Pancakes!

A few months ago, Brett was making breakfast and started some pancakes. He's much better about letting the kids help in the kitchen than I am, so they were sitting on the counter while he worked on breakfast. Somehow they decided to try making fun shaped pancakes. I think the first ones they did were initials for everyone.

They did this a couple of different times, and each time they all had a blast, Dad included. It reminded me of a blog I had found sometime in my blog stalking of a dad who did the same thing with his daughter. He just started doing shapes one day, and enjoyed it so much that it morphed into a new kind of art...pancake art. If you've never been to Jim's Pancakes, you need to check it out. It's incredible. Anyway, Jim published a book of 75 different pancake sculptures (for lack of a better word) and I decided that Brett and the kids had to have it. So for Christmas they got the book and three squeeze bottles to help in the drawing process.

They have now used the supplies two different times, and every time it has been a huge hit. This last time I finally decided to get out the camera to showcase some of their creations. What do you think?

It's a lion....RAWR!

The lion...couldn't quite get a good angle on it before Brianna attacked it. :-)

Albino Ladybugs. :-) Big kids decided after they had started they wanted ladybugs...not enough red led to  this...

New Year's Eve with the Thurmans!

For the last couple of years we have spent Christmas Eve Day with our good friends, the Thurmans. It started the year that we got at least a foot of snow in the days leading up to Christmas, so we invited them to go sledding. Last year, with no snow (sound familiar?) we ended up having lunch at their house and just hanging out.

This year our schedules made it impossible to continue our tradition, so we decided to hang out on New Year's Eve instead. We started off at Blast Off. Since we got there pretty early, there were very few people there and we basically had the place to ourselves, which was awesome. By the time we left it was filling up and we were so glad we did it that way! Then we went to the Thurman's house (our get-togethers are usually at their house...since it's about twice the size of ours. :-) for lunch.

We always have a good time with this awesome family, and end up staying way past what we expected. Here are a few photos I managed while we were watching the kids play at Blast Off!

Miss Brianna is the queen of slides, so she loved climbing up so she could slide down again.

Kylee was in awe of Alyssa's ability to hang upside down. :-)

 

 

Poor Spencer. He's 10, almost 11, and is thoroughly bored when we hang out since none of our kids are his age.

Kandy treated the kids to some games in the arcade.

Christmas

Christmas was crazy this year, as always! We spent most of the month of December listening to Christmas music, decorating, baking, and learning more about Jesus. Our Primary gave the kids a reading schedule for the weeks leading up to Christmas of scriptures in which the birth of Christ was fortold. It was really fun to read those with the kids and try to keep more of our focus on Jesus. Kylee now prays that we will remember his birth in most of her dinner/bedtime prayers. :-)

Kylee had her school program the last day of classes, on the 16th. It was really great having her home for the whole week leading up to Christmas, and I think she was super excited about it too. She did great in the program and was singing her songs for days before and many days after the performance.

Kinda hard to see, but Kylee is wearing a yellow/white striped shirt, and she's right in the middle.

I decided that I wanted to do some Christmas "mini" sessions this year to utilize some of the ideas I've been storing. I had a couple of friends decide to do it, so I was able to do some pics of Aedan and Brianna while I had the backdrops all set up. I had good intentions of doing Kylee's when she was home from school...eventually. :-) We still haven't done hers, so we're missing the 'J' in our 'Joy'. :-) I think I'll still do it even though Christmas is over just so I can have the complete set.

 

I continued last year's "tradition" of not taking a single photo of Christmas day. Someday I'll probably be sorry, but in the moment it's so much easier to enjoy when I'm not juggling the camera! Either way, we had a great Christmas!