Merry Christmas!

We had a fantastic Christmas today! The boys got everything they wanted except an iPad as Jacob reminded me. Sorry dude.

Part of the present mountain.

The only thing Zach asked Santa for was a game called "Doggie Doo." It is every bit as disgusting as it sounds (though it did keep 5 adults laughing for quite a while!).

Jacob asked Santa for a lego goldmine kit. Santa started building and must've decided he needed to leave to finish delivering toys. Between Jacob, Uncle Marc, and Daniel it got finished!

stocking stuffers!

Wreck-It Ralph!

legoooooos!

Check out my new slippers. They're angry birds!!

Jacob with the wall track that he wanted sooooooo badly!

Hotwheels Battle Force 5! All Zach seems to talk about!

Jacob with his hotwheels power tower wall track. Sooo excited.

Opening presents!

I got slippers like daddy!

new games!

A watch and clock set from Great Aunt Margaret & Uncle Dan.

watching Emily open her presents.

woo-hooooo!

It's just what I wanted, Thank, mom!

Zach was sent to retrieve the presents that were too far under the tree for any of us to get out!

smooching daddy under the mistletoe.

Not real wild about the reindeer antlers either!

Jacob inside of his toy box! (Yes, they're that big! Thanks, Santa!)

We made it!

After a lengthy 7.5 hours in the car with 3 children I think I've gone absolutely nuts. :-) Pretty sure Emily has never been happier to be out of the carseat! The 4 of us were so glad to get out and stretch our legs and be able to be silly at my parent's house.

Somehow Daniel got lucky and is sailing right along on his drive! Pretty sure it'll take him less than 4 hours!

We have the cutest photo of the kids with Santa--if I get a chance tomorrow I'll scan it in and upload it!

1 more day of school!

I feel like I could've crossed off a gazillion things on my to do list today....if I would've sat down to make one. I'm trying to get us ready to head to VA for a few days!

Biggest accomplishment of the day (aside from vacuuming AND mopping!).....teacher gifts!!!

 

 just for kicks, another angle!

 

and the back...

Aren't they the cutest bags ever??? I love the glitter!

 

Somehow I'm going to manage cupcakes, pretzels, apple slices, carrot sticks, 4 gift bags, a baby, and 2 boys...all while walking to school. oh my.

 

The boys each have their teacher and then an aide also. (Well, Zach's class has an aide thats in the room almost all of the time, Jacob's class has an aide that they share with the other Kindergarten classes but I thought she was deserving of a gift!) We got them each a wintery candle (I can't remember the name but they were fun!) and then I made them chocolate covered pretzel rods.

YUM!!!

 

I got a big "tray" of cookies all ready for Daniel to take into work in the morning (my tray is a shallow box that I lovingly wrapped in Christmas wrapping paper!). I made 12 different kinds of cookies (woah!) this season....7 new recipes. 1 turned out absolutely awful and went right into the garbage (I didn't even finish baking them--they were that bad). The rest are pretty tasty!

 

Zach would agree....

yummy, gooey, chocolately goodness. :-)

I was trying out a nutella stuffed cookie. It was super delicious but next time I'd change it around a little! The full name of the cookie is "nutella stuffed brown butter & sea salt chocolate chip cookie."

 

and.......now it's bedtime. :-)

Cookies! Cookies! Cookies!

I know I've been MIA a lot lately. Between, shopping for Christmas, baking cookies, wrapping presents, getting the kids where they need to be, attempting to get everything done before heading to VA, and just taking care of everyday life, I haven't had much free time!! (and I've been so stinkin' tired after getting the kids to bed in the evening that I haven't been able to sit on the couch and do anything including type up a blog post without falling asleep!) Two more batches of cookies to bake tomorrow--they're all ready to be scooped out onto the pan! Well, rolled in a ball, flattened, stuffed, and folded over. Let's just hope the little lady sleeps better tonight than she's been doing... ha!

Emily had to sample the cookies. She just sogged it up and was done with it!

The boys helped with the snickerdoodles. Their jobs included rolling the cookie dough into balls and then rolling them in the cinnamon sugar mixture. I only found a few "worms" of dough that I had to rework into balls!

And Emily had more peas. (she also tried peaches but her favorite so far seems to be sweet potatoes)

1

2

3

and done!

 

She's trying to figure out her sippy cups!

 

Gingerbread houses, Peas, and Christmas Lights!

As promised, we finished the gingerbread houses today..

 

And Emily had her first taste of peas...

 

And then she wanted some of daddy's water...

 

We told the boys we'd drive over to the potato chip factory if they hurried up with their dinner....and we did....

my favorite :-)

Jacob said this was granny's tree and she'd just love it because it was purple.

 

Jacob enjoyed looking at all of the lights. Zach was asleep soon after getting in the car and though we attempted to wake him up, it didn't happen. I guess we'll have to go back another time to look at them with Zach!

 

Daniel carried Zach up to bed as soon as we got home but Emily and Jacob were still up. Emily was wide awake after snoozing on the way to the chip factory.

He was just happy to be playing with legos without interruption! (well, I did interrupt him a few times...something along the lines of "Jacob, it's bedtime! Get your pj's on!"....and then 5 minutes later something similar!!!)

 

Jacob went to bed and Emily was still wide awake. Some friends were riding around looking at lights in our neighborhood so we ventured outside and talked to them for a bit. The chilly air must've tuckered Emily out because she was ready for bed when we got back inside!