Family Update

Here is the latest on what is happening at our house.

Lucas is currently in the 4^th grade.  Not a huge fan of school due to the work but enjoys the social aspect of it.  He will be working on his first science fair project this month and although he likes science we will see how he does on the project part.  Lucas starts Webelos this month, after taking a month off because he was a super start and finished Bears early.  January is also the month in which the scouts have their annual pinewood derby race and I am proud to announce that Lucas got 1^st place in the races this year. 

Mason is still full of energy.  He is in the 2^nd grade and is smarter than his own good.  This guy definitely keeps his grandpa, me and his teacher on our toes.  Mason will be turning 8 this weekend.  With that comes a lot of cool things. First he no longer has to sit in a booster seat in the car.  Second he gets to start cub scouting again (did Tigers but had to wait till he was 8 to go to Wolfs).  Last but not least he gets to be Baptized to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.

Jill who is in Kindergarten and is still only 5 thinks she is actually 15. I am okay with my baby growing up but I wish she would at least act her age. This girl loves music, she loves to sing and dance and knows artist. The other day while we were shopping she hears the music playing in the store and informs me it is Justin Bieber (which I didn’t know but I believe her because he really likes the Biebes). Once the song ended another song came on to which she informed me was Michael Jackson, smooth criminal. Really!? She is 5 how do you know all the songs and who sings them.

  I am still working full time for the State and really like my job, what I do and the people I work with.  In December I was awarded the honor of being Employee of the Month by the State Controller. I love being a mom and raising my kids, I learn and grow from them daily.  Life is not easy but I wouldn't change a thing.

Jill

I have been a huge slacker.  It has been so long, blogger has changed so I have to relearn how to blog.

Jill had an eventful June so I thought I would share a few things that happened...

Balloons to celebrate her 5th birthday when she woke up in the morning

Cupcake Cones to share again for her birthday at Preschool

(we did go out to dinner too, she wanted Mcdonalds)

We were assigned to bring the Graduation cake.

Jill on Graduation day from Preschool

If you had asked Jill what she wanted for her birthday, she would have said a horse, or dog, or kitty etc. Jill LOVES animals.  So, Aunt Sam set things up for her to ride a horse for her birthday



Cookie Bowls

I do have a couple Xmas morning pictures to post but first.....


Last night my family went up to Rocklin to visit my sister and her family. While there, we tried making Cookie Bowls for dessert. I was bored one day and saw this on pinterest... I didn't get instructions on how to do it so we experimented.

Trial and Error....but these were good tasting mistakes

Some Success

What do you think?

Some Christmas Traditions

As I have mentioned I was trying to do more fun things with the kids, building new traditions, that kind of thing. So here are some things we did this Christmas.

Few years back my sisters and I made the above advent Calendar. One year I put candy in the holes. This year (because the candy always wanted to fall out and I am not a huge fan of candy) I put pieces of paper, each paper said something like "Token, Extra 15 Mins, Book, Candy" The child with the best behavior for the day got to remove the number and reap the reward. Kids really enjoyed this.

Another advent calendar of sorts that was a lot of fun for the kids. The picture changes almost every day as the children took the pieces on and off and moved them around.

(they attach with velcro)

This year we started a tradition my sister started a couple years ago. You wrap Christmas books and each night starting on the 12th (12 days of Xmas) you gather as a family and read a book together. With 2 kids reading and 1 getting close I thought this would be fun. The kids really looked forward to the books. (I bought most the books used from amazon for $2) Couple of the books I had never read and will probably get new books to replace them next year since I was not a fan of them.

We have a friendly elf that comes and visits us during Christmas time. Kids love looking for him in his new spot every morning. Our elf's name is Joey Jingles.

Made my first batch of Christmas Crunch and it was a HUGE hit. I am thinking about renaming it to Holiday Crunch so I can make it for every holiday of the year...very addictive.

We also baked a lot of bread and such but it was gone before the pictures happened.

Our Christmas Tree.

We stayed with tradition and went up to Apple Hill and cut this bad boy down. It is alot of fun!

My village...had nothing to do with the kids but when I was first married I always wanted a village to set out during Christmas. I am not a fan of Santa decorations I prefer winter theme more- Snowmen, Nativities, and the Village is what you will find in my house. So for a few years I would buy a village house to add to my collection. Well after my divorce and moving around I never had a spot to set my village up. This year I really want to set it up so I thought and thought were is a location big enough out of the reach of kids. On top of the kitchen cabinets! I was so excited about my idea I went out and bought a Fire Station to add to the village.

Girls Night

I am a little behind in posting so this event happened a few weeks ago....Boys were gone so girls went to dinner and then home to watch Tangled in our pajamas.

Good Times (pictures posted however blogger felt like)

"Thanks"giving Tree

Okay so the picture is not the best. But it is the best I could get given that the wall is brown and so was our tree trunk.

This year I thought it would be good for the kids to write down what they are thankful for. So we traced our hands and after reading the book the "Giving Tree" we wrote on our hands what we were thankful for and than attached them to the tree trunk as leaves.

Trying to be a better mom....

I am trying to do more things with my kids and/or for my kids. The holidays make it easy to come up with ideas. Here are some of the things that were created...

Scarecrow Cookies- Grandpa made these

Carved Pumpkins...(in order left - right Mason, Lucas and Jill)

Mason picked the face and mommy carved it

Lucas picked the face and carved his all by himself.

Jill assisted in carving

Glowing....
Close up of Jill's...so proud of the bat-cat

Mummy Dogs

Swamp Creatures

Paperbag Turkey