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12/31/11

One of our New Year's Eve party games.

Matthew pins the '12' on 2011.  He got a direct hit.  

Happy New Year everyone!

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12/30/11

We took down the Christmas tree today.  We might have kept it up longer but the tree was getting pretty dry.  Here is all that's left of the breakable ornaments.  Most of them broke on the Okinawa to Colorado journey.  One of our sterlite Christmas boxes was crushed almost beyond recognition and a lot of the breakable ornaments didn't survive.  And a few more were broken by the kids within the past few weeks.  One glass ball ornament was thrown across the room by Anna when Matthew asked her to toss it to him.  We had to have a talk about throwing ornaments after that.  Anyway, these are the few survivors, some of these were broken too but only partially.  :)  May they survive another year.

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12/29/11

I got a picture of Grant's top teeth.  Still can't get those bottom ones in a picture.  And it's a shame, 'cause they are so cute!

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12/28/11

Matthew got some Legos for Christmas and he was very excited about them.  He made a helicopter with this set and then took it apart to make an airplane.  Good job Matthew!

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12/27/11

I cut Anna's hair today and she immediately went to put a bow in it and mess it up.  She doesn't like me touching her hair or taking pictures of her so I didn't get a very good hair picture.

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12/26/11

Matthew made some special presents for Scott and I in his preschool class.  I got this beaded keychain.  it was hidden under the tree too well and we forgot about it until this morning.  A special day after Christmas present.

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12/25/11

Christmas morning.  The kids were opening a present that was addressed to all of them.

They were excited!  Merry Christmas everyone!

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12/24/11

We had a little Christmas Eve program and we acted out the nativity story.

Matthew wanted to be a wise man (and wore his Indian outfit from Cody and Alycia - thanks guys!) and Anna wanted to be a shepherd.  She also volunteered one of her dolls to be baby Jesus.

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11/23/11

Making marshmallow cream fudge.  Mmmm.

356/365

12/22/11

Scott, Matthew and Anna playing in the snow.

They had so much fun.  See more HERE.

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12/21/11

This is what Grant does when I try to take a picture of his cute teeth!

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12/20/11

Little Grant followed Scott around for a long time today and finally got some snuggles!

See more pictures HERE.

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12/19/11

Riding the Santa Express!

It was snowy and cold (very festive) and we got to see Santa!

See more pictures HERE.

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12/18/11

All dressed for Christmas.

Grant had an outfit that matched with Matthew, but I didn't get him in the picture.
This was after church, so we were already looking a little unkempt.

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12/17/11

We decorated gingerbread cookies today.

My cookies weren't very popular for eating, but we had fun decorating them. :)

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12/16/11

Matthew went to a birthday party for one of his preschool friends today.

Can you guess where the party was held?  They all had a great time!

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12/15/11

The kids and I made gumdrop Christmas trees today.  They were supposed to look like the gumdrop tree picture HERE, but I've learned not to fight their creative processes.  So they are a little more abstract than originally planned.  :)

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12/14/11

A house in our neighborhood does a music and lights show (you tune your car radio to a certain station to hear the coordinating music).  It was quite the show.  They did three songs, that they run continuously in a loop.  I'll put it up against ones I've seen on the internet.  It was fun to see!
Here are some of my faves from the internet so you can get an idea what it's like.
Music Box Dancer Christmas Lights (if you only watch one of these, watch this one) 
Wizards in Winter Christmas Lights
Wizards in Winter 2 Christmas Lights
Carol of the Bells Christmas Lights
And as a bonus, I actually found one of the songs from the one in our neighborhood on the internet already
Wizards of Winter in COS
Wizards in Winter is a popular one for Christmas music/lights displays.

347/365

12/13/11

Matthew decorated this gingerbread house at his preschool party last week.

Most of the candy has already been eaten, but I like the happy face.

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12/12/11

Poor Anna.

She was so tired she fell asleep while we were running errands.  

And sadly, I had to wake her up to go get Matthew from school.  :(

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12/11/11

Sick!

I caught some kind of cold this past week and lost my voice.  I've had almost no voice for five days now.  I think my kids like that I can't yell at them  :)  I really want to get my voice back 'cause the church choir (of which I am a part) is singing Christmas songs next Sunday (and the following one).  I hope I can get my voice back!

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12/10/11

Grant got a few new teeth last week.  I tried to get a picture of the upper one!

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12/9/11

We made a cinnamon roll Christmas tree for part of our breakfast.

