Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope this has been a great holiday for all of you. It's been mostly lovely here. We loved being at Six Flags during the holidays. Our good friend's came along with us and we had a lot of fun at the park and hanging out at our hotel. The weather was cool (upper 60's) and Six Flags was seriously decked out with Christmas lights. They had a group of singers wearing costumes from the 1800's and singing beautiful harmonized Christmas carols. I think my favorite songs were "O Come Emmanuel" and "The First Noel." There was a giant Christmas tree and they had a lighting ceremony complete with fireworks and an overly animated Santa. :O

Of course we also had a fantastic time on the roller coasters, including "Goliath," "Tony Hawk's Big Spin," and "Boomerang!" The boys were all so much fun to be with we were proud of them- they went on some BIG rides. Lucy loved all the rides she went on- there are actually tons of rides for little ones.

After an amazing stop at Culver's (if you haven't had a Butterburger you haven't lived) we zipped home just in time to put together our usual Christmas Eve feast. Our friend's came for dinner and it was so nice to collaborate on the food. (The Happy Birthday sign is for Jonah, Jesus and Isaac!)

The Dads and kids played charades while I finished up a few things for the meal and my friend Jen played the most beautiful Christmas music on the piano. Dinner: Roast Beef, Yorkshire Pudding, Mashed Golden Potatoes, Salad, Rolls and Gravy. We enjoyed chocolate pie and banana pudding for dessert. We acted out the nativity and sang a few Christmas carols before sending our friends home.

The boys were sort of toast at this point- no one got much sleep on our little trip- so we sent them to bed at a decent hour and Curtis and I crashed early as well. Today has been a lot of fun. I loved watching children open gifts. I thought Daniel would crush me with his hug after he opened his "Lego Minotaurus Game." Lucy loved the eggs the boys painted and played with them the whole time we opened gifts.


We got the boys fishing rods and they went to bayou but it was actually quite cold and windy so we will try it again next week. We felt so loved by our parents and Curt's Grandma. They all sent beautiful and thoughtful Christmas packages. Granny Turner sent some Shreddies and Smarties for Curtis and he was thrilled!! :O

Curtis and I both love games and we got some for Christmas this year. There was a lot of this going on today:

I sort of dropped the ball on Christmas day food. Too much going on with our little trip! Usually I make a Christmas stollen and have deviled eggs, oranges and herbal tea. I also usually have cheese, sausage, crackers and some kind of yummy dip for munching on. Today I managed to get the tea made. Dang! So everyone has pretty much been eating Christmas chocolate and cookies all day. After a lovely Christmas Day nap I was ready to be a better mom and made some bread and soup. The recipe is from my friend, Sarah and I've wanted to try it for awhile. It was AMAZING!

I'll post the recipe asap but am being attacked by Lucy right now!!

We are all going upstairs to watch "Lord of the Rings" and then off to bed. We have thought of many of you this week and hope you've had a wonderful holiday. LY

Commence whining...

So every year December ends up being pretty crazy. This year I swore it would be different. I wouldn't volunteer for huge events at school or church. No Christmas cards and baking only if I felt like it.

But then I remembered the Christmas concert put on by my church and the neighboring Catholic church, Epiphany. I've wanted to be in ever since we moved here. It made the season fly by. Overall I'm glad I sang with the choir. The music was beautiful and it was so fun to sing with a big group, but definitely a big time committment.

And then I couldn't stop myself- I started baking. It's Kelly's fault, one of my bf's from Minnesota. Every Christmas she made this absolutely amazing assortment of cookies and delivered them to a bunch of friends. Long story short, I've lost count of the pounds of butter I've gone through in the last few weeks!

FYI: the big one is Sarah's gingerbread (spicy and yummy b/c it has a tsp of ground pepper in it- yum!), Pretzel turtles, Better Homes fudge, Mexican wedding balls and Creme wafers.

Then, when we were sort of homebound b/c Jonah broke his arm we decided to make some homemade gifts. It's actually been really fun and very satisfying for the kids. They are so excited to give their presents to eachother. Some of the other homemade gifts are: duct tape accessories, key chain deco, an origami mobile and play eggs for Lucy. These have been fun but not time/effort free.

So then I started receiving all these beautiful Christmas cards from friends and remembered how much I love getting them. So we suffered through family pics (Marci you're a life saver) and after a few Costco debacles got them in the mail- they'll all probably be late.

I had grand plans of special family nights singing around the piano and guitar, making gingerbread houses, watching all the best Christmas movies and decorating the tree. Well we actually have done a lot of singing, ending most evenings with a couple of Christmas songs. But we haven't watched a single Christmas movie yet and just decorated the tree last week! Luckily our friends invited us over just this week for gingerbread house making! It was happy chaos!

Just look at the kids if you are wondering about the ratio of candy put on the house to candy put in their mouth!

Factor in several doctor visits for Jonah, a root canal for me and two birthday parties (Isaac's is actually next week and we're mostly ready) and this month has just FLOWN!

Tomorrow we're going to Six Flags. The weather has been so nice and hopefully it'll be a fun day, fun for the kids anyway. Every year as a mom I realize that the holidays are mostly for the kids because as my pal at Chaos Theory has said, somebody has to make it all happen!!

As always I'm in awe of my mom and all the work she put into making holidays special. I've carried on her traditions of special music on Christmas morning (Percy Faith's "We Need a Little Christmas"- can't listen to it without tearing up), Christmas roast with yorkshire pudding and stocking stuffers that include but aren't limited to: an orange, a toothbrush, a mini box of sugar ceral, nail clippers and chocolate.

I guess my point is that the holidays are probably going to be a little hectic as long as I want to continue these special yearly traditions. And I have to say that I think it's worth it.

Thanks Designmom

I love the idea of homemade Christmas gifts but really haven't done much in the past b/c the boys were young and it seemed like I was just doing most of the work. But they're getting older now and I've been inspired by lots of great ideas online. Since Jonah has been home from school we decided to spend some time working on his gifts. Found a great tutorial here from Designmom and had a lot of fun today making a few shirts. I sent Jonah out for a bit and made one for him too. Shhhh...

Curtis totally belives in Sasquatch (or bigfoot as us yanks say) but he'll try to play this shirt off likes it a joke.

Jonah's a huge Percy Jackson fan so I think he will love this one.

Isaac's really into smiley faces (mostly because Jonah was recently really into smiley faces) so this one should make him happy!

Explosion with noises- yep, this one's up Dan's ally.

These were really simple. I found the shirts at Old Navy for $5 each and bought some letter stickers at Hobby Lobby for $2. We used contact paper for the cutouts. One thing I noticed is that old, dark shirts work so much faster than newer, lighter shirts. If I do it again I'll try to find some shirts at Goodwill.

Full on Believer

Last Friday my neighbor and I were watching our boys play football in the yard. They kept tackling eachother, sometimes on the concrete. Ouch! I made the mistake of mentioning that we haven't had any broken bones and have really been lucky with injuries. It's quite amazing actually considering my boys are huge climbers. Jonah has been scaling play structures and walls since he was two. I've been busted by a busybody parent more than once while playing at a park with my little spiderman.

Anyway, not 10 minutes after I made that comment, Jonah slipped in our home and fell on his outstretched arm, right on the tile! You heard me, it wasn't while roller blading or tree climbing or tackling or bike stunting... it was while jumping up to grab a basket in my kitchen. I'm not proud to say that I totally panicked when I saw his deformed arm. I yelled to Curtis and we both sort of ran back and forth for 30 seconds. Then Curtis threw his shoes on and I grabbed a huge super cold ice pack for Jonah's arm and they were off to the emergency room.

