Friday, January 13, 2012
Belated Christmas Pics
Here are some pictures from our Christmas. We had a quiet Christmas - no extended family this year. Well, quiet is realtive I suppose, when you have six kids! :) It was a wonderful celebration of the birth of Christ!
Tuesday, January 10, 2012
Fa, la, la, la, la, la, la, la
OK so I didn't get to blog anything during the Christmas season. I took lots of pictures and often thought about blogging, but somehow the days slipped by without it happening. We thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas season and it passed much too quickly!
For the past three years we have been delighted to host a Caroling Party here at our home. Friends gather at our house and then we process through the neighborhood singing and pronouncing the coming of Christ as a tiny baby in a manger. This year on December 23rd we had about 15 families join us, with kids and adults it came to a total of almost 70 people.
I'm sure we were a sight to see as we tromped through the cold Texas evening and bellowed to the rooftops! Many of our neighbors came out and sat on their porch's to listen to the words of Christ proclaimed, mixed with some jolly joyful tunes. When we would sing lines such as, "O come let us adore Him" and "Joy to the world the Lord is come", I would look up and see one of our neighbors out on the porch listening and swaying and it brought a prickle of tears to my eyes. How exciting to be about spreading the joyful news of Christ's birth!
We then gathered back at our home for hot chocolate, cider and goodies. Everyone brought a plate of goodies to share and it was fun to try all the delicacies. I was able to make a very good gluten free version of our favorite cookie - the peanut butter cup cookies. Yummy! As this will be our last Christmas in Texas, we will greatly miss celebrating with our dear friends in this way - it has truly been a delight! I hope we can carry this tradition on to our new home.
For the past three years we have been delighted to host a Caroling Party here at our home. Friends gather at our house and then we process through the neighborhood singing and pronouncing the coming of Christ as a tiny baby in a manger. This year on December 23rd we had about 15 families join us, with kids and adults it came to a total of almost 70 people.
I'm sure we were a sight to see as we tromped through the cold Texas evening and bellowed to the rooftops! Many of our neighbors came out and sat on their porch's to listen to the words of Christ proclaimed, mixed with some jolly joyful tunes. When we would sing lines such as, "O come let us adore Him" and "Joy to the world the Lord is come", I would look up and see one of our neighbors out on the porch listening and swaying and it brought a prickle of tears to my eyes. How exciting to be about spreading the joyful news of Christ's birth!
We then gathered back at our home for hot chocolate, cider and goodies. Everyone brought a plate of goodies to share and it was fun to try all the delicacies. I was able to make a very good gluten free version of our favorite cookie - the peanut butter cup cookies. Yummy! As this will be our last Christmas in Texas, we will greatly miss celebrating with our dear friends in this way - it has truly been a delight! I hope we can carry this tradition on to our new home.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Sweet Cookie Baking
It's that time of year again...cookie time! This year we are making a variety of regular and gluten free cookies. Today we had some friends over to help cut and decorate sugar cookies (my favorite), make corn flake wreaths (another favorite), and gluten free peanut butter cup cookies (they are really yummy). The corn flake wreath cookies happen to also be gluten free and always have been. They are a tradition carried on from my childhood. I love that cookie baking and decorating is an activity that the big kids and the little kids can do together!
As Christmas draws near and we are far from family, I can get quite nostalgic. I was talking with my friend last night at church, as our children sang in the children's choir, and she has also been feeling a bit blue. So we decided to get together today to decorate cookies, something that is always fun to do with others! Although I can't see my sisters or watch my children delight with their cousins, it was a wonderful day enjoying fellowship with sisters in Christ and seeing our children enjoy the day together. Between the three of us we had 17 children rolling, cutting, baking and decorating. We spent five hours filling the house with the sweet aromas of cookies. Since I am still having camera issues, my friend sent me these photos of today taken from her phone.
Even Bumble got in on the action! His first cookie decorating experience!
As Christmas draws near and we are far from family, I can get quite nostalgic. I was talking with my friend last night at church, as our children sang in the children's choir, and she has also been feeling a bit blue. So we decided to get together today to decorate cookies, something that is always fun to do with others! Although I can't see my sisters or watch my children delight with their cousins, it was a wonderful day enjoying fellowship with sisters in Christ and seeing our children enjoy the day together. Between the three of us we had 17 children rolling, cutting, baking and decorating. We spent five hours filling the house with the sweet aromas of cookies. Since I am still having camera issues, my friend sent me these photos of today taken from her phone.
Even Bumble got in on the action! His first cookie decorating experience!
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Christmas Pictures
Yesterday we had an appointment to get Christmas pictures taken. We have never had a formal dressy picture of the whole family taken and thought it was time to do so. Since Jammer is in size 14 boys, I figured it was the last time in a while that I was going to find matching sweaters for all four boys in a long while. Thank you Children's Place - and I got a fabulous deal! Anyhow, the time seemed right! As with any event with a large family, there are hickups along the way and we try to have some humor through them - which I'm not always good at, but I try!
Yesterday was also Runner's birthday and so as tradition has it, Jon got Runner up early and took him out to breakfast and then to Mass. They arrived home about 9:00 am and I greeted them with Bumble curled up in my arms not feeling well. He didn't have a fever, but he was clearly under the weather. What should we do? Give him some medicine and let's push forward! Jon only had that day off and there were no more apts. available before Christmas. The plan was to get the pictures on disk (with our military discount of 50% this would be resonable), then we could make our Christmas Cards with them. We had to be ready by 10:15. Let's go! Now usually I get myself ready before everyone else, otherwise I usually don't have time for myself, but because of Bumble not feeling well I didn't have this chance. It showed!
