Wednesday, December 30, 2009

An almost, sort of white early Christmas

Yes, I realize Christmas was a few days ago. But considering how late I've been lately at blogging anything (if I even blog it).... I'm blogging this first.
It snowed here!!!! I know most of the country has way too much snow already for the end of this year, but we're in southern Arizona, so bear with us. The kids were SO excited. So so excited. There wasn't a ton, and it didn't stick around our yard for long once that toasty AZ sun rose, but they had fun with it. So much fun that I called up our super cool friend Jessie and her super cool girls and asked if they wanted to hit up one of the canyons to play in the snow, and they said yes! They brought their cool friend Jen and her cool sons, and it was seriously a blast. The kids had their very first ever snowball fight, they built their first ever snowman (and baby snowman for mister J) and did snow angels. It was already starting to melt by the time we left Ramsey Canyon, but that was fine, by that time the kids had discovered the downside of snow: The icy cold numbness it gives you!

M and our snowman! Yes, that is a leaf for its hair. You improvise in Arizona.



This kid just had NO interest in staying with everyone else. Nope, he decided to explore everywhere, and could have cared less where I was. Boo... where's my baby gone??


Funny M!


Baby snowman, just for J (sorry, you have to look kind of hard to see it.)

Wilderness explorer J!

The only photo I got of all three kids

Building a snowman

Eating snow. Such a delicacy.



Still eating snow.

All done!




Maile throwing a snowball. Such concentration! I see a future in softball perhaps!


The road up to the canyon

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Bah Humbug

I. Am a grouch. Sad, especially considering the time of year, no? Why am I grouchy, I have no idea. Maybe it's the fact that I'm a moron and I've lost/misplaced/lost my iPod Touch, and I really don't think I have any hope of finding it, because I'm fairly sure I lost it outside the home {wwwaaahhhhh...} . Maybe it's the lack of any Christmas decorations other than a {very festive and pretty, if I do say so myself. and I do} garland hanging around the low wall around the kitchen. There's nary a Christmas tree in sight. It's all for a good reason, of course. I'm very grateful for the really pretty tile that's almost completely installed. But the timing is just plain sucktastic. One of my favorite things about Christmas is decorating, it makes it *feel* like the holidays. Know what I mean? Plus the fact that half of our furniture is in the garage and our fridge is in the backyard. It makes for a grumpy Laurie. Hopefully it will be completely finished by tomorrow night, and CJ thinks putting the Christmas tree up on Christmas Eve after the kids go to sleep will make Christmas morning even more exciting for them. Which may be true... he's obviously feeling more festive than I am.

But now that at least the oven is back in the kitchen I/we can start Christmas baking! I've already made one batch of Christmas cake pops with Jessie, Susie, Maria and Christie, and while they were a pain in the patootie at first {the cake pops, not the company} we finally got the rhythm of them... right when we ran out of cake. Doh! So hopefully I can get some cake made tonight and maybe make some cake pops tomorrow or Thursday. The kids absolutely love cake pops though, all three of them just snarf them down whenever allowed. And when they're not, as seen right now in my room. J just stole another one and is running away from me. Little cheeky monkey.

Photographic evidence of the deliciousness of cake pops:

J biting into cake pop #1. It started out as a Christmas tree, but little mouths make things look messier than they used to be.



P eating a santa hat cake pop


M finished too fast for me to even get a photo of the Rudolph cake pop she was eating, but apparently it tasted as good as it looked.


Lucky for you, I took a photo of it when we made them!

BTW: if you want to try making cake pops yourself, I highly recommend it! Once you get the hang of it, they're really kind of fun. Bakerella is a freaking genius. We couldn't find any lollipop sticks anywhere so we got creative and cut some shish kabob sticks up instead. You can find candy melts at Walmart and at Kmart, and you can order them {and everything else Bakerella uses} online. Here's the link to Bakerella's post on how to make cake pops. Enjoy, and let me know if you try them!!

Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Oh Me, Oh My...

Where has the time gone.

I kept meaning to post, but it's just been such a great fall, and by the time I'm sitting at the computer with no one around to interrupt, all I want to do is veg and just surf. Lay. Zee. Right? Well... so be it.
I won't do a full on recap, because who has the time and patience to read that from me, but here's some highlights of the past few months, some even include photographic evidence!

I turned 30 {gulp} and got lovely, lovely presents. One of those being a laptop, which is another reason I haven't updated in ages, because I don't like to update without photos, and all my photos go on my desktop. But I'm always on my laptop lately. Oops...

J turned 2 years old {as seen in previous letter-post to him}. No party for him, but we took him to Peter Piper Pizza with Granny and our awesome friends the McDowells, and that was perfect in his eyes! Look how big he is. Sigh...
{mister pizza face himself}



We had Halloween, and a bunch of parties and school fun that goes along with that super awesome holiday. Seriously... is there anything more fun than walking around an elementary school on October 31st {or around then} and seeing all the costumes??

M was a queen. Contrary to what her face may be saying, she LOVED her costume. She picked it out herself and all!


P was a knight in shining armor. I have to say we got a ton of compliments on this outfit and people asking where we found it, and they're actually pajamas. Yep, I let my kids wear pajamas as costumes. But how freaking CUTE are they!!! Mum brought them back from her trip to England this summer, and they were just too cute to only use at night, when others can't appreciate just how awesome British clothing is. Hahahahah!


J was a dragon. If you asked him what he was, he'd say "RAWWWRRRRR!!!!". Everyone at once... awwwwwwwwww! P wore this costume two years ago, so yay for only having to buy one costume this year. Sweet.


We had Ps very first ever birthday party! This was the first year that he's really had his own friends that he could have a party with, so we decided to git er done. It wasn't a big party like Ms, but he had a blast with all his friends. We watched Up and ate pizza and Thomas cake. A perfect P party!


I've made cakepops about three times now, and I think I finally have them mastered! They're SUCH a blast to make, I always make them with friends because it makes it way more fun. Plus you don't feel like such a dork when you can't figure out why something isn't working right!


We had Thanksgiving with some great friends, and laughed lots. The food was so great, and it was so much fun to not have to worry about making everything. We all split up the menu so that we all could contribute. CJ and I made green bean casserole and a spiral ham. Mmm.... makes my mouth water just thinking about it.


And M was in her first ever ballet production! She was in The Nutcracker and did GREAT on both nights. We were lucky and Granny came to see her, as well as her Kindergarten teacher Ms. Wolfe and her sweet friend Willow and Willow's sweet mom Martha. I'm so proud of her, she really was great, she remembered both of her routines perfectly both nights!


And this past weekend we had a princess tea party here for Ms friends from Daisy Scouts. We decorated cookies and crowns and played, and then.... we all went to see The Princess and The Frog!! Oh, adorableness. It was a great afternoon, J even decided he wanted to dress up, and he wore his dragon costume. After all, what princess tea party is complete without a dragon protecting the royalty.
And the movie... awesome. I didn't catch all of it, thanks to a certain squirmy 2 year old, but what I saw I just LOVED. I'll be going back to see it again, but I loved that Tiana was so independant and didn't need a man. I love that Disney Princesses are starting to get attitudes! Yessss.



Currently we have no flooring in our house other than the bedrooms, because we're having tile put in! Yaaayyyy, we're pretty excited. It's bumped our Christmas decorating off because we have nowhere to put a tree, but as long as that cruddy yucky carpet is gone... I do not mind one iota.

But really, what we've done is a lot of this. Hanging out, goofing off, and laughing.

I love these kids. Love love love. They make me smile, make me laugh, make me furious, and make me melt.

What a wonderful world!