Little bit of Christmas

Christmas Sunday I put this dress on Emma

 my neice wore it when Mike and I got married! I thought it would be fun for my Emma to wear it.

(She's had a runny nose for a few days and it was buging her and making her face red, but I think she's still the prettiest 3 year old I know!)

I tried to get a picture of all my kids together, looking cute, smiling and most importantly LOOKING AT THE CAMERA!

 it didn't work completely. They're all cute and smiling, but Emma is obsessed with looking at Jackson instead of the camera. I guess she really does love him!

I asked Ethan to take my and Emma's picture together. I had to re-teach him how to work the camera, so I took his picture.

 WOW! Look at that big mouth! Can you see his tonsils?

He did get some cute pictures.

This was after church, after Emma had spent time coloring a picture for me in nursery but misplaced it on the way home and we couldn't find it. She was sad :(

(the picture turned up the next day!) 

Christmas day, I only took one picture! At my parents' house of Jackson getting into the cookie drawer!

 Emma got her doll house! She LOVES it! She can't stop playing with it.

Ethan likes it too. He plays with it with his cool Star Wars action figures!

I may have to keep this picture to show his wife!!

Too cute to not post!

Merry Christmas, Tati

from Baby Jackson!

Oh boy did we have fun in Minnesota at Thanksgiving!!

Now that Christmas is next week, I thought I'd post about Thanksgiving.

We went to Minnesota and...well...we got there...eventually! But once our plane took off, 23 hours late, we had a BLAST!

Emma and Ethan were rip roarin' to go celebrate!

I didn't get many pictures with cousins but I did get some of my kids the day we went to the Mall of America with my mother-in-law. It was super fun!

We just had to go to the LEGO store!

Emma loved the LEGO friends girl and dog all made of LEGOs!

I thought this was cool!

And the dragon peeping out from around the corner...awesome!

Then we hit Nickelodeon Universe!

Ethan helped Emma drive the kiddy bumper cars.

 Mike and I went on this awesome ride. Sponge Bob is NOT awesome and not allowed in my house, but the ride was fun!

Straight yup, straight down, upside down, curly q's all over the place. It was fun, I wanted to go again, but my old body couldn't take it. I was still nauseous 9 hours later and sleep was the only thing that got rid of it!

I would go on the ride again...next time!

Ethan's favorite ride from last year was Swiper's Sweeper so we had to go there.

Mike helped Emma drive and she loved it!

 Ethan on his FAVORITE ride!

 My E's on blue's Skidoo. Very similar to the Dumbo ride at Disneyland.

 Jackson had a good time, not riding rides, but walking around with Grandma, she even got him to sleep which is hard to do when he's not in a bed.

After all the fun LEGOing and Nickelodeon Universeing, we went to the Nestle Toll House shop...my choice. We ate cooking and since we only had a few minutes until Santa returned from his break, we hung out eating our cookies and being the first ones in line to see Santa.

Jackson loved his cookie!!

Ethan asked for the Death Star ($400) LEGO set

Emma asked for a big, pink doll house ($reasonably priced)

Jackson yelled (priceless)

The best thing I saw while waiting in line to see Santa...a sign that read "When you stop believing in Santa, you get underwear!" If you see a sign like this, know where to get one, let me know. I may just have to make one, but I need one cause we believe in Santa around here!

Look who decided to grow up!

I caught Jackson standing at the window, possibly watching for Mike to come home!

I can't believe that he's already 10 months old.

I can't belive how fast his babyhood has flown.

I love him and will have to just deal with him growing up...darn!

Halloween 2012

I'm glad it's November. I love Thanksgiving and this year will be awesome.

But I should let you all know that my kids had a fun halloween.

Here's is the prettiest Tinkerbell you will ever see in your life...EVER!

 And a super cute Mummy's boy

 My awesome ARF Trooper, pretty, pretty Tinkerbell, and Mummy's boy

 Just the trick-or-treaters

 Ethan's stash!

 Emma's stash!

  Jackson wanted in on the treats too so he snitched and I didn't stop him!

 Uh oh! He knew he got caught so he smiled his "aren't I so cute?" smile!

 Emma really enjoyed her candy. Here she is with a giant lemonhead in her mouth! Mmmmm

Ahh! Over for another year and by 10:30 this morning, my Halloween was taken down and my Thanksgiving was put up!

You can call me a Halloween Grinch, I own up to it :)

Party! Party! Party!

Ethan has his yearly halloween party last week. It was fun for all...I think.

Here are a few of the treats we had

 (Goblin feet and bones)

and the snack

 (mummies)

And the evil dr who was making his monster in my basement.

 He let the kids touch all sorts of body parts he had for his monster, the eyes, the brain, the fur, the ears, the fingers, even the guts!

(I love how his eyes are red from the camera, makes him look even spookier!)

We had a mummy wrap contest in the backyard and someone looked pretty awesome.

 I'm not 100% wure who this is!

What would a party be with out punch?

Putrid punch! Mmmmm. Emma asked for it the next day, unfortunately it doesn't save very well.

Monster Cookies

As per a few requests on facebook, here is the recipe for Monster Cookies. After looking at the full recipe (at the bottom of the page) you will understand why I only made half the recipe (the recipe at the top of the page)!

Enjoy!

