Monday, December 29, 2008

Yay! - Christmas Post

I have been SOOO lazy this week it is horrible, but wonderful at the same time. I didn't even have the interest in telling you about Christmas. But....Landon and Sarah are coming to spend a couple of days with us tomorrow, so lazy days are over and it is time to get this house in order. Now that I am up and about again, I feel I should do my blog.

We had a very nice, very relaxing Christmas. We were very happy to be in our home with our family, but I did realize some problems with it. When you have company over you put much more effort in to the festivities. We were very laid back and unorganized but it all came together in the end.

Here are the few pictures we took.

The Shepherds
The wisemen (and yes that is a toy worm as baby Jesus, Brandon stole the doll I had right when we were about to start and I had no idea where he put it.)
Mismatched Brandon. It was 80 degrees here on Christmas Eve. He would have been sweating in his santa suit.
Steve at the piano for our Christmas songs.
The Christmas Eve presents:

Presents from Santa:

{Steven got a bug vacuum}

{Nathan with his moon shoes that he doesn't seem to like}

What a Merry Christmas, and now on to the Happy New Year (without fireworks!, oh well)

Monday, December 22, 2008

Scripture humor

We have started a habit in our home that has stuck pretty good over the past couple of months. We have scripture study every night where we each read a couple of versus and then Steve and I explain them to the boys. We just read one page a night. We are already to the Isaiah chapters in 2nd Nephi and are determined to get through them. I never realized that teaching scriptures to kids could be a funny thing. Here is the humor.

1. Steven and his class were studying Native American Indians shortly after we started reading as a family. We had explained to him that the Lamanites were what we consider the American Indians. So, apparently in his class one day he raised his hand and explained that there was a group of indians called the Lamanites. I asked him what his teacher said about that and of course she had never heard of them. haha
2. The other day I was talking to Jacob and he was asking me about something dying. It wasn't a morbid conversation just a four year old conversation. He said something along the lines of..."If a cat eats this candy bar will it perish?" At first I had no idea where he got such a word, and then realized that he has been listening in scripture study.
3. This is not about scriptures, but a sacrament issue. We were in Sacrament Meeting and they were passing around the water. When I passed the water to Jacob, he said "No Thanks", I looked at him a little surprised and said "take some!" He said in a little angrier voice, "No Thanks, I am not thirsty!" That is when Dad got involved and made Jacob take the water. We definitely need to have a lesson on the sacrament.

In other news....Santa Clause visited our house this evening. His suit seems to be getting a little tight around the leg area, but it should get another showing on Christmas Eve.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Next Day graham cracker houses

Here are our finished products on the graham cracker houses.

Jacob's


Nathan'sSteven's
Now let me explain a little something..... I had somewhere I needed to go last night, so I left my very capable husband in charge of helping the boys put the candy on these houses. I gave him the 8 bags of different candy to use so the boys would have a variety of things to put on. For some reason of which I have not understood, Steve decided to only get two (of the eight) bags of candy out. So the boys had their choice of jelly bellys or mini marshmallows. When I got home I was very surprised by the lack of variation on the candy and even more upset to see NO CHOCOLATE on them. I still managed to tell the boys they looked nice, but am planning on being home next year for the decorating. :-) Now I have all the extra candy to use on candy trains at preschool/playgroup tomorrow.

Unused chocolate bells and presents.

Another quick story from tonight. Steven lost his tooth today and put it in this German tooth box we have and under his pillow.
When the toothfairy went in tonight to give him his treasure this is what he/she found.

And this is his/her response.
So funny. As far as the eye patch goes, you remember how Steven loves accessories? Well, I found a black eye mask when I was going through our Utah stuff and Steven decided he wanted it. He has worn it every night for a month.

Monday, December 15, 2008

Time for Christmas

Yes, we are celebrating Christmas at our house this year, even if our blog is stuck on Thanksgiving. Not only are we celebrating it, I am a little ahead of the game which is nice.