I spent the next several hours feeding the kids, cleaning up the house and crying. I hated not being with Jonah when I knew he was in agony. He and Curtis spent the next 5 hours waiting and waiting at the hospital. They came home with Jonah's arm in a splint and a bottle of codine. We were told he might need surgery but that we would have to wait until Monday or Tuesday! Arghh! Do I live in Canada? On Tuesday Jonah went in for surgery but they ended up being able to manipulate his bones back into place (injury is called supracondylar humerus fracture fyi) without cutting him open and put in 4 pins. The anesthesia made him so ill and he spent the rest of the day pretty miserable. Today he's feeling much better and will probably go back to school next week. I'm nervous to send him, especially since he doesn't even have a cast. What if someone plows into him in the hallway at school? OUCH!

He's been such a good little soldier, especially considering that his lacrosse season just started and he's pretty much out for the whole thing. He also can't type or play piano and his birthday is next week but we're putting off the party until January so he can enjoy it more. It's not all bad. We've actually had a really nice time together this week ( just finished "Race to Witch Mountain." Not bad- I can pretty much watch "The Rock" in anything but this is my fav. Love that guy). Jonah is so fun to talk with and he's very sweet with Lucy, always willing to read her a story or listen to music with her. I've actually gotten a bunch of cleaning done since I can't go anywhere. We're thankful for healthcare and good doctors and hopeful that the injury will heal correctly so he can go back to being the fun and active boy he is.


Last night Jonah was schedule to receive his "Arrow of Light" in scouts and he felt well enough to go.


Moral of this post: Knock on wood

If you still have a can of pumpkin lying around...

Does Pumpkin Lasagna sound wrong? Actually the first time I read through the recipe my mouth was totally watering. I love pumpkin. My family doesn't adore this recipe but everyone ate it... and I adore it! I made it last year for a church activity and everyone seemed to like it. I mean really, can you go wrong with mushrooms, cheese, bacon, pasta and pumpkin?!!

Pumpkin Lasagna
From: Better Homes and Gardens
Servings: Makes 12 servings.
Total: 1 hr 55 mins
Prep: 1 hr

Ingredients
12 dried lasagna noodles
8 ounces shiitake or porcini mushrooms, stemmed and sliced
8 ounces cremini or button mushrooms, sliced (I just do all button mushrooms)
3/4 teaspoon kosher salt or 1/2 tsp. salt
2 tablespoons olive oil
12 slices bacon, cut crossways into 1/4 inch strips
1-1/2 cups chopped onion
3 tablespoons snipped fresh sage or 2 tsp. dried leaf sage, crushed
2 15-ounces cans pumpkin
3/4 cup whole milk or half-and-half
1 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 teaspoon cider vinegar
1 teaspoon kosher salt or 3/4 tsp. salt
1 15-ounce carton ricotta cheese
1 lb. fresh mozzarella cheese, cut into thin slices (or you could just buy the grated kind)
6 ounces Parmigiano-Reggiano or Grana Padano cheese, finely shredded (1-1/2 cups)


Directions
1. Cook noodles according to package directions. Drain; set aside. In skillet cook mushrooms and 3/4 teaspoon salt in hot olive oil over medium heat until tender and no liquid remains. Remove; set aside. Add bacon to skillet; cook until crisp. Remove; set aside. Discard all but 1 tablespoon drippings in skillet. Add onion; cook in drippings until tender. Add sage; cook 30 seconds. Add the pumpkin, milk, pepper, vinegar, and 1 teaspoon salt. Heat through.
2. In a greased 3-quart oval baking dish spread 1/2 cup pumpkin sauce. Cover bottom of dish with 4 noodles, trimming to fit. Spread one-third of sauce over noodles. Layer with one-third each of mushrooms, bacon, ricotta, mozzarella, and Parmigiano-Reggiano. Repeat layers twice. Bake, uncovered, in 400 degree F oven for 40 to 45 minutes. Let stand for 15 minutes. Makes 12 servings. Perfect with artisan bread and a salad. This one is probably too heavy for this meal but I made it yesterday and it was yumma!