Christmas!!

Because it's so late to be posting about Christmas, I'm going to combine everything we did Christmas week into this one post.

First, we always love to make and deliver treats to our friends, but this year with Tom recovering from knee surgery, and me working alot, I was looking for easy fun treats to make.
I found at the store these super cute gingerbread man shaped marshmallows, and snowman shaped marshmallows. So, I used candy melts (much faster and easier than frosting, to me) to add details, and stuck them on popsicle sticks. So easy and so fun!! The gingerbread man marshmallows were actually gingerbread flavored, and the snowman marshmallows were eggnog flavored.
We also took some cannisters that I'd saved throughout the year and decorated them. The canisters were peanut cannisters, or hot chocolate cannisters, and we used sticky back foam to decorate them. We just got a big stack of multi colored sticky phone, and cut out our own shapes and scenes. Of course you could just buy a big batch of Christmas shapes and stick them on the cannisters too. Then, inside the cannisters we put home made caramel corn. Also a fast and delicious treat to make.

On Christmas Eve morning, I was busy finishing up a Christmas dress for Kaitlyn, which sadly, I have not taken a picture of, but it turned out nicely. While I was sewing, Kaitlyn was putting together a nativity scene. I walked into the family room, and saw this against the couches and walls:

I think these are the 3 wise men? They are separated from the Nativity scene because they were not there the night Jesus was born, they were traveling, following the star. I was suprised that Kaitlyn would remember that.

And Christmas morning! It was a happy morning. We let the kids pick out gifts for each other this year, so we had more gifts than our usual 1 from Mom, 1 from Dad and 1 from Santa. We also got beautiful Christmas Roses from Uncle Michael, and lot's of gifts from Grandpa and Grammy McGiffin!!

Here's Sarah opening the last gift. A giant one hidden behind the tree for her. It turned out to be a bean bag chair she'd been wanting since her birthday back in May. She was very happy.

Later that morning we went to church and enjoyed a nice Christmas program. I directed the ward Choir in singing a version of "Once in Royal David's City". Even Alan and Sarah sang in our little ward choir. Then, I sang a version of "O Come Immanuel" at the request of the Bishopric. I wouldn't have sung if the Bishopric hadn't asked me to because I was already directing the ward choir, but that's what they wanted. It turned out really well.

It was wonderful Christmas.

Gingerbread houses

A family tradition we do every year that we love. This year we used graham crackers.
(PS. This is the 8th post I've written today, I had some catching up to do, so if you want to know what we've been doing since Halloween, scroll down and take a look at the previous posts.)

Yummy food for the ward Christmas party

Also on Dec. 10th was the ward Christmas party. After we decorated the Christmas tree, I had to go to the church to help set up a little bit, so while I was gone, Tom and the kids made a dessert for the party.

They made monkey bread in a bundt pan, and then when I got home I decorated it with frosting leaves and m&m berries. It's a Christmas wreath!

Dad's surgery, and decorating the tree...

We put the tree up on Nov. 30th, but didn't decorate it until the 10th. Tom was out of town from Nov 30th - Dec 4th, and then again from Dec 6-8th. He got home at 12:30am Thursday night, then got up to be at the hospital at 6:00am on Friday morning. The surgery was on a torn meniscus that happened a year ago. The surgery went well, and he's recovering quickly. It was on his right knee, and he's already able to walk and drive.

So, the day after his surgery, we decorated the tree.. Tom wasn't really able to help us decorate. He was on the couch recovering as we did it, but at least he was with us. :)

Parties, and cousins, and fun! Oh, My!!

We are so happy that Uncle Johnny, Aunt Jenette, Cousin Robby and Cousin Nathan came to visit!! We loved having them over. They stayed for just a few days, but we were glad for the short time we had with them.

The thing I'm most sad about is that I didn't get hardly any pictures!! They got here late Wenesday, Nov 30th, and the next morning, Thursday, we all went to the Infantry Museum. We really like that place. The kids got to try on some soldier uniforms, which they enjoyed.

Then, Thursday night we went to Fantasy in Lights at Callaway Gardens. We had fun on the trolley singing and looking at the beautiful lights.

On Friday we went to Flat Rock Park to play our most favorite park. Then, for lunch we went to Country's Barbecue so that Johnny and Jenette could have some southern cooking. We ordered fried pickles as an appetizer, and drank water out of mason jars.

Friday night we had a little birthday party for William. We invites just a few friends over; Karter and Kamryn Ence, and Koen Jones, then we had the cousins Robby and Nathan here of course, so it made a nice number of guests for a birthday party.

Here's Kaitlyn, Robby with his trusty "Woody" hat, and William making the cupcakes to decorate at the party.

