12 Days Of Christmas - Day 8 - Baking & Christmas Lights!

Day 8 was our day to bake cut-out sugar cookies. We always have a fun decorating day with Kim and her kids so we were making these to use the next day. 

All of the kids got to help mix! 

I'm seriously amazed at how well it has gone this year in regards to having the kids help me in the kitchen. It really has been so much fun and a true joy!

Stir, stir, stir! 

Almost there! I had to finish up the stirring since the dough was getting harder to stir. 

I have never actually made cut-out cookies with my kids. I know that's weird, but it's so much easier to just do the drop cookies. 

Jackson was the one that got all the cookie cutters out so we could see the selection. I actually had quite a few. 

I let each of the kids cut out one cookie and then they got to come back and do another one. 

We just kept going around and around like that until the dough had to be rolled out again and then I pretty much finished out the cookies.  

We had enough cookies for 4 cookie sheets! 

We had presents, candy canes, Rudolph, snowmen, hearts, trees, stars, butterflies and penguins which I'm now pretty sure were just chicks. 

When I went to take Ella's picture she was holding the tray up like it was sign. I about freaked out since I was sure the cookies were going to come sliding down! 

Love having my sweet helpers! 

Jack and I wanted to figure out how many cookies each kid would get so we wrote it out. Kim has 3 kids and we have 4 so there were 7 kids total and 38 cookies. At first I wrote it out like I would have done when I was growing up, but I figured we should try use one of the methods that Jack has learned in school. We drew circles to represent people and then just went from person to person adding a tally mark. We ended up with each kid getting 5 cookies and then there were 3 cookies left. I know some people are super against Common Core, but I love it. I love how it gives the kids several different ways to get to the same answer! 

Watching the cookies bake! 

Ella decided all on her own to write this letter. She only needed help with the words Pa, Ga-Ga, Family, Aunt Stephie and Uncle Ry. So proud of my girl! 

Cookies done and cooling off! 

After the cookies were done I decided we should bring down all the Legos and have fun building some of our sets. Every year at this time I have this desire to build with Legos. I think it's because the kids are home and the weather outside isn't very nice. While we were building we were able to watch all 3 Santa Clause movies. 

After dinner I made hot chocolate and we headed out to a neighborhood we always go to every year to look at lights. I had found these cool Christmas Light Scavenger Hunt pages on Facebook and printed them out. This is probably our 5th year going and this year we finally remembered that they have a bin for a food drive and we brought some canned food! 

  

The scavenger pages really made the whole experiences that much better. The kids were really on the lookout for things on our list! 

There were quite a few houses in the neighborhood that weren't lite up. One of my favorites from years past was completely dark. They always decorated their entire house and property in white lights and it was always so gorgeous! I'm not sure if they moved or if they just decided not to do it this year, but it was sad! 

There were still a lot of houses that really were all decked out and looked gorgeous though! 

My sweet family! 

When we were all done there were only 4 things we weren't able to find.....The Grinch, the word Noel, a house with 5 reindeer and a camel! 

Warming up with our hot chocolate! 

Time to head home! 

Once we got home we got back to working on Legos and Charlie wanted to be right in the middle of all the fun! 

12 Days Of Christmas - Day 7 - Work Party & Wrapping!

Day 7 of our 12 Days Of Christmas adventure was filled with attending Michael's work Christmas party. Of course I completely forgot to take any pictures. This was the first time all the kids had been able to attend in quite a few years. Normally the party is on a day where the kids are still in school. This year it just worked out! Of course everyone was so shocked at how big all the kids had gotten. 

After we got home and the kids all changed out of their nice clothes I decided it would be fun for them to wrap the present that they bought for their sibling. I had all the kids go upstairs and then I got out all the presents in the garage and pulled the kids down one at a time. 

The kids are getting so big and are capable of doing so much more. In past this would have been more me just wrapping the presents and them watching, but they were so helpful and it was a lot of fun giving them lessons on how to wrap gifts. 

