Ginger Bread Houses :)

We had the awesome opportunity on Saturday, December 10th (one day I'll stay up to date with blogging) to go to our friends' the Adams' house and decorate some gingerbread houses with them and get to know each other a little better. It was so much fun hanging out and having the opportunity to spend time with them other than in passing. Kim even made cute little "trees" for Lena and Jackson to decorate. Of course, Lena was more interested in eating the candy, but did get a couple of marshmallows stuck to her tree before eating them. :) I was also so impressed with how well Lena played with Jackson. Usually, if we are getting together with anyone I have a hard time keeping a conversation because Lena is constantly needing me, but this time she was playing and having fun the whole time! It was so much fun to see her enjoy herself. :)

I just have to say that Kim pretty much inspires me! She is so cute and crafty and always has such good ideas on activities to do with Jackson. One example is the cans that she put the candy in for decorating. (shown in the pictures)... she made these out of used formula cans! What a good idea. I just threw all of mine away! :P What was I thinking?

So of course I forgot my camera, but Kim was so awesome to take some pictures for me and e-mail them to me... here they are:

Here's the beautiful set-up!

Lena eating marshmallows from her "tree" :)

Lena and Jackson both enjoying some candy. :)

All of our houses from left to right: Kim, T.J., Olga, Randy. We voted Kim's house best use of marshmallows, or most simple. :) T.J. won the prize for most candy used, ha ha, he was so funny trying to sprinkle nerds all over his house. Mine won the prize for the most used frosting and Randy won the prize for best overall. I have to say, I was quite surprised at how amazing and creative Randy's turned out... he's a guy... I was expecting something much... well... different. :)

Close up of Mine and Randy's houses. :)

Thanks for the pictures Kim!

Finally Decorating! :)

So being the busy people that we are lately... we just barely got around to decorating yesterday inside the house... outside still needs to be done. It was so fun to decorate with Lena... she enjoyed throwing the ornaments on the tree and emptying the decoration box. :)

She also discovered a large amount of fun in a string of beads. Last night we spent about an hour playing with these beads. It started by throwing them across the kitchen and watching them slide... then by throwing them in and out of the decoration box, then by holding one end while walking and giggling while we watched them follow us around... and last but not least, making Sine waves out of them across the kitchen. :) Here is Randy helping Lena make her Sine waves with the beads:

"Gas"

Is Lena's way of saying "glasses" :) She has taken much interest in them lately... well, a new interest... she used to be interested in taking them and bending them so far out that they would almost break, but now she has an interest in actually putting them on. :) She can put them on all by herself and walks around so proud of herself while wearing them. :)

Here are some pictures. :)

Cherry Chocolates!

I believe we have successfully made it a tradition to make homemade cherry chocolates over Thanksgiving weekend in Monroe. This is the second year we did it. It is a LOT of work, but after a year we tend to forget how much work it was and remember how yummy they tasted afterwards. :) Here are some pictures of the fun:

Here is a picture from when we did it last year. It was so fun to see Randy and Jessie hard at work making the fondant.

And here they are at it again this year :)

Cherries after we dipped them in the fondant.

Jessie sneaking one of the cherries dipped in fondant then dipped in chocolate ;)

Cherry chocolates after dipping them in chocolate :) (Without Jessie sneaking one)

Here's a close-up of one of Jessie's chocolates... she likes to add a signature swirl on the top of hers. :P

And here we are taking a break while we wait for more chocolate to be melted.

Randy taking a seat. :)

Jessie taking a seat on the floor and having a snack :)

Becky cheating and licking her fingers!!! Don't worry, she's one of the cleanest people I know and washed her hands after this picture was taken... I'm sure you were worried. :P (Please be sure to notice Jessie, still on the floor in the background, ha ha! Love you Jess!)

And you can tell how much work it was by the slightly messy hair and stressed look ;)... jk... I'm pretty sure the hair was from taking a nap earlier. And I was posing to be stressed. :P

Thanksgiving Weekend with the Williams

We had the chance to go to Monroe for Thanksgiving this year. It's been a while since we've seen Jessie, Greg and the boys and now that Lena is older she interacted a lot more with them this time. She had so much time playing with them! Here are just a couple pictures of the fun they had:

Lena didn't want to sit in her high chair, she wanted to sit at the counter with Andy and pretty much watched him the whole time. :)

Except for in this picture where I got her to look at the camera :)

Chris had so much fun playing with Lena. He was so cute with her! He pushed her around on this little fire engine a lot.

More of Chris pushin' Lena around. :)

Unfortunately Lena got sick near the end of the weekend. :( She was really cuddly and tired. Here is a sweet picture of Randy's dad holding her when she was sleeping. He also fell asleep with her on the couch but it was too dark for a picture. :(

All Packed Up

So my dad got these suitcases out when Eva was getting ready to pack up and leave but she didn't end up using them. They hung out in the front room for a couple of days and one of those days I was curious to see what sort of pockets on of them had and started opening it up. I was baby-sitting the babies that day and Jimmy ran over to me and started trying to climb into one of them. Jimmy not only loves to climb, but he loves to be in very small, tight spaces... so this was a dream to him. I thought... why not, so I started with Lena first (since she is smaller) to see if she would fit. She sat down in it and fit quite snug... I rolled her around for a bit as Jimmy chased me around and then said "Okay, Jimmy's turn" and took Lena out... well that was NOT okay with her... she through a FIT and wanted to get back in... my dad happened to be there at the time so helped Lena get into the other one and we wheeled them around for about half an hour! They LOVED it and ALMOST fell asleep in them. :)

Here's my dad with both of them in their suitcases :)

Jimmy liked nibbling on side of his. :)

Jimmy

Lena

Chime, Chalk and Wood :)

My sister Eva is very lively and happy. Another thing that she is, is very creative. She loves art and old fashioned things. She is always making cool collages and mosaics. When she worked at the Barnes & Noble Cafe at Gateway she brought home all of the empty coffee cans that would've gotten thrown away otherwise. She had them stacked up in a mountain in her bedroom and said she had plans to make a wind chime out of them! Who would've ever thought of doing that? I can't believe how creative she is. Here is a portion of the final product in a picture we took one day when Lena and I were playing in my parents' backyard. :)

Here's some of the other fun that Lena and Jimmy had that same day:

This is Lena's and I'm guessing Jimmy's first time drawing with chalk. :)

Jimmy liked carrying around this two-by-four... what a man! :)