Here's Robby, William, Uncle Johnny, Sarah, and Aunt Jenette coloring on the paper we covered the table with for the party. Another picture of the famous Uncle Johnny.

Robby, William and Koen at the table ready to eat their decorated cupcakes.

The party didn't last long because it was kind of late for little ones, 6:00-7:30pm. Along with decorating cupcakes, we also hooked up our old video camera to the TV and let them dance around to music and watch themselves. They enjoyed that.

On Saturday we went to Flat Rock Park again and played a little while before Johnny and Jenette left. We were soooooo sad once they were gone!! The kids were really depressed. Alan cried a little, and William later in the day was asking where his friends went. We love our family!! We hope one day we'll get to live closer to them.

William's birthday

William turned four on November 28th, and since Tom was going to be out of town for William's birthday party at the end of the week, we had a little family party before he left

We let him decorate his own little cake again this year. He loves being able to do that without worrying about making a mess.

During the day, I took William to the store and let him pick out a little birthday present for himself. He picked out a little cape and mask set, which he loves!! He also got a new bike so that he could go riding with our family on bike rides on Saturday. Kaitlyn also used her money to buy him a light saber. It was her left over birthday money, and she wanted to use it for him.

The next post will be about his party...

Thanksgiving!!

Here's some pics of a few things we did on Thanksgiving. We had our good friends the Ence's over, and the Missionaries.

William loves to help me cook. Here he is helping to make the Cranberry Whipped Cream Salad:

A fun activity I had the kids do when they were bored waiting for our friends to arrive, was to make napkin rings for everyone. We took a used plastic wrap tube (because those are stiffer than tp tubes), and we cut it into rings. Then I got out all of our craft things and just let them decorate them any way they wanted. They turned out really nice.

Here's the Turkey that I roasted in the Roaster Oven. Here's the cupcake Teepees we intended to make on Thanksgiving, but didn't get made until a few days later for Family Home Evening. You bake cake in the sugar cones, and then decorate them to look like teepees. Here's some of the fun our kids had with the Missionaries, Elder George in the background, and Elder Steenick playing on the piano wearing the pink hat.

Roasting marshmallows in the kitchen!

Not cold enough to have a fire? Roast giant marshmallows over the stove!!

Dad went hunting

Ok, this post is not for Aunt Spring, .... :) but we're excited that Tom was able to go hunting for the first time this season. We even bought a freezer to keep it in. We're able to save alot of money on meat that way. We don't eat a ton of meat, but what we do use ground beef in a few dinners, and we like to have roasts on Sunday.

I told Tom that if he does hunt, I don't want to be able to tell it was once a deer. He has to bring it home looking like it came from the store... I know, I know.. remember I'm a city girl, and I have to take small steps.... :) I will not be posting a picture of the deer he got. I could barely look at the picture he took of it on his cell phone...

Anyway...so, he brought home the meat in a big cooler, and we just packaged it. We have a meat grinder attachment to our Kitchen Aid, and we made some ground venison with it. William particularly loved doing that part.

We have enjoyed quite a few dinners from our venison, including meatloaf. We could barely tell the difference between it and groundbeef. There's much less fat, and so it's much healthier.

Happy Halloween!

Ready for Trick or Treating!

Alan's helmet was a real helmet Tom got from Australia. It had holes in it. We're thinking it was used for target practice?

Kaitlyn was a pink bat girl!

Turning Sarah into a red m&m

Bending over was a little tough as an m&m

And.... spiderman!!

...Or is it William?

Carving pumpkins is always a fun tradition for our family on Halloween. I've been so busy that we didn't go and buy pumpkins until Halloween. It was nearly impossible to find any pumpkins. We usually get a pumpkin for everyone, but the only pumpkins that were left were $30 pumpkins at a shop outside of town, and those pumpkins were painted. So, we just bought one, scrubbed off the paint as best we could, then each of the kids carved a face on a side of it. I carved the faces for William and Kaitlyn, and Alan and Sarah got to carve their own. It was Sarah's first time carving a pumpkin. She loved it.

The other pumkin is one we carved at the Stake Fall Festival a few weeks ago.

And Tom was Superman... And I was Red Riding Hood...

The Stake Fall Festival

Two weeks ago was the Stake Fall Festival. In years past, instead of a Fall Festival they had a ball. This was much more family friendly. Each ward was assigned to do a few games, and every family was asked to bring chilli. There was a lot of chilli. The kids had fun carving pumpkins, "bobbing" for donuts, playing tug of war, getting face paint, making sand art, and many other things. It was a nice activity. We only got a few pics. William was with me all the time, so the pictures I have are of him.

For face paint William wanted a "W" on one side and an "X" on the other. Here he is very focused as he gets it done: