It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year...

We had our first little snowfall start last night and Aubrey wanted to go right outside and make a snowman, although I doubt there was enough snow even for a proper snowball, let alone a whole snowman. I told her we'd try and go out tomorrow though just the same. She also saw some pawprints outside her window, which we told her were probably from a cat or dog, but she knew better and is now convinced there is a baby camel somewhere walking around : )

We had our ward Christmas party last night and had a lot of fun. Steve and I decided to embarrass ourselves again and sing/play guitar in the talent show. My brother Owen came to play with us as well. Let's just say we're pretty rusty and the nerves got to us, but at least we tried : ) It did remind us of our old days in Rexburg though, especially with Steve hauling in equipment and guitars in the snow. We had a lot of delicious food though and had fun with friends and family.

We spent our Sunday today after church just being homebodies with the fireplace on, and attempting to make a Christmas cookie recipe that didn't call for eggs ( it seems we're always out when the baking mood strikes!). We had a nice evening.

Christmas seems to be coming so quickly now and although 99% of my shopping is done, there always seems to be all those lovely last minute things to make/do/plan. I've got a big ward Relief Society Christmas party on Tuesday that I'm in charge of. We're doing a full course ham dinner and an auction, it should be fun, but I'll be glad when all the stress of prep and planning are over.

I was just looking on LDS.org today and came across this video and thought I'd share. Merry Christmas : )

Christmas Letters

Found this and thought it was funny. Definitely NOT the kind of letter you should expect on getting from our family this year! :

Martha Stewart's Christmas letter

Hello Friends and Family!,

This perfectly delightful note is being sent on paper I made myself to tell you what I have been up to.

Since it snowed last night, I got up early and made a sled with old barn wood and a glue gun. I hand painted it in gold leaf, got out my loom, and made a blanket in peaches and mauves. Then to make the sled complete, I made a white horse to pull it, from DNA that I had just sitting around in my craft room.

By then, it was time to start making the place mats and napkins for my 20 breakfast guests. I'm serving the old standard Stewart twelve-course breakfast, but I'll let you in on a little secret: I didn't have time to make the tables and chairs this morning, so I used the ones I had on hand. Before I moved the table into the dining room, I decided to add just a touch of the holidays. So I repainted the room in pinks and stenciled gold stars on the ceiling. Then, while the homemade bread was rising, I took antique candle molds and made the dishes (exactly the same shade of pink) to use for breakfast. These were made from Hungarian clay, which you can get at almost any Hungarian craft store.

Well, I must run. I need to finish the buttonholes on the dress I'm wearing for breakfast. I'll get out the sled and drive this note to the post office as soon as the glue dries on the envelope I'll be making. Hope my breakfast guests don't stay too long, I have 40,000 cranberries to string with bay leaves before my speaking engagement at noon. It's a good thing.

Love, Martha Stewart

P.S. When I made the ribbon for this typewriter, I used 1/8-inch gold gauze. I soaked the gauze in a mixture of white grapes and blackberries, which I grew, picked, and crushed last week just for fun.

Happy Halloween!

We had a great time dressing up and going to our Ward "Trunk-or-Treat" the night before Halloween. Yummy chili and cornbread, lots of fun costumes and good friends, and a bucketful of candy for us to enjoy...I mean for Aubrey to enjoy : )

Steve dressed up as a Hockey player ( don't judge the team...he has no jersey of his own and had to borrow) complete with a missing tooth. He used this black tooth paint that was actually pretty realistic! A few people even asked him what happened to his tooth! I of course came to the rescue dressed as the Tooth Fairy : )
(That was definitely a last minute costume and I am very thankful for Aubrey's dress-up box for donating most of it!)

Asher was a cowboy. I was trying to think of a costume that had a built in bib. We had multiple bandanas just for that purpose, but my son, the overflowing spitup machine that he is, managed to make short work of those. He was cute anyway. We had worked outside all day clearing the flowerbeds and planting spring bulbs, so we ended up finishing up his costume last minute right before the party. I cut out the chaps out of felt that had this neat embossed pattern on it and Steve used iron on backing to put them on a pair of jeans I got at the second-hand store. His little hat is a doll hat from Hobby Lobby....a little silly, but I just couldn't resist!

Aubrey was dressed as a good witch. I made her the tutu and we found the little broom for 1.50. She loved it and wore it more than once before Halloween.

We also won "Best Group" at our Halloween party. We didn't exactly all go together, but hey...I'm not one to turn down an award from my adoring public!

Here are some pics for you:

( PS...Don't hate me for having a million pictures....my babies were just looking too cute, I couldn't choose just one!)

At the ward trunk or treat

Costume Parade: Aubrey refused to get out of line even when it was disbanded. She loved it! She just kept following the kids in front of her to their seats : )

My Little Cowboy

Showing off Asher's chaps...turns out its hard to take a picture one-handed while holding a wiggly 7mo old! And while we're on the subject of bad picture-taking, please forgive the background too.

My lil' witch casting a spell on daddy...

At Grandma and Papa Kent's for a Halloween costume encore

THE END

Kansas City Zoo

The kids and I were lucky enough to get to visit the KC Zoo with some friends of ours that have season passes. We had a great time, and although a lot of the animals didn't cooperate we had lots of fun riding the train (Aubrey's favorite!) and watching the polar bear show off for the crowd.

The girls at the polar bear exhibit...I'm pretty sure that polar bear is not to scale, but remind me to not take Aubrey to the artic anytime soon just in case!

Cutie girls

Polar Bear exhibit...it was packed!

Riding the train

Aubrey would have been happy riding the train all day! : )

Thank goodness for double strollers for tired 3 yr olds! 

Feeding "bambi"

Watching the seal show

Have my cake...and eat it too!

I graduated! : ) ...from cake class that is. So this is my second attempt at taking Wilton Cake Class Course 1. The first time around...Aubrey interrupted my lessons mid-way by being born (how rude of her, right?) so I never finished the course. I took it at our local Hobby Lobby this time with my sister-in-law and it was a lot of fun. It's also a lot of work too to have all the prep done for each class!

I've made (and eaten) a lot of cake and icing this past month thanks to this class and Aubrey's party!

Here are a few pics of my efforts. Please don't judge to harshly...the class time is so jammed packed we don't often have but a few minutes to try each technique and precious little time at the end to decorate before class is over. It's fast-paced but I'm supposed to be practicing this all at home so if I get around to that, I'm sure I'll improve! : )

Also a little disclaimer on the photography: unfortunately its an evening class so I've got lovely indoor fluorescent light pictures, oh well, everything tasted good at least!

A few techniques on cupcakes....I may of had to taste test one on the way home : )

Otherwise my little "taste-testers" get them all!

A little post-bath/pre-bed snack

My SIL making ribbon roses

Our Final Cakes ( I made a small one on purpose...and we're still struggling to eat it all!

Thoughts...

Fishy Face

We met some friends out at Blue Springs Lake Marina to feed the fish last week. There is a HUGE school of carp there that wait around the marina dock for handouts. We bought bags of "fish food" for a quarter and let the girls go at it. They loved it!

The girls kept throwing in the whole baggie of food at one time to watch the fish go crazy.

It was kind of chilly, and here's Asher looking a little unsure about the whole thing.
Yuck...their open mouths kind of gross me out! : ) The girls kept saying..."They're still hungry!" I'm pretty sure they're always "still hungry".

( PS...there is no fishing off the dock for pretty obvious reasons) : )