All Dressed Up!

We didn't make it to church on Sunday morning because Jake came to our room in the middle of the night and threw up on us. But we finally were able to get dressed up for the Christmas Eve candlelight service. I made the mistake of not trying on our Christmas outfits until we were already late for church. The result? Jake's pants were too big and Joshy's shirt and vest came down to his knees. So I scrambled and found Joshy a black reindeer sweater and Jake a belt. So Josh was dressed all in black (oh and I forgot him some shoes) and Jake looked like a gangster. Jordy looked perfect in her little Christmas dress that Grandma Joyce bought her. She even liked to wear her hat! These pictures were taken after church because we were running late before church. That's why Jordan has cookie all over her face.

More Christmas Eve Fun!

After the cookies were properly decorated, we all headed outside to play in the snow that FINALLY came to Alaska. We only had a couple inches, but we made the most of it.

Christmas Eve!

This morning we began with the first event of the day...decorating cookies for Santa! We are going to leave them by the fireplace along with some carrots for the reindeer. After two huge gingerbread houses and a bunch of cookies, Jake finally figured out that the decorations were edible. At first he was piling them on the cookies but later he decorated sparingly because he actually thought I was going to let him eat all the leftovers. Dream on Beebs!

Gingerbread Mania

Jake has been begging me for a couple weeks to build his gingerbread house. We bought the kits at Costco a while ago but I wanted to wait until it was closer to Christmas to make them. So they've been sitting on the counter, taunting poor Jakey for days and days.

Today was the day! While Joshy was having a nap, the munchkins waited impatiently at the table as I scurried around and assembled the houses and went back and forth drawing on all the white frosting lines. The kids meticulously placed each little candy wherever they wanted. Jordan just started piling them on top of each other and it wasn't long before they started falling off. Jakey very carefully placed each piece and would periodically ask me to add a dab of frosting here or there so he could add his own artistic flair. Takes after his mommy.

Before...

During...

And After!


Jake's is on the left, Jordan's on the right. Didn't they do a beautiful job? And somehow I completely resisted directing their placement in any way. That's really hard for a control freak you know.

Hide and Seek

This morning we were playing hide and seek and this was Jordy's best hiding spot.

Prize Fighter

Just a cute picture of Joshy fresh out of his bath.

Oh Christmas Tree!

After much anticipation, we finally put up our Christmas tree this weekend. I let the kids decorate it themselves, and since they only decorated the bottom front portion, I had the joy of re-decorating it after they went to bed. Of course they didn't even realize what had happened. They woke up this morning still admiring their wonderful job.

Happy Thanksgiving!!!

Superhero!

My Jakey is a superhero.

Here is an excerpt from our conversation this evening.

"What's your superhero name?"

"I'm the Sweet Boy super hero."

"What do you do, Sweet Boy?"

"I take care of people cuz I'm sweet. And when an animal is mean, I SMACK em' down! And this is the face I make when I get the naughty animals..."

"And this is how I look when I take care of you..."

I think we can all rest a little easier knowing that the bad animals are getting the smack down.

Tiny Baby

You may recall a couple of posts ago, I had put up some pictures of my pregnant friend that I had taken. Now her baby girl is here and I got to take some pictures of her too! She was one week old when these were taken on Tuesday and some today.

Daddy's Hands

Perfect Pose

Parachute Fort

Do you remember back in elementary school PE when the teacher would bust out the big multi-colored parachute thing and everyone would gather around it and wave it and sit under it and it was gigantic and the most fun thing ever?

Well, my husband, the PE teacher, brought one home yesterday. He tucked the ends of it under random pieces of furniture and then turned on a box fan. This is what happened to my play room. It was actually bursting through every doorway. Keep in mind that the parachute itself is probably bigger than our entire house.

The older kids had such a blast in their new fort (mom's old quilt over the couch and footstool trick is going to forever seem lame after this). When we brought Joshy down the stairs and he saw this thing filling the doorway, he burst into hysterics and didn't stop crying until long after we took the thing down. It was a bit much to behold after a long nap I guess.

