Another Point of View

Guest Post by Callie

One of my favorite parts of Christmas is decorating sugar cookies! My mom is just great with making the cookies, but decorating is a dreaded chore for her, so the job gets passed to me and my little elves, who sometimes drop in to decorate a cookie or snitch some frosting.

These snowflakes were a random inspiration that I got when I realized that we had no yellow frosting for stars. (My mom hates making too many different colors of frosting and we often end up very limited.) So I looked around and saw snow falling outside and inspiration struck! I took some white frosting and spread it on the stars and then put some blue frosting in a pastry tube with a #3 tip and drew some lines and random designs and voila! Snowflakes!

Another favorite is my snowman.  We did not have any black frosting either (like I said, limited frosting) so I used black sprinkles and an orange nerd to do the decorating. To make the hat easier, I just laid wax paper gently over the rest of the snowman leaving only the hat part uncovered and covered it in sprinkles.  The buttons, eyes, mouth and nose are laid on by hand and I used a toothpick to make sure they were in the right place.

Candy canes are SUPER easy to do. Take red frosting and put it in a pastry bag with a #3 tip and "draw" the stripes or use two toothpicks and drop sprinkles in between the toothpicks.

Sprinkles are always fantastic to put on top of the Christmas trees for "ornaments" and a dot of yellow frosting or a yellow flower sprinkle for a star.  The airplane is kind of random, but some brothers begged, so we have an airplane or two.  I like to keep the angels simple with just an outline or white sprinkles to represent their purity and simple beauty.

Happy Halloween 2012

It really was a happy Halloween this year for all of us.  You can't beat a sunny, 72 degrees day, and fun with family and friends.  Some of my kids trick-or-treated in short sleeves for a record almost 3 hours!!!

Pumpkin carving:  no pumpkin plants from our garden this year.  We went to Macey's for family night at the beginning of October and let the kids pick out their own pumpkins for 10 cents a pound.  Wouldn't you know they all picked out the largest ones they could find - so much for variety.  Callie graciously shared with Camden and Emmie didn't get one - it was pumpkins for everyone or groceries for the week ;).

 Drew was very particular about his design - a happy vampire.

Hannah's first pumpkin that she carved all by herself - so cute and goofy!  Jacob did a google search until he found just what he wanted on his pumpkin:

 Callie stayed up later than all the other kids and worked on this piece of art:

 She's pretty proud.  It thrilled her little brother that helped pick the design out, too.
Making it's fifth annual appearance but on a new model we have the puppy dog costume:

He had fun acting like a puppy for most of the day - walking on all fours, eating food off of the carpet at Tyler's office...   

 Drew.Is.Hilarious.  Multiple times a day he would say, "Mom, I want to be (fill in the blank) for Halloween.  Please?  Please?  PLEASE?"  Accompany that with pleading big, brown eyes.  And a different request every time (but none of them a puppy dog!).  I heard requests for a dolphin, a tiger, a pirate, a Jedi, a bug-Jedi, a pig, a zebra, an Egyptian sky/eye (copying his smirky sister Hannah - and he even made his own paper costume for it), but the one that won out was a bug.  He INSISTED that was what he wanted to be.  I knew he would change his mind a dozen more times, and he did, but since I paid a whopping $8 I was not going to pay a dime more and he ended up wearing it after all. 

 Here's my bug.  He says he's a praying mantis but the costume looks strangely like a caterpillar.  Either way he is pretty cute.

 Hannah had to be something Egyptian and who wants to be one in a dozen Cleopatra's?  Not my daughter.  So she was a pyramid.  Her favorite moment of the day:  hearing a 2nd grader naming off each costume in the parade as the kids walked by.  He saw Hannah and said, "Look, it's the Eiffel Tower!"  

 This is one of those epic costumes that needs to be used again and again.  A true labor of love, by the request of Jacob.  Thank goodness for google and another mom pioneering the way and leaving instructions.  I have a few more tips to add should you ever want to make this:

I do have to say that I was so happy to conjure up something creative, so keep those juices flowing for next year, bud!

