Oh have we been baking!!

5 Pounds of hand-dipped Chocolate Cinnamon Bears

2 Pounds of hand-dipped Chocolate Pretzels

5 dozen sugar cookies

2 batches of Divinity

and..... 1 Gingerbread house...

(feel free to read the above while humming the 12 days of Christmas in your head)

And lets just not put a number on how much of the above I personally ate. Lets just say come Jan 1st I will need to start doing some serious get back in shape work.

My little baker helpers generally lose interest fairly fast in the whole cooking process. I was able to in list Kolbys help for the "fun" part to mix the sugar cookies, Before he was off to play/fight with Luke.

We put together 15 baskets to take to our business partners and 15 plates to take to our friends and neighbors.
I have to say I think they turned out pretty cute.

Here's the thing about being the only female in the house, when it comes to the Gingerbread house I'm not going to get "pretty pink , cottage style". What we have instead is a truck wrecked into the side of a very boys house. I'll give you a hint of which boys idea it was for the wrecked truck........ the over 40 one :)

Last night the three of the got down to the serious business of decorating.

Your right in that one child is sitting on the table. That's why in the first picture you can see the Clorox bleach cleaning spray.....we use a LOT of it.

TA......DA the finished product.....

And I have to say it is just perfect!! I LOVE it!!

Being able to watch the "building" process was my favorite part. My 3 favorites boys in the world working together can't help but bring a smile to my heart.

Elf on the Shelf

So I started seeing posts about "Elf on a shelf" on a bunch of different blogs for months now. You all know I am a sucker for super cute clever ideas that I can copycat :) so this year we have our very own Elf.

He showed up a few days after Thanksgiving, in grand fashion, with his very own Elf breakfast.

He brought Hot chocolate with little snowball marshmallows. And white snowball doughnuts.

The boys were THRILLED (not the least bit because they got doughnuts and coco for breakfast)
The elf came with a book explaining his story. With a place for the boys to give him a name. After much discussion they picked the name "Jolly". In the the book it explains that Jolly is there to help Santa keep an eye on them. Every night he uses his Elf magic to go back to the North Pole to give Santa a report for the day. Then he comes right back to play at our house.

Every morning the boys wake up to run around and find the Elf. He is a busy little guy so you never know where he will be.

One morning he turned the boys into reindeer.

Another morning we woke to find some of their unders hanging all over the tree.

And that naughty elf even TP'ed our tree one night. (keep in mind the the boys are 4 and 6 so underwear and TP are HILARIOUS)

One morning he was using our ceiling fan as his own personal carnival ride.

Can you see him hiding in the "jungle" ?

He has also been found playing with his Star Wars character "friends". Sometimes he brings little treats sometimes like this morning a little art project for the boys to do.

It really has been so much fun having Jolly visit us we will all miss him when he goes back to Santa on Christmas eve for the last time......until next year that is :)

Fun with Auntie Liz and Uncle Gary

We have known about our company Christmas party last Fri for months now. Because it was in Salt Lake and involved 7 hours in the car we did not plan on going. We got a call on Thurs saying that we had to go Dewey was going to be giving an award. So very last minute I called my wonderful sister and brother in law to A. ask if we could stay in their guest house and B. could they babysit the boys for the few hours we would be at the party. They thankfully said yes to both. Which was very very nice being that Sat was Gary's birthday.

As a surprise for the boys they took them to "This is the place, Candlelight Christmas". A historic piece of Salt Lakes history with lots of fun stuff to do.

The boys had so much fun. According to Kolby they got to ride on a real Choo-choo-rain (train)

Liz sent me the pictures they took.

Meet and greet with live reindeer.

You can't hang out with an aunt and uncle without getting lots of sugar in the form of giant suckers :)

Cute pic with Auntie Liz

Uncle Gary helping with an art project

Santa's reindeer

You just can't pass up a chance to talk to Santa this time of year.

Huge thanks to Liz and Gary!!! The boys had a blast!!

Our Christmas party was fun too, nice to get dressed up and have yummy food. (I made sure they had a veggie meal for me, HA!) I'm so proud of Dewey, he really does work incredibly hard to make our business a success, he very much deserved to be recognized for all he does.

Letters to Santa

Its that time of year...time to write a letter to Santa. The boys of course took this for the very serious occasion it is. I mean the chance to write directly to Santa to ask for what you want, can not be taken lightly.

Both boys asked polite questions..
They went over their good behaviour to make sure Santa had it noted..

They both drew a picture on the back of Santa handing them a gift. I mean you never know if its going to be words or pictures that gets your point across. Better to cover all the bases.

And then time for the gift wish list.

I was actually a little impressed they have both had lists that could have fit on a scroll, the kind that drops to the ground and rolls across the floor. But we have had several conversations about "how many toys do kids really need". And that its best to make sure there is enough to go around for everyone. So when it came down to the actual writing they had both narrowed it down to three things.

Once you write the letter you have to make sure Santa gets it. So it was off to the Post Office, where they have a special box set up just for letters to Santa.