Officially snowing

It was a few weeks late but I think our first official, "it's snowing and it staying" day has come. We headed out in it as fast as we could after church this morning. We managed to make a snow man, blow the driveway and ride the snow machine, all before lunch time!

Escapee

I was carrying Jake downstairs to bed when I noticed that Jordan had escaped from her room. And because I had left my office door open, there was only one place she could be.

Sitting on the floor where she had dumped my trash can, my purse AND my filing box all into one big pile on the floor. And there she sat in the middle of it with trash stuck to the snot from her runny nose.

And honestly, if she hadn't had garbage stuck to her face, she would have been in so much trouble. But I was laughing so hard I couldn't pull off the angry mom act.

Don't Worry Be Scrappy!

WHEW! What a weekend! On Thursday night, Carly and I left our respective children with their very capable fathers (and grandmas), boarded a plane and took off for Seattle. We both had a hard time leaving our kids because we hadn't been away from them for more than a few hours their whole lives. I didn't think I would cry over it, but I did.

I detest flying. So during our very turbulent take off, Carly and I chatted away like we didn't have a care in the world while we both secretly prayed our way to a comfortable cruising altitude. We passed the time by gabbing about kids and watching Pride and Prejiduce.

We landed in Seattle and found my mommy. She was amused at the the size and weight of our scrapbook supplies suitcases. My carry-on held my clothes for the weekend and it was only half full. My gi-normous suitcase was crammed to the gills with every scrapping supply I could possibly need. Most of which, it would turn out, I wouldn't even touch.

We could hardly sleep that night for the excitement the next day would bring. Wow. How lame did that sound? But it's true. I'm easily excited I guess. We each slept for about three hours before we had to wake up, get ready, and drive through rush hour traffic from Monroe to Bellevue. But we made it in plenty of time for our class and even had a chance to stop at Starbucks on the way.

Our first class was a whirlwind, high paced, get your layouts done in less than an hour class. That was fun but difficult that early in morning. This is Carly, working diligently...

After our first class, we had an hour to kill at the vendor fair before our second class started. We walked into the hugest room at the convention center and were brought to a standstill by the vastness of it. Only another devout scrapbooker can possibly imagine the depth of our glee at what our eyes beheld. It was utterly overwhelming and we didn't know where to start. This picture captures our feelings, but fails miserably to capture the enormity of it all.

After our second class was over, we rushed home to grab mommy and headed to the outlet mall. Mass hysteria ensued as we layed down some serious carnage to our bank accounts. We rapidly ran out of time, rushed home for dinner and rushed back out to the convention center for the nightly crop party. We arrived late and couldn't find the right room anywhere. That's because we were at the wrong venue. The crop was being held down the street at the Hilton. So we scrambled over there and spent several minutes trying to find a table we could sit at together. But we found one and we tiredly went about scrapping for four hours. The highlight of the night was when we met our favorite "scra-lebrity," Ali Edwards! She writes and scraps for our favorite scrapbooking magazine and as we informed her, we just love her.

The next day we were able to sleep in a bit, mom and I went running, then we all went shopping again at Target. More carnage but massive amounts of fun. We were late for our one and only class of the day but because we are so awesome, we caught up withing about 15 minutes.

After that class we rushed off to have dinner with mom, dad, JR and Kate. I'm so glad we had a chance to visit with them, even if it was only for about 30 minutes. Because then we had to rush right back to the Hilton for another crop party!

We stayed at this crop party for an extra hour because it was our last night and we just couldn't let it end. When we were finally ready to keel over from exhaustion, we drove home and spent the next couple hours (until 2am) trying to cram all our new scrapping supplies, class projects, prizes and shopping loot, into our already full luggage. We got it done, but it wasn't pretty. In fact, my large suitcase was overweight and I had to unload a couple items and stuff them in my carry-on.

The flight home was uneventful, long and boring. But it was all worth it for the greeting I got at the airport. Jakey ran and gave me the biggest hug and Jordan raised her arms and screamed, "MOMMMMMEEEE!!!" From her stroller. I missed my babies so much! And my Darrin too of course. He was such a super-star for letting me have this weekend away.