We finally make it to the studio, only 5 minutes late! Bumble was doing pretty good. However, the photographer was a teenage girl with little experience, and a bit of an attitude on top of it. She clearly wasn't thrilled to be working with a large family with many little ones. We worked for about 45 minutes trying to get some good pictures of the whole family, and then split boys and girls for some pictures. At the end Jon took the kids to get a treat, while I reviewed the pictures on their computer. Very few of them looked very good. I can't say I was thrilled with any. However, I figured with the disk I could doctor up a couple of the pictures and they would work for our Christmas cards. However, surprise, we can't get our military discount on the disk, only on the sheets. This was not clearly stated online. I was not about to spend that amount of money for these pictures that I wasn't thrilled with anyway. Our sitting had been free so we ended up walking away without any pictures. Sigh!
So what next?? Our good camera had gotten knocked off the counter a few weeks ago by one of the children as they waved a towel in the air. An accident, but frustrating! We had an old cheap camera that kinda worked, so we put batteries in it, taped the cover shut and headed to the park. I knew I could get the true smiles of my children captured, even with this crazy camera! In the last year I have really come to enjoy photography. Some day I would love to get a great camera and take some classes, but until then my complete amatuer pics with cheap cameras will have to do!
It took a bit for the kids to get over the fact that they had to take more pictures for their neurotic mother, but soon they were hamming it up. After several takes, and pauses waiting for the camera to work properly - having to turn it off and on, we got some great pictures. They are coming on the Christmas cards in the mail! I hope you have enjoyed some of the out takes we took while we blew of steam! I'm working on the humor! Another year we will get that formal picture to hang over the fireplace, for now I will enjoy the craziness of our lives!
Yesterday was also Runner's birthday and so as tradition has it, Jon got Runner up early and took him out to breakfast and then to Mass. They arrived home about 9:00 am and I greeted them with Bumble curled up in my arms not feeling well. He didn't have a fever, but he was clearly under the weather. What should we do? Give him some medicine and let's push forward! Jon only had that day off and there were no more apts. available before Christmas. The plan was to get the pictures on disk (with our military discount of 50% this would be resonable), then we could make our Christmas Cards with them. We had to be ready by 10:15. Let's go! Now usually I get myself ready before everyone else, otherwise I usually don't have time for myself, but because of Bumble not feeling well I didn't have this chance. It showed!
We finally make it to the studio, only 5 minutes late! Bumble was doing pretty good. However, the photographer was a teenage girl with little experience, and a bit of an attitude on top of it. She clearly wasn't thrilled to be working with a large family with many little ones. We worked for about 45 minutes trying to get some good pictures of the whole family, and then split boys and girls for some pictures. At the end Jon took the kids to get a treat, while I reviewed the pictures on their computer. Very few of them looked very good. I can't say I was thrilled with any. However, I figured with the disk I could doctor up a couple of the pictures and they would work for our Christmas cards. However, surprise, we can't get our military discount on the disk, only on the sheets. This was not clearly stated online. I was not about to spend that amount of money for these pictures that I wasn't thrilled with anyway. Our sitting had been free so we ended up walking away without any pictures. Sigh!
So what next?? Our good camera had gotten knocked off the counter a few weeks ago by one of the children as they waved a towel in the air. An accident, but frustrating! We had an old cheap camera that kinda worked, so we put batteries in it, taped the cover shut and headed to the park. I knew I could get the true smiles of my children captured, even with this crazy camera! In the last year I have really come to enjoy photography. Some day I would love to get a great camera and take some classes, but until then my complete amatuer pics with cheap cameras will have to do!
It took a bit for the kids to get over the fact that they had to take more pictures for their neurotic mother, but soon they were hamming it up. After several takes, and pauses waiting for the camera to work properly - having to turn it off and on, we got some great pictures. They are coming on the Christmas cards in the mail! I hope you have enjoyed some of the out takes we took while we blew of steam! I'm working on the humor! Another year we will get that formal picture to hang over the fireplace, for now I will enjoy the craziness of our lives!
Monday, December 19, 2011
Happy Birthday Runner!!
Today was Runner's 11th Birthday. On Sunday we celebrated with a Wacky Olympics birthday party. He had six of his buddies over and they performed wacky and crazy tasks to compete for the "gold" medal. They stomped on balloons, ran an obstacle course while keeping a rattle from shaking, piled shaving cream on heads, threw Cheetos, rolled dice and tried to keep a straight face. Through it all lots of laughs and smiles were had. Here are a few pictures....
The Wacky Olympics couldn't be complete without an Olympic Rings cake! However I didn't get to the store to get the special frosting coloring that will make vibrant colors so regular food coloring had to do. Therefore, the rings turned out a bit pastel...but you get the idea!
Runner is a determined young man who puts passion into everythig that he does. He has taken on a lot of responsibility this past year with us adding on Bumble to the family. He graciuosly takes redirection and works diligently to improve when needed. I can always depend on him when I need a job done, and therefor he gets called on alot. Thank you Runner for being such a delightful, dependable, trustworthy young man! We love you! Happy Birthday!
Friday, December 16, 2011
This Moment.....
Tuesday, December 13, 2011
Peanut is 3!!
This little man brings so much joy to our days! It's hard to believe three years have passed since his birth!
Peanut is happy and joyful....
Peanut is happy and joyful....
He is creative and imaginative...
He is SO smart! Ha,Ha .......
He loves his family...
Peanut it has been three precious years that we have enjoyed your laughs, smiles, scowls and tears. I so look forward to every moment of you growing up! This year you have grown up so much. You have turned from a baby to a delightful little boy. You are speaking and asking questions constantly now. Discovering the wonders of your world. You have become a big brother this year and you love to get into mischief with your Andrew! We love you! Happy Birthday Big Boy!
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