You can't beat special delivery right to the North Pole.

To be on the extra extra safe side they want to also go see "Santa's helper" at the mall. They know Santa is very busy this time of year so he has a lot of Santa helpers. But sitting on a helpers lap and giving him your wish list is almost as good as talking to Santa himself. Between that and the letter they are covered :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

A little late I know. But I hope you all had a wonderful day, filled with blessings and thankfulness.

We headed up north to spend it with my side of the family. Liz and Gary hooked us up with deluxe accommodations. Steve and Miki hosted Thanksgiving at their house and it was wonderful. Great food... (yum yum tofurkey for me and Miki) Such fun to get to spend time with family.

I talked Steve, Miki, Keanna and Liz into doing the whole midnight black Fri shopping thing with me. I think we had a blast, laughing, joking running and shopping. We didn't fall into bed until after 4am. (ok I may have been tired and grumpy at the end but that's WAY past my bedtime) Good times!!

So our newest member Snickers is doing great. Other then Dewey and I spending most of our time saying "Kolby put the cat down". He carries her everywhere, whatever he does she does.

I swear they were both looking at the new toy catalog that came in the mail.



We spent the weekend recuperating after our Thanksgiving getaway. But there are always things to do around the house and yard. I knew the boys were "supposed" to be helping Dew rake leaves and spread in the garden. When I looked outside I saw them taking turns jumping off the hay piles

throwing leaves in the air

And having their version of snowball fights using leaves.

Not sure how much actual work got done but it looked like fun to me.

We also took our pics for Christmas cards. Generally I make it a big stressed out occasion for me. This year I thought, it has to be an easier way. So we slapped on the Santa hats and walked out into our very own yard.

Here's a sneak peak at one we took

I'm fairly sure that the boys believe the whole purpose of our hay is for them to jump off.

And lucky for them dad makes the perfect catcher.

On Saturday we met Grandma and Grandpa at the theater and saw Authors Christmas, a very cute Christmas movie. Sunday we put our Christmas tree up. The boys favorite part is seeing all their decorations from years past. The ones they have made and the ones with their pictures. They love seeing how much their hands have grown from their hand print ornaments.

Let the holidays begin!!

23 is the answer.

The question is ....How many animals do we have?

With the addition of our brand new kitten, 23 animals.

I'm sure you all are wondering (and ready to call some sort of animal control) so I'll break it down for you.

13 chickens

2 Horses

2 Dogs

2 Guinea Pigs

4 Cats

In our defence one of the cats is a barn cat that showed up about a month ago and lives ONLY in the barn. Kolby named him "Tractor" a few weeks ago. (the cat mostly lives under the tractor, we are nothing if not clever)

Our brand new rescued Kitten is named Snickers and just cute as can be.

The boys are just a tad excited to have a new kitten.

We were not planning on a new cat nor did we go in search of one. But when someone leaves a poor little kitten half starved and freezing outside my sister in laws doorstep what are you gonna do. With a little help from Grandma putting everyone together the boys have a new kitten.

And you know my motto "Whats one more?"

As of last night Snickers started acting like a real kitten playing and jumping. So with a few days some love and food shes going to be just fine.


On an unrelated topic I had to show a picture of our typical morning.......

This is Luke and Kolby AFTER waking up and making their way into the Family room

In case any of you were under the impression we are a "bright eyed, bushy tailed, rise and shine" type family.....we are not. Some of us (me,me,me,me) can fake it better then others. (every male member of the family) But as a whole we are a "much rather be snug in bed" then up and facing the day family.

Just a little nugget into our lives :) Plus the above pics just make me smile.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving!!!

Fall Fun

A few weeks ago when we still had leaves on the trees and they were such beautiful colors the boys I decided to take some fall pics. OK it was mostly me that decided but they were nice enough to play along. Alright alright so I may have bribed them with their brand new light sabers that arrived that very day if they would only smile. But we got pictures!

We even took some of our home grown pumpkins. How big does Luke look in this picture (sob sob)
I love taking pictures, however it makes me SO frustrated when I don't take good ones. I'm sure this has a lot to do with my lack of knowledge, camera and no photo editing skills. These are all things I plan to change, they are on my "To do" list for the new year. Move over "work out/ get in shape" that has been there for the past 100 or so years. And unlike the latter one I plan to do the Photo one :)
Kolby with his happy face

We still had fun though...

Look at these real smiles, not the camera smiles they are so good at flashing me.

We went to one of my favorite places to take pics an old farm/barn.

I love this one.

And this one...

True story, the last time we went there the elderly farmer that owns the property pulled up to ask what we were doing. I politely asked him if it was alright for me to take a few pictures. (from the looks of the place it has been abandoned for years) He looked at me like I was crazy. "you want to take pictures here"? Me, yes please. "I don't know why you would but go ahead". He walked off shaking his head. Funny how people see beauty in different things. :)
We are past the fall stage and currently in the holding pattern for snow and full on winter.... So I thought I better get these posted. Hope everyone is well and gearing up for the holidays. Enjoy some hot apple cider on us.