Christmas Cookies and Holiday Hearts

I LOVE THIS SONG!! It represents my childhood Christmas!


My sister and I would put this record on the record player and dance and spin and make up dances to all the songs.
My mom would make cookies as fast as she could,
and then hide them as fast as she made them,
so that I would not EAT them as fast as I could.


I love Christmas cookies! Especially the Lincoln Logs, the snowballs, the nut cups and the cut out cookies with the icing.


What is your favorite cookie? And WHY??

Do They Know its Christmas?

I know that it dates me so...but it is JUST NOT Christmas with out hearing this one at least once.  I remember shoppping at the mall and squishing up against the clothes rack to hear it better!!


I was CRAZY for Duran Duran in high school...my favorite, John, is 10 seconds into the video!!!! He plays the bass guitar so you can see him rocking out with the other bass players at the 2 min mark and beyond.  SQUEAL!!!
(OK I'm back...)  Can you even identify all the bands/singers present??


Anyway, enjoy!! I have much to do. Now that I have decorated the blog, I must decorate my home, help in Tallen's class, make cookies, make chocolates, visit with friends, get ready for new babies in the family (no - not me...) the list goes on and on.


Happy Getting ready for the Holidays!!!


what songs, traditions make it "the Holidays" for you??

Howell Balloonfest

Each June, Howell hosts the Balloon Fest. Challenge. It’s a hot air balloon race of sorts.  It amounts to lots more traffic through town, lots of area churches making the charging to park people on church grounds,  yummy fair food (so not good for you),  and there are plenty of hot air balloons that go overhead. There is also an arts fair and carnival.  Thursday night was “park for free and go to the carnival for $15 arm band night.”  Everything else opens on Friday.

The girls were dropped off early to hang as a gaggle of girls until 7pm when we got there with Tallen.

Tallen was not sure how to do this all and WOULD NOT get on any rides – and we had just paid $15 for the arm band!!

So needless to say, Mama was getting agitated by the boy crying and not riding. 

THEN, I had an “AH HA!! Moment” and pulled Randa off her rides and she introduced Tallen to the joys of carnival rides. 

             MUCH Better!!

 

 

Then, for the rest of the night it was hard to get him OFF the rides!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Boys are a good thing!!

Steven and I didn’t go for the arm bands, but I wanted to ride one ride with Tallen. So we chose the Huge Ferris Wheel  

Here is the top most car from the ground. WOW!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

This is Steven taking pictures. We were still on the ground.

 

Here he is from my view at the top of the Ferris Wheel. (He’s the tiny yellow dot) Boy was it high up!

 

 

 

The plan with the girls was for them to hang in the gaggle of girls and call or text me every so often to check in.  This is actually Sariah dialing the phone to check in with me. 

 

I crept up and scared them….

hahaha  !! (evil laugh)

 

I know, I’m bad!!

These girls  are  so beautiful!

I forget sometimes how grown up they are becoming.  I am finding that balance between holding them tight and letting them test their wings…but I digress.

Back to the fun…

 

Here are the kids while waiting to go on the bumper cars I think.  Sariah and Tallen drove together and Miranda in her own car.  We had tons of fun and stayed until 10pm!!! They rode and rode and rode!  Good value on that arm band.

 

 

This is video of the the girls on the tiny roller coaster.

And after of the roller coaster…don’t get motion sick. hahaha

This is one of Tallen on HIS roller coaster – his favorite ride of the night.

Easter Morning 2010

I know, much time has gone by since Easter.  I wanted to document the occasion though, so bear with me.

So, let’s rewind a few posts and think of where we have been.  The trip to Kensington Farm Center happened on the Friday before Easter. We colored eggs so the Easter Bunny might be able to hide the eggs.  Tallen REALLY enjoyed coloring the eggs and insisted upon having TWO with his name on them.  He’s funny. Last year we had 2 dozen eggs and this year we moved up to 3.  It is STILL not enough!  Next year we will have 5 dozen.  (I may not boil all 5 but I want to color them all!! I had always heard how hard it is to blow eggs and so decided to try it.  It is not nearly as hard as I had heard.  They turned out great!  I have them still sitting on the table in the center. Next year, I’ll do more of them as well and decorate with them.  OK, back to the children’s Easter.

The weather was BEAUTIFUL for the holiday so the bunny hid the eggs outside this year. Tallen had a tough time finding the eggs before the sisters got there.  (Again, next year it’ll be different.  I think colors for each child that only they can “find”…less hogging then.)

Here are some shots of the fast and furious action or the NOT so fast (first thing in the morning) action. .

Here are the kids with their Easter buckets. They got candy, a thing of play dough and of course the egg with their name on it.

 

Miranda got some mousse to help with the lovely, curliness in her hair and a purple fat pen. Very cute.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Sariah got some new shampoo to try that she liked the smell of and a green squatty fat pen.

 

Tallen got some “Hot Cars.” (Hot Wheels)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the hunt is on!!!! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hmmm. This must be where the batteries in the camera died!! So I didn’t get any of Tallen as he scampered from location to location trying his hardest to get the eggs before his sisters.

