Jolly Holiday party

We had our Christmas party on Friday night. The girls were so excited the night before, and found it was torture to have to go to school all day. They were super excited when they got home. They wanted to get all dressed up as soon as I would let them. Ben talked me into letting them wear their new Christmas dresses. I don't think anyone's got messed up, so it turned out great.

Three little fancies. They didn't wear the coats for more than 5 minutes, but they sure looked sweet.

I'm lucky that Ben took care of most of the food/set up while I was getting ready for the party. I did come down to help him when I was finished. (not to mention spending all week cleaning and getting things ready.) I think we did a pretty good job on the amount of food this year. We didn't have near the amount of leftovers as we have in the past.

I only baked 2 desserts this year, so I felt that I got off easy enough.

Ben and I got dressed up too, though not as fancy as the girls. And isn't he looking great 50 lbs lighter than last year?

I didn't get a chance to sit on Santa's lap, but Ben was happy to oblige.

The kids were sure excited when the big guy showed up at the door!

They were all very sweet asking their funny questions, and telling Santa that they love him.

One of the kids asked if he was the real Santa, so Todd took a peek at his I.D. He checked out.

He read the kids a story, and then he got offended and left because the adults were being too loud, and wouldn't quiet down. He told Ben that one of the adults made rude comments when he asked them to keep it down, so he left a little abruptly. I don't think most of the kids noticed anything was amiss, but it was still disappointing the way it all went down. I guess everyone has bad days, though.

One of the highlights was getting to spend time with this sweet little guy! He is just a great baby, and we have the same birthday!

I think everyone enjoyed the party despite the unexpected drama. Evie said that it was the best Christmas party ever.


Here's a few random crafts that have been keeping the girls and me busy. We bought a cardboard cone, and I attached gathered ribbon around in layers. Kiersten and I made this the day after Thanksgiving while the other 2 girls were at work with Ben.

It turned out cute. I love crafts that the kids can easily help with, but they still look great when finished.

Kiersten and I also made this picture frame craft. It was quick and easy. I just cut out the "Ho Ho Ho" with my cricket, and then glued them onto craft paper and framed them. While we were making it, Kiersten said, "didn't we see this on pinterest Mom?" and when Kara got home, she declared, "Mom! You stole that idea off pinterest!" So I had to laugh. Yes, I'm an idea thief, but isn't that what pinterest is for?

Here are the soup cans we made for the girl scout party. The girls painted them solid colors, and when they were dry, I added the details. We have a squishy red ball we used to knock them over. The girls seemed to like it. Evie is particularly fond of the little baby snowman. And if I save up more cans, I can keep adding to the game for next year. We also brought these out for our Christmas party on Friday.

I had fabric left over from doing situpons with the Daisy scouts, so I used it to make bean bags. We can probably keep using these for future meetings too, so I think they will get lots of use.

I made a big snowman bean bag toss game. I should have found a better way to stand up the board. It kept tipping forward, so I had to have the scouts take turns holding it for each other, but they didn't seem to mind. We also set this up on Friday, and I plan to use it at Evie's preschool Christmas party this week, so we've gotten good use out of it so far.

I found this cute wooden sign, and painted it a sparkly green. I wish I'd gone with red or gold, because it does kind of blend into the green wall a bit.

Evie made a cute picture that she wanted displayed on the fridge during our Christmas party. A few people even commented on it, so she was very proud.

I made this wrapping paper craft at the last minute while I was cleaning last week. I can't decide if I like it, but it will be easy to pull off the paper and do something different next year if I don't want to hang it again.

This is the craft I came up with for Evie's school party. I am really hoping that it will go well. It could get a little messy with the gluing, but I'm hopeful that the kids will be able to do it. Evie saw this practice one when I picked her up from school today, and was pretty excited, so that's a good sign.

We've really been feeling the Christmas cheer around here lately. My head is spinning just thinking of all the stuff I can do with the girls next week when they're out of school!

My busy girl

Karalee was very excited to test for her orange belt in Tae Kwon Do on Friday.

She did great from what I could tell.

Ben was there and I think she was really trying to impress him. She was the most focused I've ever seen her.

She was awarded the orange belt, and I forgot to take a picture after she got it. She is very proud of herself, as she should be. She works very hard. I would have liked to stay and watch the rest of the testing to know what to expect for next time, but we had to hurry and get her to basketball practice.

Her first basketball game was on Saturday. The last 2 regular practices were canceled for snow/ice, so they got some practice in the night before.

It was a little rough, and the girls took some time to figure out what they were supposed to be doing. The ref had to stop the game and explain the rules several times, but they all seemed to catch on eventually.

Kara did a fair amount of standing around, and trying to figure out what to do, but she was definitely trying, and kept pace with the rest of the girls.

Not sure who she's guarding in this shot.

They only play 5 minutes at a time, and then sub out. So she never seemed to get too winded or tired out there. The score was tied at 10-10 with only a minute left, and Kara ended up making the tie-breaking, game-winning basket! So that was exciting for her and her friends were really cute all patting her head or hugging her. I think that boosted her confidence, and I noticed at this weeks practice she was taking more chances, so that's a good thing.

Always Thankful

Kiersten woke me up in the middle of the night On Tuesday before Thanksgiving with a dessert idea. She wanted to make a complicated Pumpkin cream puff dessert. I didn't end up doing the cream puff part, but tried to use the rest of her ideas, and we found a recipe for a pumpkin cheesecake trifle. The girls had fun helping make it on Wednesday.

