A merry & (very) white Christmas!

Just when I thought the weather man was wrong, the snow arrived and has been coming down for several hours now.  At this rate, we may get snowed in for Christmas Eve, but on the positive side, it afforded me the opportunity to do a snow photo shoot with Ella.  If only Santa would bring me a zoom lens for Christmas...

This was the point that a snowball smacked Keeton square in the head.  Of course, his first reaction was to start crying and blame Ella, when in reality, it was Daddy who threw it...

 In a rare moment of kindness, Ella tried to comfort her little brother, who shrugged her off -- I mean, someone might try to take a picture of the moment, you know?!

 Sweet retaliation!

 Poor Molly was freezing.  Mosely was much smarter and stayed inside.

Merry Christmas!

The easiest Christmas cookies ... even for me!

Every year, I force myself to make Christmas cookies with the kids because I know it is one of those things I am supposed to do, and I can totally hear my kids in 20 years telling me, "You never made cookies with us, like all the other moms did," if I don't. The thing is, I am not a good cook or baker (is that even the right word??) and I don't really enjoy it. This year I made the easiest cookies ever--two didn't require baking at all and the others are only three ingredients. I am putting these out there for all the other moms who don't like baking but put on the apron, for the kids' sake!



First, the reindeer and snowmen:
Using white icing for the snowmen and chocolate for the reindeer, heat the frosting for 10 seconds.
Dip Oreo cookies in the icing and place on parchment paper.
Use tiny pretzels (chocolate covered would have been best) to make the antlers and red hots for the nose. Use black gel icing for the eyes.
For the snowmen, use slices of dried mango or papaya for the nose, black gel icing for the nose and eyes, and a mini chocolate covered marshmallow for the hat.
Place the cookies in the fridge for several hours to harden the icing. They are still messy, but not as much if you chill the cookies.

For the shortbread cookies, mix 1 1/4 cup flour with 3-4 tablespoons sugar. Cut in 1/2 cup butter until the mixture is crumbly. Use your hands to form a mound of dough and then press it on a piece of parchment paper until it is the desired thickness. We used cookie cutters to make various shapes. We then used gel icing and sprinkles to pre-decorate the cookies before we baked them at 325 for about 30 minutes.

These are the easiest cookies ever and even I can't mess them up!

Keeton's wittle wamb Christmas program

Keeton successfully made it through his first semester of "wittle wambs" which ended with a Christmas program yesterday. I was pretty excited to be off for Christmas break enabling me to see him, though Jeff had to work, his sister's family and his mom came along too (they are really good sports). So, in preparation, we got Keeton a new set of Christmas pjs to wear (all the kids wore pajamas) and I bought cookies that looked homemade to repackage on my own plate (come on--I can't be the only one that did that!) and off we were. I am posting a picture of Keeton's class performing Silent Night, but don't bother looking for him because a kid with a large Santa hat stood in front of him, completely blocking my view, even though I *thought* I finally got great middle-aisle seats. Tis the season, right?

After the program the kids all got to visit with Santa.  Keeton acted like he was way too cool to talk to Santa, but you can tell he was having a hard time containing that smile!



Snow day

Today was my first day officially off for Christmas break and oddly enough, both Ella and Jeff have school for three more days!  So, Keeton and I got to spend some quality time together as I tried to do some shopping, which didn't go so well.  No one ever bothered to tell me that it is nearly impossible to take a four year old to a toy store before Christmas and get the child to understand that no toys will be purchased for him because "Santa is coming in four days and that is ridiculous to expect Mommy to buy you toys, so stop your tantrums right now"...anyway, didn't go well.  I gave up after two stores and decided that going at this alone, even if it meant I had to drive to Peoria and then fight all the crazy people who put shopping off to the last minute (hypocritical, yes, I know) at 5:00 pm was better than looking like a mom who has no control of her kid.

By the time we got home, snow was coming down in big, fluffly flakes and Keeton could NOT WAIT to go out and play.  Having lost too many battles already, I figured, what's one more?  We got him in all his snow gear and sent him on his way.  I shot a few pictures, because I couldn't resist his pink cheeks, snow covered head, all those huge snowflakes, and the excitement of a fresh snowfall from the perspective of a four year old.

Birthday party weekend

Ella turned seven on Tuesday, which seems completely impossible to me.  She gets bigger and more like a little tween every time I turn around.  Already, she plugs herself into her iTouch, headphones planted on her head, and tunes out the rest of us.  I wish there was a pause button on our lives so I could slow this all down and take some time to collect myself!

