Gingerbread House

What could be more fun than a bowl of candy and icing??  Since Garret is on Christmas break he spent the day with us one day last week.  When she dropped him off I told Traci I was excited to have him over cause he and Hudson would just play all day and I might get some work done.  WRONG!!  I spent the whole day refereeing the two: "He won't let me do this.  He lied to me.  He hit me."  And it went both ways.  By naptime I had had enough so I packed them up and took them over to my mom's! 

She had a fun treat waiting for them and they got along much better the rest of the afternoon - or maybe I just think that cause I ignored them and let someone else referee instead!   But regardless, they made some nice gingerbread houses - and didn't eat too much of the candy while they were at it. 

Hudson's finished product.  He did eat a few pieces of candy off of it during the week!

And my gingerbread (ok, graham cracker) nativity.  My original plan was to have Hudson make one of these, but then I realized it would be too hard for him, so I gave it a try instead.  Next year I think I'll try it again and get some different candies so I can make wisemen and shepherds too. 

cousins

We took a vote and none of the adults wanted to actually get the kids dressed up and take them somewhere for pictures, but since we only see each other once a year, we wanted to take a few of everyone all together.  So here's our attempt.  Honestly, we probably wouldn't have got much better with a professional either.  And I don't mean cause I took such good pictures.  I mean cause there's too many kids, all wanting to sit by someone else or waiting for their turn to hold one of the babies or pouting or playing peek-a-boo or who knows what else...

First picture I took and probably the best one of them all!

I think Alisha was playing peek-a-boo with Tate and Isaac trying to get them to smile and Bryce started playing too!

Hudson stealing a quick kiss.  Not sure he even realized it was Isaac and not Tate.  He just sees those squishy cheeks and can't resist!

Jacob anxiously awaiting his turn to hold Isaac.

And a few wanted to do some individual shots.

Hudson's "I'm so cool" look.  Very poplular in all his pictures lately.

Pure cuteness. 

Bryce really wanted a pic with Tate, but by this point Tate had pretty much had it.

fun in Iowa

The boys and I spent the week after Thanksgiving up in Iowa so that Hudson and Tate could play with all their cousins.  They had a great time playing.  Here's just a little taste for you of some of the fun stuff:

Jacuzzi Bubble Bath with three boys.  What could be better?

And a program by the three girls.  Every time we are together these girls spend all week practicing a program, but never actually perform it for us.  This year, we had an actual performance.  Costumes AND makeup!  

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more Thanksgiving pics

Tate and Isaac taking a bath at Uncle Alan's.

Fun in the leaves at Aunt Cara's.  Bryce and Hudson played outside for quite a while Sunday afternoon before we left.  The sun was shining and it was really nice out. 

Hudson and Bryce had a great time.  Not so sure about Kaedyn and Anna though.

And Tate just took it all in!

Thanksgiving

For Thanksgiving this year we acutally celebrated Christmas as well with Jamie's family because his brother and family were here from Florida.  We spent Thursday in Sterling for "Thanksgiving/Christmas, then Friday in Burdett for a 35th wedding anniversary party for Jamie's parents, then Saturday at Jamie's uncles for Thanksgiving with the extended family, then Sunday back to Rozel for Isaac's 1st birthday party.  Whew!  We slept at a different house every night.  Thankfully the boys slept pretty good.  Tate slept the worst the first night in Sterling, so I was worried what the weekend would hold, but he did better the other nights.

Here's some pics of our weekend:

The girls singing Christmas carols.

The shirt Jamie and I made for Cecil.  On the back is a track that the kids can play with their cars on.  So all Cecil has to do is lay on the floor and take a nap, and the kids will play and give him a little massage!

The whole family.

The 8 grandkids. # 9 (Jeremy and Alisha) is due in April!

Anna, Kaedyn, Binga, Tate, Mia, Jacob, Papa, Isaac, Hudson and Bryce

I made a slideshow of pictures of Cecil, Nona and their family over the last 35 years.  Here it is for anyone who'd like to see it again - or for anyone who wants to see Jamie when he was little!

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one thing I forgot to mention...

Poor Hudson was sick for Tate's birthday party, so he didn't get to go!  Celeste and I were there late Friday night decorating and I got home about 12:30, walked in the door, and Jamie says "Hudson is throwing up."  Great.  He didn't feel any better Saturday, so he didn't get to go.  Jamie brought him over for a little bit to see everything and watch Tate open presents, but Hudson didn't want to stay very long.  He really didn't feel good.  Thankfully, he took a LONG nap and when he woke up he was feeling fine.  Of course, all the balloons I brought him from the party might have helped! He carried these all around the house that night and the next day too!

the BIG one!!

We had Tate and Ashley's BIG birthday party last Saturday.  It's taken me a little bit of time to recover (A LOT of work goes into a party like this!), but without further ado...here are the pics and video from the BIG day.

Since it was a boy/girl party we had bright primary colors for Tate and pink/purple for Ashley.  Mimi and I made the balloon decoration above Tate's chair.  Took a long time to wrap all those balloons!  We had ice cream sundaes to go with the cakes, 150+ balloons, gift tables decorated with banners we made, a photo booth, and table decorations that were pictures of the kids over the first year - Ashley's surrounded by flowers and Tate's by blocks. 

The cakes.  Lots of work went into these cakes.  And lots of icing.  I believe we made 8 batches of icing plus one batch of marshmallow fondant, dyed 5 different colors.  We made 12 cakes total, then stacked them together and iced the cakes.  We worked on the cakes several days leading up to the party, but they turned out great. Pink and girly for Ashley and bright and bold for Tate.  This was my first time to ever make fondant.  It was a lot of work making it, dyeing it, then rolling out all the balls and cutting the lines and circles, but I think it turned out cute.

We had tables set up for entertainment for the kids.  Blocks for the boys, playdough (pink and purple kool-aid playdough) for the girls, with rolling pins and cookie cutters.  Then a table with paper and crayons as well.  On the other side of the room we set up a blanket with baby toys for the smaller ones. 

Opening presents.  We had a lot of presents to open and a lot of little helpers "helping". 

SMASH cakes!  Ashley was a little more into her cake than Tate was.  Tate was getting pretty tired by this point, as you can tell from some of the pictures.  But he did better eating this than Hudson did at his first birthday.  Ashley's hands and face were stained pink after she got washed up!

The aftermath:

Thank you to everyone who came and celebrated the BIG birthday with us!

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12 months

Well, the 12 months of ties pictures are finally finished.  And I think it's about the right time.  Tate seems to be telling me he doesn't like taking his tie pictures anymore.  What do you think?

I did finally get one I could work with, but the boy would not sit still!

It's been an emotional week for me, remembering where I was/what I was doing a year ago at this time.  The memories are crazy - I still can't believe we went through all that.  Especially now when we have this perfect, healthy little boy to show for it.