Merry Christmas

I hope you all had a safe and wonderful holiday. It's been a whirlwind couple of days.

We baked Christmas Cookies all week, Morgan and Tae performed in the Christmas Pageant at our church and then I went back to church for the Candlelight service.

My father in law is here visiting for the holidays, my brother in law and his two girls visited today with there very cute miniature Schnauzer named Boo. We ate too much food.

Full schedule, full house and full hearts.

I hate having my picture taken but here I am with my three kids.

Oh boy-I think the 13 year old grew again.

Now he really is taller than me.

Morgan, Patrick and Tae with my Father in Law at church.

The Arch Angels in the pulpit.
We had two Arch Angels-both had angelic voices.

Two little angels.

My two angels....most of the time.

Pre-pageant. The pulpit and baby Jesus.

Tae was so excited to get dressed in his "tuxedo".

A great day, family time, many hugs.

Have a blessed Holiday season.

Bev

Making a Gingerbread House

Ahhh-Tis the Season for making Gingerbread houses. We attempted one a few years ago and the girl child was asking to make one this year. With no time to spare I ran right out to the craft store and bought the $8.00 prefabbed G-house with a 50% off coupon. A steal.

Isn't it gorgeous? The kids did a great job.

Okay so I gleaned this photo off the internet. Don't we all covet the gobs of icing and non-pareil sidewalks adorned with green licorice trees and holiday M & M's?

Oh and the kids made me post this video of Chowder and how

they built their Schmingerbread house.

http://www.cartoonnetwork.com/tv_shows/chowder/index.html?episodeID=8a25c3921e2586e6011e26ed81740037

Here was the kit I bought. Ooohh and 3 patterns to choose from and the kit included everything to make this glorious creation.
Everything except a degree in Engineering and General Contracting that is.


See premade Gingerbread walls, icing mix, candy. It's all there. I too would have icicles made of frosting dripping from the roof line in no time.


Wilton icing too.

We started construction. Ooops-icing is a bit runny-let me add some confectioner sugar. Oops-Icing is too thick (like clay)-let me add some water. OOOPS-icing is too thin-let me add some Confectioner sugar. OOPS..........

YEAH! Here's what our Gingerbread house.....er um...Cookies...yes that's it, looked like!
Cookies most definitely.
Good God-seriously. Whose bright idea was this. Oh right-My Daughters!


No matter, the kids used the icing and ate, I mean decorated with the candies. We threw in some candy canes and M & M's because that's how we roll here.

Mind you we did this at 10am so the kids were totally wired on sugar frosting and gumdrops.
Yay Christmas!


Artistic talent at it's best.

Ooooohhhh Ahhhhhhh-like the candy Christmas tree.

And the M & M wreath.

And this Picasso. What? You don't see it?

I would send this to Cake Wrecks (http://www.cakewrecks.blogspot.com/) if it was a cake.

But it's not.

It's Gingerbread Cookies!

Merry Christmas everyone.

May you find joy in each of your "fails".

Bev

Buried in a Blizzard

We are buried here in Rhode Island. Out here in the woods we have about 18 inches of snow with drifts up to 3 feet in places. I thought I would share some random pictures from our yard and the kids playing outside.

Our welcome sign. I really should paint that.

Our house all plowed out.

The pine tree out front.

The buried picnic table and some birds lunching on seed.

Heavy branches.

Our beautiful Roo Paprika. Panini in the doorway is reluctant to come outside. The chickens were very confused today with all of the snow. Most of the run is covered but the snow just drifted everywhere and they were not happy.

Our other Beautiful Rooster named Ruby.

Here he is imitating a flamingo on one leg.

Paprika being mean and not letting the girls outside.

Our Buff Orpington named Butter managed to sneak outside.
On cold days I give them a treat of warm corn mash and some yogurt or sour cream. It's like a bowl of hot cereal to them. Spoiled chickens.

Scratching for some corn.

BRRRRRR!

The compost bins.

Winter hotel.

Coreopsis peaking out in snow.

Drifts on the back roof.

Drifts over the jacuzzi.

Drifts in the fountain.

Cold Cow.

Our front door.

The snow covered blue spruce on the edge of our driveway.

Natures Christmas Creation.

Larry plowing the driveway.

Tae making sure he does it right.

The backyard.

Heavy laden pine trees.

Yellow lab in white snow.

Love the ears!

What nice neat rows honey!

Stewie had a great time.

And plowed his own paths.

Hope you are staying warm.

Bev

Homeschool Christmas Party

Our homeschool group met on Thursday and had our annual Holiday Party. We had tons of food, eggnog and cider and of course chocolate covered strawberries and pretzels. We had a great craft that we gleaned from http://www.themagiconions.blogspot.com/

We made 8 pointed stars with the kids. Kate brought some beautiful scrapbooking 12 x 12 paper and the kids made really huge stars. So did the adults. I think we had as much fun as the kids.

The Christmas paper was really beautiful.

Stacey brought the smaller 6 x 6 cellophane paper which made some irridescent and translucent gorgeous stars in all colors.

The stars were very easy to make.

Even the younger kids had a great time.

Paper folding Christmas crafts on our halloween tablecloth.

Tissue and cellophane of all colors.

Pretty blue ones.

And red ones.

And tables full of busy crafters.

Even the 5 year olds could do this.

Even with a chocolate mouth.

And they all were beautiful in the window.

Just gorgeous!

The moms made some too.

Pretty stars all lined up.

Polka dots and stripes and snowflakes.

And swirly star galaxy patterns.

The teens hung out in the kitchen.

Joni put together some beautiful gift baskets for the young pregnant teens home. She collected donations from family and friends so that these young teen moms would have a Christmas at the shelter where they were staying. Some of these baskets would be the only gift that the teen moms would get this year.

A great creative Christmas celebration was had by all.

Merry Christmas!

Bev