Cinnamin Rolls

Thanks to my sister in law, Raychel, Darrin's mom and I (mostly her) got it in our heads that we were going to make cinnamin rolls for Christmas. LOTS OF THEM.

Suddenly I want a Kitchenaid mixer.


Doobie, pouring the sugar.


Bubba, pouring the milk


Bugaroo, pouring the oil (all over Grandma's hand)


HOURS later, Bubba prepping the rolling area.


Kneading the dough.


Rolling the dough AND watching TV at the same time.


After some rolling and more rolling, pouring some stuff on and then more rolling and then some cuttting. Pretty in the pans. Lots and lots of pans.


Frosting and eating.

Thanks to Grandma Diana for taking this project on. I promised to help but I SO did not help. I took a few pictures and I stepped in a little at the end, but mostly she slaved away in the kitchen for hours and hours. I was too wrapped up in editing the photos from my very first wedding shoot. They are pretty spiffy by the way.

Jake's Christmas Concert

This past week Bubba participated in his school's elementary Christmas concert. It was so fun to see him up on stage, very seriously singing his way through the program. On the very first note he put his hands up to start directing the music and then hurried to put them down again, looking around to see if anyone noticed. He sang each song and then gasped for breath at the end of every one, sometimes with a hand clutch to his heart as though he could barely contain his exhaustion. Seriously, it was killing me. I laughed until I cried.


Can you see him? He's the little handsome dude in the front row with the white shirt and plaid tie.


Here's a closeup after the show. He did so great!

Jaycob's Art

Everyday after school I go through Jake's backpack and unload all his school work from the day. Today I found this bit of art.

Snow Princess

We have had some interesting ice fog over the past few days and the frost coating all the tree branches is beautiful to look at. And so is my little snow princess, posing for me after church this morning.

Christmas Around the House

Just a bits of festive-ness around the house.


The advent calendar that I bought at Target last year.


The wreath I made at GAL time last month.


The bow tree topper I learned to make on You Tube a couple of weeks ago.


The giant ornaments that were just calling my name at Costco this year.


The stockings that my sweet friend Lucy made me (twice because the first set got ruined) for my birthday last year.


The ceramic nativity scene that I painted in high school.

The New Christmas Tree

The kids were so excited to help decorate the tree. I tortured them for a couple of days before I let them at it though. The tree was up, but I hadn't dug out our boxes of decorations yet. When the time finally came, they attacked their job with gusto. As usual the bottom third of the tree was thoroughly bedazzled. Jake finally realized this year that the top was being ignored so he improvised a ladder and set to work. Josh got frustrated early on so he didn't help much. He just couldn't understand why things didn't just stick to the tree when he threw them at it.





I am definitely an official fan of the skinny tree. It's amazing how little room this thing requires compared to our old monster. I likey.

Winter Wonderland

Currently it is too cold to enjoy the snow but over the last couple weeks we have spent some time outside. Well, I haven't...I hate the snow, but everyone else has. I managed to drag myself out long enough to snap a couple pictures though.


I'm pretty sure this is more fun than work.


Jordan likes to lay down and get sprayed by the snow blower.


Doobie prefers to wait on the porch until all snow blowing is complete.


The masterpiece. They named it Uncle JC. Whatever.


Heading into the house for some warm chocolate. Because hot chocolate is too hot.

Favorite Book(s) of 2009

I'm cruising right along at forgetting to post an entry for the So Long 2009 Challenge. Unfortunately, you won't get to hear about my favorite article of the year for yesterday's assignment. It was likely scrapbook related anyway and you wouldn't care. Today I get to tell you about the best book I read this year.

I read A LOT. I adore books. I usually start a new one every 36 to 48 hours. I love a lot of books but there are actually two series that I read this year that sucked me in completely.

The first is a series that I read for the first time a couple of years ago. In anticipation of the 7th book being released, I reread them all this summer. The Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon is epic. I mean that very literally because each book is over 900 pages long and there are so many vibrant characters, plot twists that provoke intense anticipation, intrigue, mystery and details so, well... detailed that it just sucks you in completely. I found myself staying up until 2 or 3 in morning because I couldn' put them down. This series is historical fiction/fantansy that spans the milenia of sixteenth century Scotland during the Jacobite rebellion all the way through twentieth century World War II. Accidental time travel is the fantasy element. The series is written in first person (for the most part) and for some reason that style of writing has the ability to really draw me into the story. I think that is the main reason that I adore my second series as well.

