Gingerbread Cycle of Life

The morning of gingerbread house making began with the girls deciding they wanted to carry their various babies in "baby bjorns"- their PJs acting as the bjorns.  Jake and I found this extremely creative. 

It was a rainy day, and I decided we were DEFINITELY going to do our gingerbread house that I had been saving for the perfect moment. I forgot that you are supposed to let the icing dry on the walls and roof for 2-3 hours before decorating until I opened the box and the girls were all poised to decorate. So here is the beginning of the life of our gingerbread house.

 We jumped right in.

Blythe and Joy weren't always fans of having anything sticky on their fingers. (P.S. Officially, tutus and white stuffed bears are really poor choices of objects to have anywhere near the decorating of a gingerbread house.  For your future notice, should the issue come up.)

 There was a little treat sneaking.

 There was decoration and technique sharing.  Abby Jane was really a superstar that morning.

 Team effort.

 Sweet Joy had some difficulty with the dexterity of placing decorations on the house, but she had much improved success by the end.

 Blythe did not have any difficulty.

I transferred the lovely gingerbread home to the peppermint cake plate left over from Jesus' birthday bash. Here is our house in its full glory.

 Group hug/ celebration by completed house.

Completed house 73 seconds after being transferred off the floor.  Note to self: allow icing to dry on walls and roof for 2-3 hours before decorating.

The girls were then raptured.  Just kidding.  They were covered in halfway melted peppermints and sprinkles, so they got stripped right there on the tablecloth.

Then they were transferred to the sofa for a 20 minute Polar Express segment while I did an overhaul on the kitchen.  I left the remains of the gingerbread house for Jake to admire before laying it to rest in the trashcan. It might be the shortest surviving of a gingerbread house in history, but there was major success in that the girls had a fun Christmassy activity on a rainy December morning!  Memory= made. Lesson in follow instructions= taken to heart.

Acting our age

Don't get me wrong.  I LOVE Jake's field of work.  But the only downside of being employed by a university is that Christmas parties do not include spouses or dressing up.  So when my Auburn roommate Lyndsay invited us for a fancy fun adults-only Christmas dinner in cocktail attire, I was ALL about it.  I had been eyeing a few dessert recipes that called for... adult beverages... that were not appropriate for either our church small group party or any of the children's gatherings we've been to or hosted.  So YEA an excuse to use them!  Here are Jake and Jeff with a cup of Jake's FAMOUS not-for-the-weak eggnog.  

Don't miss the "Uncle Eddie" eggnog glass.

 Sweet Lynsday and I- Mat and Victoria were schedule to join us, but just Vic ended up coming a little late and coming solo, as Mat was significantly under the weather.  Bless his soul, we missed him!

 Lyndsay set a beautiful table as always and served a fantastic dinner, complete with Christmas-based questions for everyone to draw and share about.  It was one of those things we would have groaned if my mom did, but it was really fun and pretty funny with this group of friends.

Our after-dinner entertainment was to pile in one car and go see absolutely amazing lights in a nearby neighborhood, including a home that had lights synced to soft Christmas music.  All in all, it was a fantastic evening out with dear friends!

Dinner company

My Aunt Boo and Uncle Wayne brought us dinner one night last week, and we enjoyed such a lovely evening with them.  They are such precious people, and we absolutely love time with them.  So do our ladies- they were on fabulous behavior the whole evening.  Entertainment for the night became Uncle Wayne, his iPhone and all its tricks.

 Those girls were wrapped around his little finger.

I also received Aunt Boo's third cookbook, just completed!  Her cookbooks are staples in my kitchen and have many many family recipes, so I was delighted to be honored with her third creation.

Those folks are such blessings to us, and we loved having a night with them!

Hooky

Last week, the twins had runny noses and needed to stay home from church, so we let Janie stay with them and Jake.  When I left for church, they were in full tea party dress-up mode.

 This picture is significant.

 Because when I got home, it turns out Blythe had fallen and once again, busted her sweet baby nose and lip.  This was three hours later, after her nap- look how puffy Sweet Girl still is! In a full smile, you could not even see her top teeth.

 I gave Jake a pretty hard time for letting that happen on his watch, only because I have been given grief for the multiple times Blythe has been injured on MY watch.  THANKFULLY, she is one tough lady and rebounds amazingly quickly!

It just goes to show, it's better to be at church.

Yights

Blythe has a hard time with her "L" sound, so in her words, we've had a lot of fun going to see "yights" this year.

This lovely area is actually right by the playground we play on every Wednesday after BSF.  We were delivering dinner to friends with a new baby very close to this spot the other night, so we took Jake by to see the lights at night!

The next day, we celebrated that Nathaniel's daddy is officially Dr. Mark! The degree of excitement we felt for these friends was pretty huge, since Jake will acquire the same prefix in a year and we understand the road they took to reach that big day.

 That evening we joined the precious Sheerin family down at Atlantic Station for the snow show. After seeing the snow at the Grove in LA a few years ago, we couldn't wait to do this.  Well, obviously the highlight of the evening was being with these sweet friends.

That worked out well because the "snow" was an absolute dud.  Thankfully the kids were too young to pick up on the fact that it only"snowed on" about 10 square feet!

Making treats, playing with blocks

The other day, it was a rare morning without obligations, and we stayed in pajamas for a loooong time, having a GREAT morning at home!  These treats were our treats of the season, an easy go-to for gifts.

The intructions are from Holly.  All you need is Ritz crackers, dark mint melting chocolates (sold at craft stores- plain dark chocolate is OK if mint choc is not available), and candy cane bits/ peppermint sprinkles (conveniently available at World Market.) Melt the chocolates according to the bag instructions, dip crackers, sprinkle on the peppermint before chocolate dries. Abby Jane and I do it together- I dip crackers, she puts on the sprinkles.

She did sneeze on an entire completed sheet that morning.  It was a bit of a bummer to throw out a
batch, but she's a fabulous enough sous chef most of the time that I can overlook the sneeze. :)

 After the little girls got up, there was a block bananza in the kitchen.

This is Blythe's concentrated look.  She does it every time she's really focusing.  It's so funny to see how Joy is so coordinated in gross motor skills, but she's not great at blocks and other things involving fine skills/ dexterity.  Blythe is fantastic with fine motor skills, but she's not nearly as athletically coordinated as Joy. They make the perfect pair. :) Below you also see Joy saying, "mine!"  Because we didn't have two entire bags full of blocks dumped on the ground, and that one block that Blythe had was surely vital to Joy's existence.

So often grown-ups aren't much different than kids.

Class Party

They did a few precious songs in the beginning.

 I love how focused she is in this moment- and the looks on her friends' faces at the same time!

They received a few ornaments, had some yummy treats, did a fun craft, the parents all had fun getting to know each other more...

 and putting faces to names of sweet little friends!!!