SNOW!

This afternoon I received an email from a store near our house saying it was going to snow at the plaza tonight. So I called Clark to see if he could come home early so we could take the kids. He was able to get home by 6pm so we bundled the kids up and headed for the mall. They were going to have a jazz concert of holiday music and a "snow show." The band starts playing and this lady starts singing and stuff starts falling from the sky! Ah, SNOW! We sit back and watch the stuff fall to the ground and then Bailey said she wanted to go and catch some. We move closer and the "snow" falls around us and she catches a flake and it's BUBBLES! Teeny tiny bubbles flying all over the mall. Very beautiful. The kids had a lot of fun chasing after the flakes and dancing to the music. It was freezing out there so we only stayed about 30 minutes and decided to go and check out the Christmas lights near our home. (There's a whole neighborhood that decorates their homes for the holidays. In fact, we heard you need to sign a contract that you'll decorate your home when you buy a house there!) Anyways, I think we need to go back next weekend. Still too early, but we did see some very nicely decorated homes! Starting to really feel like Christmas!

Can you see the bubbles??

You Can't Catch Me! I'm the Gingerbread Man!

When I went to pick Gregory up from school today he told me the gingerbread cookies they made at school ran away and made a great big mess! They had to search all the doors (rooms with doors) to look for them and they finally found them in the classroom! What a day he had!

Well, tomorrow Bailey's class is going to make gingerbread cookies and since she won't be able to participate due to her allergies we made gingerbread here at home so she can take a cookie to school to eat with the rest of the other kids. Our cookies stayed in the oven so we didn't have to run after them, but we sure made a mess all by ourselves! The kids had a great time decorating them with "chocolate" chips, raisins, dried cranberries, non-pereils (white not silver) and gummy life savers. Oh, they used sparkle gel to glue all the goodies onto the cookies. You'll see Bailey's cookies are red and Gregory's are green.

Winter Wonderland!

Well, not quite "Winter Wonderland," but we have Christmas decorations in our front yard this year! Whoo hoo! Today Clark said he was going to hang the Christmas lights on our house (and Bailey or I didn't mention a thing!) He even took us to OSH to look for a light up penguin! They didn't have one, but I ran to Home Depot as he and the kids were working on the icicle lights and found one! I also picked up some dancing snow men lights. Just LOVE IT!

Here's Daddy working on the icicle lights

The dancing snow heads! They change colors and "dance" (the lights dance, Gregory couldn't understand why they wouldn't move if they were dancing)

Our fancy penguins

Can't really see in the dark, but we're looking festive!

Happy Turkey Day!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving! We had a yumola dinner in Stockton. Before dinner we had our usual Thanksgiving service - a little singing, prayer and this year we added "What we are Thankful for" (Bailey is thankful for "Beaches" and Gregory is thankful for "Dinosaurs") After dinner we celebrated Aunty Ruth's 70th birthday. We came home stuffed and ready for bed! (We had to wake the kids up at 8:45a to go to the doctor for their flu shot, but I think they would've slept even longer!)

Bailey trying to give Gregory a great big kiss!

Woulda been a nice Christmas picture if my drawer was closed!

Mr. Spiffy

Our yummy dinner

Aunty Ann's pies

Happy 70th Aunty Ruth!

Salt Dough Ornaments

Today we invited Camryn over to make salt dough ornaments! First we made the ornaments and put them in the oven to bake. The directions said to bake them for 2 hours so we had to be on the ball! Well, I think we left them to bake for an hour or so and they started to get toasty brown so I pulled them out. (They'll just need to air dry a bit...) While they were baking, the kids played inside and out, danced and had a snack! After they cooled a bit, we painted them and had some lunch. It was a fun packed morning and I think they all had a great time.


Big Sister, Camryn! (Baby Luke stayed home)

"Hmmm, what shall I make?"

Gregory deciding he's going to be an ornament

Here's one tray

Dancing while the ornaments bake

We put on painting shirts and painted our ornaments with red and green paint

Bailey's ornaments

Gregory's handiwork