This is My Forties

We made the dough late last night and this afternoon we got to baking and decorating our gingerbread cookies. We made snowmen and the classic gingerbread men and women. Brennan mostly ate all the candy pieces. He would put them on first, but promptly remove them and pop them in his mouth. The only mess to speak of was sticky hands so HOORAY! Tristan mostly dictated to Daddy what colors to use and watched with glee as he did all the work for him. He did stick a few jellybeans and shake some sprinkles on top though. Noah didn't want to stop decorating. If would have let him go there would be 20 layers of icing and candy buttons on these cookies. They turned out pretty darn cute. Josh and I decorated some too :) The red icing was really runny for some reason... like sweet ginger blood. Fun fun fun... in a dark kind of way lol. As promised here's the pictures of our packed tree and our homemade wrapping paper!

It's almost here!! AHHHHH!!! :D :D :D EXCITED!!! We've been playing a daily game of "PUT THAT DOWN" with the Christmas presents. The living room is officially off limits now since we really have no room to hide gifts. Brennan has already torn a few boxes open a bit. The ones from Aunt Michelle and Alex were gnarled so the other day we let them peel off the few shards of paper that were left. Joyous family time ensued. Noah won't stop coloring in his new book... it appeals to his obsessive compulsive side. Tristan and Brennan are balling up and slapping bendaroos all over the playroom cabinets. Some have regrettably been chewed to oblivion. If he's not chewing them he's tossing them around in a huge sticky ball. They are also fun for big kids like myself and my dear husband :) Under our tree is completely packed. The grandparents really spoiled the boys this year (and us)!! Josh and I already gave each other nearly all our presents.....

I had somewhat of a Mommy epiphany yesterday. After telling Brennan for the 4 billionth time to not get out games, touch the buttons on the TV, or rip decorations off of the tree. It hit me. I don't remember anything from my childhood until I was maybe 4 years old. So... suddenly I understood why I have to tell my babies over and over and over to do (or not to do) something... they have goldfish memories. They are ruled by their brains and their brains are in "learning mode". So while I see a kid reaching for Boggle and visualize the mess and get flustered because I have to tell him AGAIN not to touch my games, his little brain only sees a cool little grid that dice fit into if he can master the use of his fingers, and a very fun loud noise to make if he can manage to get the lid on tight and keep it on while he shakes it. When he goes for the tree he sees a shiny thing, maybe out of reach, and his brain tells him to see what it feels like, to see if his arms can r...

Here's the day we put it up. And here it is now. Brennan loves him some decorations!

We had a fabulous long weekend. We hit a few snafoo's along the way, but nothing too horribly awful. Friday was Noah's holiday concert so we got all snazzed up and headed out to cheer on the "man of the house" for the time being :) Noah did a fantastic job! He was so focused and serious. He had been practicing his songs all week and really wanted to get all the words and motions right. He was kind enough to wave at me and smile for a few pictures, though. Saturday was a chill day. We spent the day lounging around, made some Christmas ornaments (thanks V, Al & Shell!!). Noah and I worked on our puzzle a bit, Brennan destroyed it again. We cleaned the playroom for 2 hours... it was pretty bad. We watched movies (Tangled was really cute). AFN was playing a "Santa Clause" marathon! Sunday was a big day for us! I finished cleaning the house. We played a lot, and then after dinner we made lemon sugar cookies, hot chocolate, and pop...

This morning I had a few errands to run out on the town and my inner Ohioan knew it was going to snow later. I immediately got happy and excited. The clouds were low, the air was well below freezing and it had that crisp snowy smell. People who grew up in snowy places know exactly what I'm talking about! Well at noon it finally started to fall. Then it picked up more and more until there were huge tufts of snowy clumps floating down from the sky. LOVE!! So, of course, we played outside. Once I was too cold I bribed the kiddos with hot chocolate if they'd come back inside. They shared a hot cocoa (too close to dinner to get their own, sorry boys) while I made some potato soup. Oh it was delicious... I added the leftover turkey and some carrots to it this time, put a little shredded cheddar on top. Outstanding. I got stuff accomplished. I went out for a coffee. It SNOWED!! Dinner was delicious. What a great day! It doesn't take much to make t...

We had a great Thanksgiving. There was food, family, a friend, football, fun... and bejeweled blitz (lol). All Thanksgiving needs to be successful is turkey and a ridiculous amount of side dishes, which we had... and of course family :) Pumpkin pie with homemade cool whip for breakfast, deviled eggs for appetizers. Turkey, stuffing, peppered cream corn, velveeta veggies, mashed potatoes, sausage stuffing, yams, and cranberry sauce for dinner. And good times were had by all. I even gave the dogs turkey gravy for their food (which they devoured within seconds). Josh, Tom, and I all got on facebook and played bejeweled blitz while we sorta listened to the Cowboys lose (none of us like the Cowboys). Tom and I had an eating contest which ended in a draw after our second plate (thankfully). We nearly exploded, but we laughed a lot. The kids played board games under the table and watched Charlie Brown's Thanksgiving and Christmas specials. We just dropped Josh off at...

Our trees went up yesterday :) :) :) We put our Christmas trees up a little early this year for a few reasons: 1. We wanted to! ;) 2. Josh will not be here for a couple weeks after Thanksgiving and we'd rather have it done early than late. 3. We really really wanted to! Our friend Tom is part of our little family out here. He comes over to watch football and hang out with us every Saturday. He also helps us out with anything, whenever we need him. He's great with the kids, very laid back... like I said, family :) So, of course he had to help us get ready for Christmas!! It's a good thing he showed up too because our kids were tearing through decorations like little tornadoes and we needed all the help we could get! We watched "Elf" and "It's a Wonderful Life" (by the way Tom's Jimmy Stewart impression is hilarious) as we decorated. By "we" I mean Josh, Tom, myself, and Noah. Tristan spent his time swinging his blan...

You all thought I forgot, didn't you ;) Noah's day begins with Tristan's gentle whispering and nudging at 6:30-ish... he wishes. It's more like a whine and a yank on the arm "Noahhhh uh go to playroom". He walks hand-in-hand with Tristan to the playroom and starts a movie for them. Then most days he goes downstairs to get them each a bowl of cereal and carries it to the playroom table. They eat their cereal and curl up under blankets in front of the TV until the alarm goes off at 7, which signals them to head to our room to make sure we're awake. I found out long ago that no alarm clock will ever really wake me up, except for my persistent children. Noah thinks it's fun to have an alarm to be in charge of turning off. Reluctantly, we comply and finally get out of bed to face the day. Depending on how much they ate and level of hunger the kids will have oatmeal or something else hot for breakfast as well. Noah finishes eating and head...