I thought about using different paper, but in the end I just had them use the same paper I used for each of their presents. Jackson drew Ella's name so we wrapped hers in her Santa & Penguin paper. 

Owen drew Zeke's name.

He was very insistent on having more than one sticker on Zeke's package. The one he's pointing at says...Do not open until Dec 25th! 

Ella looking for the perfect sticker for Owen's present! 

Using her amazing writing skills! 

Zeke got Jack Frosted Flakes! No....he didn't, but this box was perfect for wrapping his present in and I think Jack will get a hoot out of it! 

Zeke even wrote Jack and his name on the tag....this boy is ready for school! 

One step closer to Christmas!!! 

12 Days Of Christmas - Day 6 - Baking Day!

Every year Michael's work has a Christmas party....it's usually the last Tuesday before Christmas. Most of the time because of the way the days fall the kids end up still being in school so they aren't able to come. I could pull them out, but I feel like they should be in school as much as possible so I don't. This year, however, the kids are out of school so they get to come. 

Every year since Michael has worked at the water district I have always made a point to make some sort of homemade goodie bag up for each of the employees. I honestly feel that it's my way of showing the home side of Michael and our family. Sure he's a great worker and that shows in his amazing work ethic, but he's also an amazing husband and father and I feel like me and kids reflect him and how wonderful he is. 

For our 6th day of our 12 Days Of Christmas I thought it would be fun to include the kids in on the baking. Usually I'm baking when they are at school or I'm just wanting to get it done so I really don't want to be patient and have them help me. They are getting older and taller so helping me out is easier than when they had to sit on the counter and take up all my work space. It was actually a lot of fun too!

First order of business was to take all the Rolos out of the wrappers! 

After this picture I did have to remind Owen that he is actually tall enough to stand and work at the counter. I guess he's just used to sitting and helping. His job was to lay out all the pretzels on the cookie sheet. 

At first Jack and Owen were my only helpers since Ella and Zeke were still upstairs cleaning up. Once Zeke was done he came down and was able to help Jack unwrap Rolos. 

Lining those pretzels up like a boss! 

After all the Rolos were unwrapped and the pretzels were lined up it was time for the Rolos to be placed on top of the pretzels.

Then it was into the oven for a few minutes so the Rolos could soften a bit. 

Once Ella came down her and Owen worked on separating the broken pecan halves from the whole ones. Who wants a broken pecan half on their turtle! 

Once the Rolos were softened a bit it was time to put on the pecan and smush it down a bit. This took a gentle touch and a little coaching to get the kids to do it correctly. 

We needed to make another batch of turtles so the kids started unwrapping more Rolos and placing more pretzels on the cookie sheet. 

While they had been working on all that stuff I had been making the candied pecans. These are to die for and super easy!!! 

Next up was peppermint bark. The kids had the task of unwrapping the candy canes. 

Ella was so excited she was able to get this candy cane unwrapped without it breaking! 

The candy canes when into the Ziploc bag and we smashed them up into little pieces. 

While the kids were unwrapping I was in the kitchen melting chocolate chips. Once they were melted I spread the chocolate on a foil lined cookie sheet. 

To reward the kids for being such hard workers I let them have at the bowl of melted chocolate once I had scraped most of it out. 

Needless to say they were like moths to a flame....they devoured that chocolate and got super messy in the process. 

 Yeah Zeke you are barely messy....that's because he can't stand getting messy! 

After the kids washed up and I spread a layer of white chocolate on top of the semi-sweet chocolate they helped me sprinkle the broken candy cane bits on top. 

After finishing that up we had to take a break. I had to go and take a shower so we could attend Michael's grandma's funeral. She had passed away on December 6th. She had been sick for quite some time so it wasn't a surprising passing. It was a lovely service that highlighted a wonderful woman of God. Heaven definitely gained a amazing lady and how awesome is it that she is worshiping in the presence of her Savior this Christmas season! 