Twilight

Stop groaning. I realize that the sheer popularity of the book should make me hate it automatically but I don't work that way. I loved these books before the movies came out and before Rpatz and Taylor were taking their shirts off onscreen. Not that I mind, but still.

A love story gets me every time and both of these series have a love story so captivating that they transend both time and imagination, respectively.

Thanksgiving

This year for Thanksgiving, we did the usual...dinner at home with ham instead of turkey, lots of cranberry sauce from a can (because I have to eat one all by myself), stuffing from a box (because I don't understand stuffing and I don't have a turkey to stuff it in anyway), assorted other food groups and of course, homemade pumpkin pie.



Grandma Diana spent the day with us of course as did our Korean friends, Mrs. Kong and her daughter Jaeyoung. After our feast, we gathered around the table for a rousing game of UNO with our batman UNO cards.



Uno was followed by some Christmas cartoons where Jordan promptly fell into a food coma.



Josh too.



Darrin bought me a new Christmas tree this year because I've been using my crummy burned out one for several years now. I begged and pleaded and it finally paid off. The kids helped open the box, then promptly abandoned the assembly task in favor of popping the bubble wrap.




Jaeyoung took over camera duty while I worked on the tree and that is how I made it into a picture this year. Sort of. That's me next to the tree. See me? I'm camouflaged. I'm a ninja.





Happy Thanksgiving!

So Long 2009

Wow. So incredibly busy.

I feel like I have done nothing but work on photos for the past two weeks. Things are winding down at the moment though. The last of our Christmas session orders are being processed, we have a photoshoot this Saturday with a three month old and then a small wedding on the 19th. Other than that, we have taken the rest of December off. WE NEED THIS TIME OFF! If, for nothing else, just to get the laundry done and the bathrooms cleaned. I have more blog posts coming soon, with pictures of Thanksgiving, playing in the snow and decorating for Christmas. Like I mentioned on facebook, our house looks like Christmas threw up all over it, and it had eaten glitter for dinner.

Before I get to all that though, I want to begin a little project that I will never finish. You know how it is. Blogger Gwen Bell has challenged the blogosphere to do a best of 2009 year in review blog EVERY DAY IN DECEMBER. Two friends are already on board and you can catch Megan at The Novice Mom , she's the beauty and brains behind Peekaboo Picks and Jennifer at SOHO Wife. Jennifer and I used to dance at the same dance studio back in the day and her mom used to manage my brother's band. ANYWAY, each day deals with a new topic. I'm a day late, so I'm not going to tell you about the best trip I took in 2009 which happened to be Cabo San Lucas, Mexico for our 10 year anniversary (followed closely both literally and figuratively by a Twilight induced geek fest in Forks, Wa).



Right now though, I will be talking about today's topic, the best restaurant moment of 2009.

December 2nd - Restaurant Moment

We don't eat out a whole bunch anymore so you'd think it would be easy to think of a best moment, yet here I sit, struggling to come up with something. I'm one who usually thinks the best moments are ones that didn't seem so great at the moment but are hilarious to look back on now. Like when Jake was a baby and we where sitting in the Cattle Company restaurant in Anchorage with friends and I was holding Jake over my shoulder to burp him and he projectile vomited all over the wall behind me. Gross enough, but not Earth shattering, unless you consider the fact that the wall was made from unpeeled logs and the vomit got stuck all up in the cracks and crevices of the bark. We made a hasty exit. A year or two after that Darrin and I found ourselves eating dinner at a super fancy restaurant at the top of the Captain Hook hotel (a gift). The evening took a bad turn the moment the waiter put the napkin in Darrin's lap for him. Oiy. I tried to lighten the mood by cooking my beef tartar appetizer (raw beef chunks) over the candle on our table and in doing so, dripped beef juice into the candle promptly extinguishing it. The waiter came by, noticed our dead candle and relit it, thereby releasing the strong scent of flame broiled beef into the immediate vicinity. Because the restaurant was the type that fed you three crumbs as a meal, we went to McDonalds afterwards. A craving inspired by the scent of a beef flavored candle.