This weekend Ella celebrated turning seven with her cousing Kate, who turned three.  For the sake of our families who are already so busy at this time of the year, Michelle and I planned this co-birthday hoping we'd find some common ground that would be fun for both a seven and three year old, as well as all those below, above, and inbetween.  We settled on a gym party at the Fransiscan Center and thankfully, everyone had lots of fun--even the really big kids (ahem...Jeff). 

Snow...again

I am going to keep track of how many snowfalls we get...we had #2 on Friday and #3 on Saturday!  Needless to say, the kids are in heaven because they still think it is tons of fun to play in the freezing cold stuff. Keeton spent an accumulated two hours "shoveling" the back patio while Jeff and I laughed at the cheap labor we can come across on rare occasions.


And another Keeton quote of the day:

While drinking hot chocolate out of "real" mugs, Keeton said with pencil in hand, "I want to write my name on this cup so the the Papa in the pantry doesn't drink out of the wrong one."

Oh my, poor Keeton obviously thinks we always drink out of disposable cups and that Papa Grunder (we have his picture taped on the inside of the pantry) would mistake his coffee cup for Keeton's hot cocoa.

...

Today was our first snowfall.  I've heard an old wive's tale that the date of the first snowfall of the season equals the number of snowfalls there will be during that season.  Being that today is the 30th, I sure hope not!  The kids were really excited about it, even though there is hardly any accumulation.

And, the Keeton question of the day:
Do doggies have boogers?  He then grabbed Mosely by the snout to check and confirmed that, "Yep, a little bit!"

Thanksgiving 1/2 Marathon

With both of our families being fairly local, holidays always seem a bit like an Olympic event.  We sprint from one house to another to another and another, trying to expertly and strategically plan each stop so that we see most, if not all, of the family members.  I call Thanksgiving our 1/2 marathon because Christmas is at least a three day event, whereas Thanksgiving is usually just a two day eating fest! Of course, we wouldn't have it any other way...we are pretty lucky to be able to see all of our families on these major holidays without too much travel involved.  It just adds to the unique craziness (the fun, good memory making kind of craziness) that is "our family"!

Here are some Thanksgiving recaps:

At Grandma & Papa Bloom's (noon):

 Double Trouble-Gus & Keeton shared some chips & dip

 Ashley & Trey got started on the annual family project: this year was table decorations for the mini dinner

 Tired!

 Took a break for dessert--Grandma showed Ashley the proper way to cut the cream pie.

 Everyone has fun with the family project!

 This was the HUGE piece of pie Jeff cut.

 I have no idea what this was...but Ella's face was hilarious!

Ella helped me make & count the table decorations.

Our second stop at 5:30 was my grandmas.  I forgot the camera at the Bloom's. 

We wrapped up our holiday weekend today (Sunday) at my dad's. 

 New puppy, new cage, great fun!

 Nothing says Thanksgiving like a good game of Buck Hunter (can you sense the sarcasm?)

On to Christmas!



Two Men at American Girl

This weekend I was in Chicago to present with my friend and fellow assistant principal at the state school board conference. Sometimes when I am on a business trip to a big city, there is some downtime for a little shopping.  Between prepping for this presentation and the various events and dinners we were invited to attend, we didn't really have time to shop so we sent our husbands with a Christmas list--with explicit directions for American Girl Place.  I think people thought my friend and I were kidding when they asked what our hubbies were doing while we were working--really, they went to American Girl Place?!

I know neither of them was very excited about this, but they did well, and let's face it--two men in a store predominately filled with women draw a little positive attention!  Apparently, they were swarmed on immediately by the saleswoman who happily helped them find all the items on their list.  Kate and Ella will be glad that Jeff came through for them, I'm sure (well, Santa in Ella's case)!  Jeff admitted that once they left the store, there was some consideration given to swapping out the AGP bag for one at Nike Town, but they didn't in the end, proudly sporting the bright red bags down Michigan Avenue for their favorite little girls.

Keeton's first soccer game

Keeton had his very first indoor soccer game for the under 5 league last week.  He has been waiting so patiently to get to play and could not wait to get ready in his soccer gear that day.  He did a little bit of a warm-up in the family room with a kick-ball first:

 When we got to the game, we realized that Keeton may need to learn how to interpret directions.  Here, was told to play defense and to stay by the goal.  He wouldn't move--at all--not even a step--as in let the ball go right past him because, "Coach told me stay here."  Ugh.

 He then asked to play goalie which last for maybe two minutes--he got bored and asked to be moved again!

Overall, when we can convince him he doesn't have to stand still and when he remembers what goal to run at, he did a pretty good job.  He is defnitely little but mighty!