Kiersten and Evie were my helpers on Thursday while Ben was playing football. I tried to show Kiersten some napkin folding, but we were using the little paper kind of napkins, and she didn't quite get it. So she ended up just rolling them up and putting on the napkin ring.

Evie was quite the little dictator about who would sit where, and kept switching the silverware back to the wrong side of the plate every time I would fix it. I'm not sure if it ended up her way or mine, but no one noticed or said anything either way.

Kara didn't want to help, so she enjoyed her morning watching the parade on tv and playing 3DS.

Our friend Mike joined us for dinner again this year. The girls think he's super cool, and he's great about playing along with them, and letting them jump on him. We actually had turkey this year instead of ham, and I thought it turned out great. Of course I love any meal that Ben makes. He's the better cook between the two of us for sure.

He never makes dessert though. That is my territory. I did kind of miss the pie, but these desserts turned out pretty tasty. None of the girls could finish theirs in one sitting, so they had a couple night's worth of dessert, which was a real treat for them.

Kiersten definitely took credit for "inventing" dessert. (Though I actually just found and used this recipe.) It did have most of her requests, including a caramel sauce, and pumpkin and whipped cream. The only change I made was adding cinnamon to the whipped cream.

Happy Thanksgiving baby!

The Chiefs played on Sunday night this year. We were planning to go early Sunday morning and visit the zoo, but it was so cold. We didn't want to have them outside all day at the zoo, and then make them sit through the game, so we headed up later in the day. We stayed overnight in Kansas City, and were planning to leave bright and early to get the girls to school on Monday. School ended up being canceled, so we were able to sleep in a little, and leave later in the morning.

I made the girls some new hats for the game. They were actually going to be for Christmas, but when Ben saw them, he wanted them to have them for the game. I still might make matching scarves for Christmas though. Kiersten has a snowman.

Kara has an elf hat. I think I might add some pointy ears on there. She might not want me to though, so I'll have to see what she says.

Evie got a Rudolph hat. She was excited when she saw it, but said, "It's actually not Rudolph, but his girlfriend, Trixie." I want to add a button to the ear flaps so it stays on tighter under her chin. I had to use a pattern for Evie's because I couldn't think of a way to make it myself. So that was annoying because I hate sitting there looking back and forth between the instructions and the project. But it was worth the extra time for how much she loved it.  Poor Ben just had to wear the same old hat I made last year.

It wasn't as cold as the last game, but still not pleasant for the kids, especially being a night game with no sun to help. So I took the girls into the science/health zone. They think it's pretty cool, and there are never very many kids in there. I think most people must not know about it. (Or most people aren't bringing little kids to freezing football games.)

This is a strange digestion activity. The kids put the ball into the mouth, and it travels in clear tubes through the esophagus, intestines, and out through the rectum. There are explanations to read all along the journey.

32 NFL team matching game.

They also love playing "Whack a Raider".

Once they got warmed up, they were pretty good for the rest of the game. Evie actually complained the least, and I don't think we had any tears this time, so that was a win, regardless of the team's horrible loss.

Snowy Wednesday

The kids are out of school for Thanksgiving break. They were excited to get a little snow today.

We decided to stay in and do some crafts together. The girls like to paint these little wooden shapes. So I'm always keeping an eye out for those to be on clearance for a few cents. Even the ones that seem weird are fun for them.  

We also used some glass jars to make snowman luminaries. Kiersten worked really hard on hers. She didn't have time to paint any of the wooden shapes, but was happy with the details she did on her jar. 

I also let the girls make some little pilgrim hats. Now I just need to think of something to put in them tomorrow. Maybe I could skewer a few olives.

I was warning the girls to let me do the cutting so they wouldn't hurt themselves, and then promptly sliced my finger open. It was a bleeder.

They turned out cute. Crayons were too short to place in there, but they would work okay for markers or pencils. Kara made the green one, Kiersten made the red one, and Evie(I) made the purple one.  

The snowmen turned out really cute. From left to right, they were made by, Evie, Me, Kiersten, and Kara. After the painted faces dried, we painted the glass with tacky glue and then rolled them in white glitter. Evie rolled hers in red glitter, because she said it was a baby snowman wearing a parka.

They were excited to set them out on the front porch.

I have been wanting to make a Christmas card holder for years. I decided it was finally time. I thought I had an unpainted "believe" decoration, but all I could find that would be large enough was a heart. So I tried to turn that into a reindeer. Do not google "reindeer heart". You've been warned. I couldn't find any ideas online, so I just thought up my own design. Now that it's done, of course I can think of several better ideas, but oh well, it's done. Ben said it looks like it has bloody entrails hanging down. But the cards have to go somewhere.  I just stapled Christmas ribbon to the back with my regular stapler.

The girls liked him, but were sad that he has no mouth.
We also painted some soup cans for a game I want to play with my daisy scouts next week. But they aren't quite finished, so I didn't take a picture. Also, I need to use a couple more cans so I'll have enough for the game.
We decided to make a Thanksgiving snack. I asked Evie to open some Hershey's kisses, and had to laugh when I turned around and saw her like this. 

We made some royal icing to stick them onto Nilla wafers.

After they set up, we attached a regular chocolate chip on top for the stem. I purposely posted this picture, just to show off Kara's chocolate mouth.

And we have some little acorn treats. I saw pictures of these with either a smaller cookie, or larger kiss. They looked better than this, but the girls think they are great, and that's really the point.

Ben has been kinda crafty lately too. A few weeks ago he made me this magnet/cork board. I'm glad to have a spot to put up all the magnets we have bought on vacations. I stopped putting them on the refrigerator because our Bahamas one kept falling and breaking. Right now it's in 7 pieces awaiting superglue.