More Christmas Pics

Pappy

Me and my brother Aaron.

Uncle Aaron with the boys.

The dirty Santa game was a hit. There was stealing of gifts going on left and right, amazing how many people crave a mini shop vac!

My Favorite Christmas Gift

From:

Merry White Christmas!

Kaden's Christmas Performance

He did so good! He sang and did hand motions! We are so proud.

Fun with Brooke & Blake

We had help decorating our cookies. Brooke and Blake live down the street and their mother, Dana, and I met at church. We have been in Bible studies together and share coffee in each others kitchen often.

On this particular day I let the four kids ice some cookies. Sadly, not many of the cookies were left after the event. The lure of the shortbread was too much to deny. We also made star ornaments for eating or to put on the Christmas tree.

Chocolate-Citrus Cake with Candied Oranges

Kaden helped me clean the kitchen by licking the beaters.

Kolin got the spatula.

And here is the finished product. I got the recipe from the front cover of a Southern Living (my new favorite magazine!). I candied the oranges, whipped the cream over a pan of simmering water, and made the ganache in all its glory and orange liqueur. It was pretty, but honestly was too fancy for our taste buds. We made a serious dent in it though and shared it with friends.

Gifts from the North

The boys were surprised by a large package on the porch today. Inside were gifts from Grammie T. and Bonka. Each boy got a cute outfit, everything from the hat to the socks. Kaden loves his glow-in-the dark shirt and Kolin likes his wolf socks the best.

Lava Cake

Kolin requested a volcano on his birthday cake and I aim to please. Here is the cake before the eruption with lava icing, dinosaurs eggs, crushed cracker ash and even a swimming hole for T.Rex. I used two cakes. One I baked in the 9x13, the other I baked in my Pampered Chef Batter Bowl and a ramekin which I stacked.

This is brachiasaurus guarding his eggs among the trees.

The eruption begins. That's Ian there with Kolin. He is Stephanie's son and he is between Kolin and Kaden in age. They play really well together and we try to get them together as often as we can.There was lots of smoke and lava poured out and ran down the mountain. My trial run went a little better the day before, but by the looks on their faces I think they liked it.

Bus Ride with Pappy and the Brown's

Just before Thanksgiving we got a surprise visit from Kandy's Grandparents, Kolin and Kaden's Great-grandparents. Though they were only here for three days they managed to swindle many of my dollars by ganging up on their poor granddaughter as we played a card game called 31. I'm just kidding of course, we had a lot of fun playing as we always do when we are together.

Pappy has been out of town for the past 3 months and it just so happened that he was passing through town on one of the three days the Brown's were here. So Pappy took us all for a ride on his bus. The boys really enjoyed looking out the big front windows and not wearing their seat belts. They also discovered a bag of Oreo cookies in the back which added to their fun.

These pictures were taken during the ride.

Kaden's Thanksgiving Performance

Kaden's class invited us to share dessert and watch the class sing Thanksgiving songs. Kaden did wear his cute turkey hat and stood with his classmates, but did not utter a word during the singing. Stage fright I suppose. Nonetheless, we enjoyed the performance.