Monster Cookies

2 C brown sugar

2 C white sugar

1 C margarine

1 ½ lbs (3 C) peanut butter

6 egga

4 tsp baking soda

1 ½ tsp vanilla

1 ½ tsp white corn syrup (Karo)

9 C oatmeal

½ lb M&M’s

12 oz chocolate chips

                Mix ingredients together in order given. Scoop onto cookie sheet with small ice cream scoop and flatten (you can make them smaller if you wish). Bake at 350 for about 12 minutes.

                You may have noticed that there is no flour in this recipe—that is not a mistake. It is a great recipe for those with wheat allergies.

Monster Cookies—FULL RECIPE

2 lbs brown sugar

4 C white sugar

1 lb margarine

3 lbs (6 C) peanut butter

One dozen eggs

8 tsp baking soda

1 T vanilla

1 T white corn syrup (Karo)

18 C oatmeal

1 lb M&M’s

1 lb chocolate chips

                Mix ingredients together in order given. Scoop onto cookie sheet with small ice cream scoop and flatten (you can make them smaller if you wish). Bake at 350 for about 12 minutes.

And thanks to my mother-in-law, Patty, for the recipe!

Trouble maker?

Some may say he is! I sure don't...not this time around at least.

Here are a few things that Jackson gets himself into that may make you think he's a trouble maker.

This boy LOVES books and can usually be found by the bookshelf in the living room, pulling books out of course.

 The other day, he crawled into my room, opened Mike's sock drawer, and pulled socks out to chew on them.

He likes the pedals on my piano too. He likes to push them while I play. I try hard not to pinch his hands.

 And if food is left out where he can get to it, he will dump it all out. He loves food!

 The toy basket is dumped multiple times a day by this little man so he can get to his toys.

 He must have wanted milk! He's not allowed on the counter any more!!

While I type this, he's getting into lots of other things...marbles (quickly took those away!), the stuff stored under the computer desk...nothing harmful there, papers, Emma's stuff, but I wouldn't change it for anything.

I LOVE this boy and I am so glad he came to be in our family!

New family pictures

We had family pictures taken a week ago and I LOVE them! I couldn't be happier with them. In fact, I love them so much, I can't stop looking at them. There are so many good ones, our awesome photographer put together a couple of collages so instead of me trying to pick which pictures to post, I'll just post a collage.

No worries Grandparents and Great-Grandparents, your pictures are on the way...

Thanks, Tami!

Ethan

Ethan has homework every night, and the same stuff every night...studying his spelling words and reading. I prefer that he do his homework as close to getting home from school as possible so it gets done, but sometimes life happens and I have to remember to have him sit down to read with either me or Mike before bed. A few nights ago, I was rocking and giving Jackson his bed time bottle, when Ethan wanted to read to Mike. (I like to rock Jackon in a dark-ish room, but my rocking chair is in the living room, the only room it will fit in right now.) Ethan insisted on reading in the living room and it was dark so Mike got Ethan his head lamp so Ethan could read. It was pretty funny. I wanted to get a picture of a shadow of Ethan reading a book with a bright light on his head, but this is what I got.

Darn flash and I can't figure out how to turn it off...darn me!

Emma and Jackson

I get to hang out with two of my favorite people all day long!

Him

 and her

 Last week we got out some of the fall/halloween decorations we have. The little people halloween farm was a must to get out now

 It sings songs, makes funny noises, and we all, including me, like to play with it!

I love my job!

First day of Preschool!

Emma's first day of preschool finally arrived. It couldn't get here fast enough for her. Last night she got out her notebook and folder and told me and Mike that she had to do her homework! She put on her shoes hours before school time and was anxious to go. When the time came to get out of the van and walk into her classroom, she got nervous. But when she walked into her classroom and saw her teacher, and the toys, she was more relaxed and ready to have fun.

Here she is ready to go!

 Another fun shot of my baby girl!

 ...and her backpack!

Here's to a great preschool year!

Ethan had a birthday shout Horray!

Hmmm, not may pictures to document this birthday, I guess I was too busy enjoying the fun!

Here's Emma, Jackson, and Ethan in birthday shirts!

 And Ethan with his cake!

I'm pretty sure Ethan had a great birthday number 7! He had a lot of fun birthday week presents...Emma helped me pick out a few...Batman coloring book and activity book, Fanta orange soda (his favorite), sweedish fish (another favorite), angry birds pencil toppers, a paper airplane fold and fly book, and lots of other fun stuff.

I know he got a bunch of stuff he loves for his birthday from Mom and Dad, Grandmas and Grandpas, cousins, and friends. Legos, cool cars that can flip, legos, an angry birds game, legos, a bakugon, legos, legos, and more legos! And money from the great-grandparents he wants to use to buy more legos! The only thing he loves as much as legos is Star Wars, followed closely by angry birds.

Ethan had a fun all boy party. There was pizza making, a light saber fight with Mike acting as Darth Vader, (He didn't like being beat up by 6 boys! Who could blame him?) pizza eating, a silly string fight (note to self...buy more silly string next time!), pinata breaking and running for candy and prizes, cupcake eating, and of course presents! It was a fun evening but I'm glad it's over.

Ethan had 11 days of presents! 7 for the birthday week, presents from Mom and Dad, presents at his party, Grandma took him shopping for his presents from Grandma and Grandpa, and presents with cousins! Phew! You'd think he'd be all presented out, I don't think he is!

I'm very happy that 7 years ago this handsome little guy joined me and Mike. He's a great big brother and he is a super big help to me. He is smart and loves learning in 1st grade. i'm excited for the many many many more birthdays to come with him!

Love you Ethan!!!