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12/8/11

Comice Pears

They were so good we ate the whole flat of pears in a day.

The kids loved them, even Grant.

341/365

12/7/11

Anna thought it was funny how I took my shoes off.

I think my sister takes her shoes off the same way.

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12/6/11

We set our shoes out for Sinterklaas on the night of Dec. 5th.

The next morning there were some little treats in there!  The kids were excited!

339/365

12/5/11

Currently reading this book.  Pretty interesting.

And it reminds me how cold those winters are in New England.

338/365

12/4/11

I got a bunch of hot cocoa.  It was good and I was amazed how sweet it was for "no sugar added" cocoa.  I looked closer at the ingredients later and saw that it had artificial sweetener.  :(  Oh well.  It tastes good.

337/365

12/3/11

Mr. Matthew (a little blurry)

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12/2/11

Matthew dressed up at the Christmas creche exhibit.

He had a lot of fun.

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12/1/11

It's December!!!  That means we can start doing advent calendars!

Here is one we make every year.  We put a sticker on the numbers one day at a time.

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11/30/11

I made one of Scott's favorite dinners tonight: chicken nuggets.

He was very happy!

333/365

11/29/11

We decorated our Christmas tree tonight.  Some of us were more excited about it than others.

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11/28/11

We decorated our tiny Christmas tree tonight.

Tomorrow we'll decorate the big one.

331/365

11/27/11

Parmesan polenta in the slow cooker.  Have I mentioned I've been big on the slow cooker lately?  I love polenta and this turned out really good.  Wake up in the middle of the night thinking about it good.  Anna also liked it (she is a big fan of most grain-like foods - oatmeal, couscous, orzo, grits) but the boys were just luke warm.  :)  More for me to dream about.

330/365

11/26/11

Today we went to see the Nutcracker Ballet.  It was very nice and feeling quite in the Christmas spirit, we stopped on the way home to get a Christmas tree.  Our tree was still tied up for easy transport, and when we got home and untied it, it took a while to relax.  I thought we should help it a long by fluffing up the branches, but Scott thought we should just let it open up on it's own.  Eventually it looked like a normal tree again.  :)

329/365

11/25/11

The kids have taken over Dad's chair while we watched A Muppet Christmas Carol.

Watching that makes me really want to watch Scrooge (the musical version).  

My favorite Christmas Carol movie!

328/365

11/24/11

Our Thanksgiving feast.

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11/23/11

I made pies today in preparation for Thanksgiving.

I'm not the best at making pie crust, but I will not let it beat me!!

I'm going to keep trying til I am awesome (or at least decent) at making pie.  ;)

I might be better at it if I made them more than a couple times a year.  :)

They actually turned out pretty well this time, if not completely beautiful.

Our selections this year: chocolate pecan and apple.  YUM!

326/365

11/22/11

The kids and I made turkey cookies today.

Some of them looked more like turkeys than others.  :)

325/365

11/21/11

We had a family night lesson about gratitude today.

At the end we drew pictures about things we were grateful for.  

Matthew drew his bike and Anna drew a motorcycle(??).

I guess that lesson didn't really sink in fully.  ;)
Anna also felt very threatened when I drew a picture of Dad too close to her motorcycle.
She thought he was going to ride it and was NOT cool with that! 

324/365

11/20/11

Made homemade yogurt today.  The kids LOVED it!  Hooray!

323/365

11/19/11

We made pumpkin pie in a cup today.

Got the recipe HERE.

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11/18/11

Dad and the kids.  It's been so nice having Scott home this month.  Come December he will start traveling again, but we've enjoyed having him here in November!

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11/17/11

Grant learned a new trick where he can make raspberry sounds on Scott's arm.

We couldn't stop laughing about it.

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11/16/11

I was just thinking of doing a music lesson for the next cooperative preschool lesson I teach when Matthew brought this fun shaker home from school.  Good ideas everywhere.

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11/15/11

Playing with some color matching printables.  The kids loved it!

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11/14/11

Today was a big day for Grant 'cause he started crawling!  He actually took his first crawl steps when we were at someone else's house for a playgroup.  I was very excited...but also a little terrified!  This opens a new chapter in our life with Grant: mobility.

317/365

11/13/11

I tried to make pot roast in the slow cooker today since I had choir practice and such after church.  The meat was a little dry, but it was edible.  I am now sort of obsessed with the slow cooker!  So convenient!

316/365

11/12/11

Our little buddy, Grant.  He's just over 7 months old now and so eager to get moving!