 

We had the privilege of hearing from President Thomas S. Monson and the General Authorities during General Conference this weekend so after finding the eggs and eating a wonderful breakfast of “Fancy French Toast” (it’s prepared ahead and soaks in the egg mixture overnight!  Then you bake it for 20 minutes.) we went over to the home of some friends and watched General Conference broadcast online.  They have a larger TV than we do.  That too needs to change…  We have more space to sit and what not but, they have the larger TV. So we squeeze in and enjoy the time of fellowship and peace. And then we shared the Easter meal.  They made ham and some sides and we made a sides and dessert.  I made carrot cake!!! 

Get it? Easter…CARROTS???? 

I thought it was funny anyway…

Farm City Day…

When I was a girl, my sister and I would visit my Mother in Pennsylvania on the dairy farm she and her husband ran. There were like 200 of these:

So Megan and I got to feed the calves their bottles, feed the “teenager cows” feed and water (I loved the water dispensers…VERY cool to a kid) and even GOT to help in the milking parlor in the evenings and clean up the parlor and scrape the manure afterward (to put it politely) into the barn to later make it into the pit out back and into the fertilizer spreader later.  Being on a farm was a vacation for me until I graduated from high school and moved there to live and was expected to do my part…but that’s a different blog entry all together. 

During the summers, there was a thing called “Farm City Day” when the kids from the city would come out and play farmer for the day. There were milk drinking contests, hay rides, goat milking, and other fun farm stuff.

My children would be THOSE city kids! 

How foreign farm animals are to them!!

We started off Spring Break 2010 by going to Kensington Lake Metro Park.  They have a Farm Center there with a barn full of animals downstairs, where all the babies are born and an educational area upstairs and then the more open farm areas outside. 

Sariah made a point to tell me “I’ll go see the baby pigs but I DON’T want to walk around and see the other stuff.” (Where did she think she’d be while the rest of us were wandering?? Needless to say, I put her in charge of photos and she was all about walking around to EVERY SINGLE ANIMAL!)

Checking out the goats

 

 

 

 

Trying to PET  the goats

 

 

 

 

 

      He isn't so sure yet about touching them.

 

 

 

 

 

 

STOP! 

Before you look at the next photo, let me tell you a bit about this girl.

Sariah is my “Ultra Clean” child.  She doesn’t like to be dirty, WOULDN’T finger paint as a small girl…not even with Chocolate pudding and is allergic to soft and fuzzy animals.  Her eyes puff up and tear. And remember she “wasn’t going to LIKE seeing all the animals”

Here SHE is:

(OK – you can look now)

I happen to adore the look on her face!

It says:

“Look at me!! I am TOUCHING A REAL LIVE, UP CLOSE    C-O-W!!!!”

 

 

 

Now Sariah is so COOL with it. 

“I do this all the time. This is so old hat!”

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Miranda and the same cow.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

They spent about 10 minutes with this cow taking bunches of pictures as she was eating her dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then it was on to the pigs. 

Ask Sariah what she thought of the pigs…it’s a funny story but I don’t want to embarrass her here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spring is lambing time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mama… a.k.a. Mrs. Ewe

 

 

 

 

 

1 day old lambs! So Cute!!

 

 

 

 

 

And oh so soft!

 

 

 

 

 

Dinner! Come and get it!

 

 

 

 

 

There were plenty of other lambs with their Mamas and other animals to photograph as well…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

Usually there are quite a bunch of piglets, but this year there are only 4.  They are cute and so funny.

The kids had to show off their strength and try out the pulleys. When you lift 20 lbs alone it’s REALLY heavy, when you use pulleys they pulleys do some of the work for you.  The more pulleys, the easier it is on you.

Here is Tallen demonstrating the pulleys

Getting ready…

     

 

 

 

 

 

 

One pulley…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two pulleys…    

(so much easier)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Three pulleys.    

so easy he almost fell pulling the rope.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Miranda just showing off!

She is so strong!!

 

 

 

 

 

A lot of gals have to WORK for arms like this…I tell her to keep it up. Stay active and healthy.

 

Ready to carry milk into the house from the barn.

 

 

 

 

 

 Oh…, right, we don’t hand milk cows for milk.  But they are ready!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

How many hands high are you??       

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

    Sariah is 15 hands high

    Miranda is 14 1/2 hands high

 

 

 

 

 

    Tallen is 12 hands high

 

 

 

 

 

It was a great day out with the children.  After the farm we stopped for a little while at the playground. Very fun. Sariah sat in the van and listened to her Mp3 player, Miranda and Tallen played and I was able to sit for a spell and knit.

 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tallen’s new favorite activity

Climbing!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Sweet

Success!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Today, was a good day. I was able to enjoy the nature around me…

 

 

 

 

 

 

…and to just BE with my kids and not have to worry about the laundry, the dishes or the rest of the chores

 

 

 

 

 

 

Tomorrow I will go back to feeling a little like this chicken

(I feel this way often actually…)

 

 

 

 

 

 

    The children will keep     growing older…

 

 

 

 

 

 

   …and need me less and less…

 

 

 

 

 

 

    …and grow further and further  from me.

 

 

 

 

 

    But this is how God intended it to be.  It is the circle of life! We teach them and then they go out on their own…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I am glad they’ll always have each other!!!

But for now they are still up close and personal and oh so beautiful!

 

SARIAH

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

MIRANDA

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

TALLEN

 

 

 

 

 

 

(I give up!! I put it in the program and TRY to upload my beautiful and creative entry and it ends up looking like this…..SORRY, I did the best I could.)