But these are old stories and I need to think of something for 2009. I think perhaps this will do.


A restaurant at the Westin Resort in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. Good friends, good food. Well, interesting food anyway.

Wanna play?

Quick Notes

It's snowy. It's windy. It's cold.

That did not, however, prevent anyone from getting family pictures taken outside this weekend. We did SEVEN photoshoots over the course of two days. Fortunately for us, Darrin had pity and set up Rory (the RV, remember?) at the park so we could have some warm place to hang out between shoots. It was fun to have a "mobile office" set up there. We have some seriously tough Alaskan clients! Even the little ones did great with their frozen fingers and red noses. 5 degrees is painful!

In other news, I must mention that two of my friends competed in and FINISHED the Arizona Ironman competition yesterday. The race consisted of a 2.4 mile swim followed by a 112 mile bike ride and ended with a literal marathon which is a 26.2 mile run. They both finished at about the thirteen hour mark. I followed them online all day yesterday and I'm exhausted!

Way to go Corrie Smith and BethAnne Clary! So proud of you both.

Jake's Writing

A couple of days ago I came upstairs to find the kids all drawing and coloring. Jakey was in the process of writing this out...



Can you figure out what song this is? He was writing it phonetically, ALL BY HIMSELF. I helped in a little at the end but mostly this was all on his own.

Happy Birthday!

Today is my Mama's birthday.

Dear Mama,
I hope you have a wonderful, relaxing day full of doing nothing but fun stuff. I hope you are recovering from your travels too! Are you even home yet?

Thanks for being awesome. I miss you and love you so much. All the family says, "Happy Birthday!" except Doobie because he says, "Happy Burstay!"

*hugs*

It's Snowing!

The snow is here but now we are suffering through negative temperatures. It's too cold to snow, but evidently, not too cold for photography! Check out my new photo journal for pictures of an exciting event that we photographed this week!

PS Photography's Photo Journal

Home From CKC!

For the past four days, my friend Tracy and I, have been scrappin' it up at the Creating Keepsakes Convention in Bellevue, Wa. We flew down from Alaska last Wednesday night and started classes on Thursday morning.

A special thank you goes out to my darling mom and pops, who generously loaned us the use of their home and car while we were there. We scrapped. We shopped. We ate at places not found in Alaska (ie: PF Changs and Jack in the Box) and we enjoyed every minute!

It was nice to come home to our sweet kids and hubbies, who also deserve a special thank you for allowing us to take this trip every year!

I didn't take a ton of pictures because everything was so fast paced, but I got some highlights...


Every year I try to get my picture taken with a "scralebrity" and this year I found Megan Hoeppner, the Creative Editor at CK magazine. Jealous?


Thursday night was dinner at PF Changs with some friends. A few girls from high school met up with us at the convention for the scrap-a-thon and we all went out to dinner. Lettuce wraps. Yum. This was our desert.


Here we all are in class. From left to right: Tracy, Me, Rachael and Jessica.


Starbucks. My life blood. I think I drank one for breakfast, lunch and dinner each day.


Apart from scrapping, we also did some shopping. HELLO! This is my mom and my sister in law, Kate. I did not get the puffy vest memo. But I wish I had, because they were super cute.


What is THIS GUY doing here? A dude (a DUDE? At a scrapbook convention?) from Alaska. Johnny Moyer. He hooked us up.


The parting shot. This was taken about five minutes before we all parted ways until next year.

Now we are all home safe. I'm inspired to do some creative things (my first challenge was getting all my new STUFF into my limited luggage situation. I really hate that airlines charge for all checked luggage!

Star Wars Halloween (Again)

Last year Obi Wan, R2D2 and Princess Leia went out for some trick or treating together. This year, in keeping with the theme that will NEVER END, it was Boba Fett, Yoda and Darth Vader. Jordan REALLY wanted to be Darth Vader. I think she was the cutest Darth Vader ever.


Darth Vader, aka Jordan


Yoda, aka Joshy


Boba Fett, aka Jaycob

As per our usual tradition, we all went tricking treating with our friends. There were about 15 kids in our group this year. Afterward, our friend Trinity had a birthday party. However, we didn't stay because Jordan had been very sick the previous night (threw up 14 times!) and we didn't want to spread our disease. So far everyone else is healthy though!