managing with some pain meds, a hot pack and as many movies as he wants. He keeps begging to go out in the "snow" but no matter how many times we watch Isaac and Andrew slipping, sliding and taking some pretty nasty falls, he just isn't fazed.

 

 The cows were pretty chilly but it was great fun to watch them slipping and sliding to and from the frozen water trough.

 

 Pretty icicles on the rose bushes

 

 Deceptively fluffy looking

 

The poor little Japanese Maple tree. It took quite a beating.

Papa's Tree

We finally have everyone together for the first time since Jeff died and Tammy has wanted a picture of all the grandkids in front of the pretty white oak in the backyard. "Papa's Tree" was donated to our family by members of Jeff and Tammy's previous ward in McKinney. It's a gorgeous reminder of him that we can see from pretty much any window looking out into the backyard. Today was kind of chilly but we got all the kids wrangled into the backyard so Sereen could take some pictures with her awesome camera. Derek was going to hold Clara at first, but we decided to switch it up last minute and have Isaac hold Clara while Derek held Bryce. That ended up being the better choice because Derek is the only kid who can keep hold of a struggling Bryce, haha! The kids were pretty cooperative for the most part and we all saw the humor in the pack of adults hooting and hollering to get the kids to all look one way and smile. I'm sure Dad was watching and I'm sure he got a kick out of it, too. It's been a good Thanksgiving, but I really missed him. Christmas will be just as hard, I'm sure, but we'll see him again. In the meantime, we have a beautiful tree to remind us of him.

 

 The beautiful white oak

 

Derek added for perspective



All nine grandkids! 

Andrew was the only one who was smiling and looking at the camera in every single picture. I love the variety of poses and facial expressions though. These kids are awesome!



The best shot. I love how Logan is holding Savanna. He sure loves his sister. :)

Isaac just turned four

 

Derek is three and a half



Logan just turned three

 

Andrew just turned three

 

Preston is almost two

 

Emeri is a year and a half



Bryce just turned one

 

 

Savanna just turned one

 

 

 

And this is adorable.

Uncle Jared's Birthday Celebration and Brother/Sister Gifts



Uncle Jared's Birthday isn't for another couple weeks, but we needed some excuse for cake and candles. :) I loved this little memory with Emeri, heehee. She claimed Derek's hat and insisted on wearing it during lunch but Preston kept trying to "borrow" it. She let him know that wasn't going to happen by kicking and screaming at him til the poor kid walked away with a bewildered look.

 



She sure looked cute in that hat. Love the photo-bombing Savanna in the back, haha!

 

 Preston thought it was a game at first, but he didn't have fun for long, poor kid.

 

Happy birthday, Uncle Jared!

 

 

Andrew had his eye on the candles (we don't call him the Candle Bomber for nothing) but Aunt Lizzie has her eye on him! Haha!

 



 Andrew photo-bombed all of Jared's present-opening pictures, silly kid!

 

 We made hot chocolate to chase the cake down. I like mine with cinnamon, whipped cream and chocolate shavings. Yum!

Later, after the kids had been put to bed, we all sat down to open Brother/Sister gifts. The way this usually works is that all the siblings divide into two groups. Each group goes shopping and one person from each group buys a gift for one person in the other group (that other person can't be their spouse). My group got gifts for everybody in the other group except for Mitchell because every time we tried to get the Warhammer 40K gift we wanted to get him, the store was closed. So, at the last minute, I went to Walmart with Liz to get the video game Mitchell had been waiting so patiently to be released (Diablo 3). I bought the game and then Liz and I decided to do a gag gift. We found a Barbie movie to give to Mitchell first and then surprise him with Diablo 3. So, I wrapped the Barbie gift in a masculine plaid bag and Diablo 3 in a flowery, frilly pink bag. It worked out that Mitchell opened his presents last of all which brought all his expectations to a head, haha! It was awesome. Tammy found a pair of beautiful peridot earrings for me from Kohls that match my eyes perfectly. I never thought to wear peridot before but I have to confess I'm a little obsessed now. :) We all had fun hearing about the different thoughts behind the different gifts and I'm glad we didn't just mail the presents to each other. 

 We displayed all the wrapped presents on the mantle

 

 Mom scored a pair of awesome sunglasses and the game, Headbandz

 

Colton got a pair of resistance bands (same as Austin), Jared got an ab roller and a book and Sereen got a couple of cute shirts (same style as Lanae).

 

 Liz got these sweet sunglasses, some plum colored suede flats and that pretty golden necklace.

We also got a great gift from her a couple days ago... she's pregnant! YAY! Can't wait for July 4th this next year. We joke that she sets the pattern for what gender my kids are (we both had two boys and then a girl) so I'm kind of excited to see what she has next (and secretly hoping it's a girl!).

 

 Love the decorations for Jared's birthday. Notice the little plaid bag in Mitchell's lap? :)

 

He hasn't seen what's in the wrapping yet...

 

 ...commence confusion!

 

 He only gets the real gift if he can open it, haha! 

 

He was very pleased with both the joke and the real gift. I love it when I get it right. ;)



White Elephant Gifts

 Since we're not going to be together for Christmas, we decided that we'd do our White Elephant and Brother/Sister gifts while we're together. Tonight is White Elephant night. Tammy has a great game with different activities to do in order to earn a gift to unwrap. It was fun to laugh together. The biggest prize was a massive box of Russell Stover assorted chocolates and the funniest prize was a package of batteries taped to a box of tic tacs. We had a blast doing charade-type challenges, drawing challenges and name-15-things-in-15-seconds. 

 

 Jared and Sereen

 

 Lanae and David

 

 Austin and Liz - I told Austin to stop closing his eyes while I was trying to take a picture and this is the face that I got, lol.

 

 Clara kisses for Daddy!

 

 She's so tiny! I'm not used to having such a little baby. It's nice to not feel like I'm lugging around a bag of flour, though. :) 

 Celebrating the successful completion of a challenge

 

The funniest games were the 15-things-in-15-seconds games. I think some of us were close to tears, we were laughing so hard.

 

Liz is just a little competitive. :)