After the service I had to run to the store to get some more white chocolate and then I was back at it. The boys were playing on the Xbox....a treat that Daddy allowed, but Ella really wanted to keep helping me. It was so much fun having her in the kitchen with me. Love that girl! Here first job was to unwrap the peanut butter cups. 

She decided to line them up in this rectangle shape....she said it looked like the shape of a phone! 

The peanut butter cups were used to make peanut butter cup fudge! It is yummy! 

Ella also helped me make these raspberry jam shortbread cookies. They looked super easy to make and I was able to use my homemade raspberry jam, but they just didn't turn out as cute as the recipe showed them. I'm thinking it had to do with the fact that my homemade jam is pretty runny. They taste good, but they just didn't look nice so I didn't include them in the goodie bags. 

Here's the finished goodie bags all packed up. There is candied pecans, peppermint bark, turtles, peanut butter cup fudge and then 2 Ghirardelli chocolate squares in each bag. 

Another successful festive family day! 

12 Days Of Christmas - Day 5 - Choir Performance!

Sunday the 18th was the big day that the kids were singing in the choir!!! 

On Friday after Ella's school performance Ga-Ga and I went shopping at Sam's Club. The night before we had gone shopping at the mall and Ga-Ga bought Ella her new shoes. Since Ella got something Ga-Ga felt like she should buy something for the boys. Enter these awesome sweater sets that we found at Sam's Club. These each came with the sweater and the button up shirt that matched and they were only $14! 

This is possibly my most favorite picture that I've taken of my kids ever!!! Be still my super full heart! God is so good! 

This little ham might drive me nuts sometimes, but oh my goodness look at that smile!!! 

Beautiful girl! 

I'm so blessed that God saw fit to give me a girl! She's such a gem and a wonderful addition to our family! 

Jackson is such handsome guy with a big heart.

I can't believe my Owen Michael will be 10 years old in less than a month! 

The kids sang two songs in both services and they did such a great job! 

 Ella is in the front row third from the left. Jackson is in the second row...the mic stand is right in front of his face. 

We were going to go out to a neighborhood we always go to every year to look at lights, but since Ella had a birthday party to go to we got home and it was too late to head out. So that got moved to another night instead! 

12 Days Of Christmas - Day 4 - Choir, Serving, Hallmark Movie & Snowflakes!

Day 4 of the 12 Days Of Christmas started early....no sleeping in for the first day of Christmas break. Jack and Ella were both in the kids choir at church and they had their big practice at 9am. 

After that our family help by serving at the Big Blessing at our church. We were part of the delivery crew that delivered presents and food to the families our church had adopted. We did this last year for the first time and it was such a great way for our kids to see first hand that Christmas isn't all about them. This was a great reminder that they needed again this year. 

After lunch Michael went out to meet Uncle Ry to see Rogue One so the kids and I hunkered down at home. I just recently noticed that we actually get the Hallmark channel. There was a cute movie on called Chirstmas Cookies so we watched it. We as in Jack and I...he really enjoys movies with a story and even though he hides his face in the covers I think he likes it when the people finally realize they love each other and kiss! 

After dinner we got to do the activity that Owen had been waiting days to get to...snowflake making!!! 

I didn't have any thin printer paper so we used white cardstock and it was pretty hard to cut through, but I tell you those snowflakes are pretty sturdy! 

Daddy didn't want to make a snowflake, but he came in and hung out with us. 

Since the cardstock was hard to cut I had to cut the snowflakes for Ella and Zeke. The next day Ella was going to a birthday party for her friend Amelia from school and she was so cute she set aside one snowflake to give to her for her birthday. 

Since Daddy was hanging out and there was a bunch of scrap paper lying around he decided to make an airplane! 

Owen was so happy to finally get to show off his snowflake making skills!!! 

We decided to put snowflakes on both the sliding glass door and the front window. 

Another successful day of fun!