 Our cute ladybug & sister Hannah

The two bugs together

The only thing different about Callie's costume this year

Who can resist a french fry?

Nothing brings a bigger smile to my face than seeing this wonderful group of children all together and happy, and to know they are mine!

The older children dispersed with friends and Daddy took this crowd out for awhile.  Emmie got hungry after awhile and was dropped off at home.  Camden got a good fright in one front yard and hightailed it home.  He took it upon himself to answer the door and pass out candy and did a great job.  Drew went through the spooky haunted hause despite being terrified.  Tyler was super impressed with his determination to go through with it.  

And now after 4 children trick-or-treating for an extremely long period of time we have a ridiculous amount of candy.  Does anyone have a good idea of what to do with this stuff besides eat it???  It's mostly chocolate and I'm wondering if there are fun treats to make...

What's your eggscuse?

The eggs on the side are medium.  The one second to the right, a large.  And the one to the left of that?  I don't think they catagorize them in that league. 

Nothing like a little bit of peer pressure in the chicken coop.  If they want to try to one-up each other, we are not stopping them.  

(for the record, this egg *only* had two yolks - bets in the house ranged from 2-4)

Part of This Complete Breakfast

 After eating a bowl of cereal, try some fruit.

Because nectarines and tomatoes are part of this complete breakfast.  Just ask Camden.

Random

I finally got around to looking through hundreds of pictures and posting about important things.  Now for the random tidbits that deserve to be remembered as well.

 My boys decided that underwear made great head-gear this summer.  I thought it really funny that a friend's girls did the same thing around the same time, and that if you turn the underwear around it accommodates piggy tails really well.

 Emmie is not short on playmates.

 Meet Mr. Stripey.  It's an amazing, meaty tomato.  Biting in to this thing is AMAZING.

 Somebody got into the stash of garden produce to share.  Somebody named Camden.

 Callie finished my Mother's Day gift - a cute apron.  I've always wanted one of these and I love it!

Here's my number one kitchen assistant.

 And taste-tester.

Even when things aren't quite taste-ready.

 I love this guy.  I thought he looked pretty cute when he came home from his campout.

 Callie has LOVED having time with cousin Lisa over the last couple of months.  Okay, we all love Lisa.

 Drew says he is Indiana Jones here.  You want to know what I think?  Something here strongly reminds me of the traveling salesman from Pete's Dragon - the one that tries to sell the elixir that cures all ailments.    What's really amazing is that he can go from being a tough guy to what you see below.

 I'm at a loss for words, but should I ever need to laugh, I know where to look.

Wigs courtesy of Hannah's classmate.

 Vote for Hannah Bannah - She won't let you slip up!
Hannah had a great campaign and skit but didn't make the student council - 37 kids ran for 12 slots.  We are so proud of her for participating and think she did great!

One day J & Drew got busy in the basement and came upstairs asking for "clear tape" and permission to go in my bedroom.  I could tell there was a surprise in store.  Above is the big reveal.  Details are below:

 I love that the boys know that Dad loves cars

 but Mom needs flowers and hearts.  Smart boys!

And of course, both parents love nature.  Surprises like this put a BIG smile on my heart.

Growth Spurt

A few days ago Emmie looked like this:

 Quintessential Emmie

Classic Emmie - love that this profile shows her rooster tail

Then she had a growth spurt.  She shot right out of one size of clothes and almost through the next overnight.  She's rolling around to get what she wants, grabbing on to things, and just getting cuter by the day.  Cuter, and bigger.  I love it, and I don't.  I'm so glad that pictures can bring back the sweetness of every stage.  Here's the new & improved Emmie:

 

 I gasped the first time I put this outfit on Emmie.  She looked like a LITTLE GIRL, not a baby.

 Beautiful matching sisters.

 Little bright eyes thought canning rings were a great entertainment the day I bottled tomatoes.

 If she wouldn't sleep so much, maybe she'd stop growing so fast! 

 Can you tell that she likes her fingers?  And they are always pulling at the corner of her mouth.

One word sums up having Emmie in our family:  DELIGHTFUL.