I must admit, for the first time since I left, I am missing Germany. Christmas had a lot to offer in Germany including the correct temperature. We are in the 70's this week, and might hit 80 degrees on Wednesday. Crazy. Steven commented that maybe Santa doesn't need all those heavy red clothes this year. :-)

Anyway here are some of our festivities.

We were lucky enough to find a cut-your-own-tree field here in Statesboro. When we got there the man took the boys on a ride in this sleigh that was hooked up to his ride on lawn mower. Sadly my camera batteries died right after I took this picture. But we got the tree and headed home.

We decorated it the next day and are very happy with the chaotic look of it. It looks completely different now by the way, because I keep buying garland, or finding more ornaments, or thinking of other fun things to put on it.

Tonight we thought it would be fun to do gingerbread houses. I bought a kit for Steve to use because we were curious how they looked. I think it looks great, but surprisingly similar to many other pictures I have seen on blogs.


The boys attempted the graham cracker houses and they were fun, but could be a little frustrating. The graham crackers seem to have a mind of their own. I told the boys lets get the house together and then we can put candy and stuff on tomorrow once the "glue" has dried. So that is the plan and now we have extended this fun activity for two days. I will show you how they turn out tomorrow.

We are doing advent of course this year. I have my German advent garland up with lots of candy in it. The boys are excited every night when we count off one more day. When the garland starts to sag you know Christmas is getting close. :-)

I am excited for Christmas and the New Year!

Wednesday, December 03, 2008


We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday, even if I didn't take very many pictures. Oops.

The boys had the whole week off of school, so we went on a nature walk near our house one day. It turned out to be a nature walk up someone's driveway, because at the end of this trail that was about 2 blocks long was a house and that was it. We were gathering leaves to make turkeys that you can kind of see on the wall in the other pictures on this post.
Brandon on the table at the park in his doggy sweater.
Our brother-in-law Charlie came and stayed with us with his two kids Daniel and Emma. They got here Wednesday afternoon and stayed until Sunday. We had a Wonderful time with them and we even got out the Settler's game again for the first time since we got to the states! We also discovered that our house was very comfortable even with 3 extra people. Not the extra room we had in Germany, but it wasn't as bad here as I thought it might be so I am happy. You are all invited to come visit Brooklet now if you have under 4 people with you. :0

So our Thanksgiving was wonderful for a couple different reasons.
1. We had great company. Charlie, and the kids and then we had a friend of Steve's from work named Ian come over with his family. They have two older boys and then they just had a baby boy about a month ago. I totally loved having the baby in the house. I didn't hold him as much as I thought I would, but when I did hold him, I really enjoyed it.
2. We split the Thanksgiving list with Ian's family. So we only had half the mess and half the clean up, but all the delicious food. It worked out perfectly. So perfectly in fact, that my kitchen was mostly clean when we ate.
3. All the food was delicious.
4. We ended the night with a game of Settler's which I won!
Perfection

This is the kids table(s).
Here are the guys at the adult table all sitting on the bench. I don't know how they all ended up here together, but they look cozy don't they? This is Steve, Charlie, and Daniel. (notice the brownish turkeys on the wall. Those are made of crushed leaves. The other decor came from Nathan's kindergarten class.)
On Friday I did go and brave the crowds at Walmart at 6am, but didn't have much to buy. It was still nice to be out shopping with the rest of the world before the sun came up. And I saw the same thing as Laura did out in California. 90% of the people there had a big screen tv or some other big ticket item in their buggy. Where do these people get their money??

Saturday was my niece Emma's 8th birthday. To start the day off I made chocolate IHOP pancakes that were SOOO good. From that experience I woke up to the fact that my kids have a much higher sugar tolerance than other kids. Daniel and Emma made it through about half of their pancake, while all my boys ate every last drop. What am I doing to these kids?

After breakfast and a movie we went to Chuck E Cheese for the kids to play and we had a great time. Then we came home for cake and presents. I think it was a good birthday for Emma and I am happy she got to spend it here with us.

Now the kids are back in school and I am working on boxes in the garage. I was just telling Steve I need to get out the Christmas stuff before we miss too many days of advent. That is next on my list. :)