Ho Ho Ho!

Here's a shot of our Elf on a Shelf. "Mimi" Joanne gave him to the kids several years ago and he has been watching over us and reporting back to Santa nightly. Let me tell you, the kids could care less that he has an "in" with Santa. They know of his ability to report on their behavior, but they just don't seem to care! Oh well. They do love looking for him each day as he moves around a lot!

How perfect for him to be next to this photo of Gretchen, "You better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout. I'm telling you why! Santa Claus is Coming to town!

Santa hat cuteness!!

Santa Cows

My kids love mascots or characters of any kind. And, Santa Cow and Baby Elf Cow are no exception!

The kids are in the pre-school Pre-K Christmas pageant today. Gretchen is an angel and Carl is playing a cow! We were at Chic-fil-A yeaterday to see the cows. He marched right up to Baby Cow today and told her, "I'm a cow, too! I'm going to be a cow, too!"

Car Seat Saturday!

Now that's odd, Jill never has a second Car Seat Saturday at home.....

Well, bad early '70s Folger's quote aside... we did a few shots today, too. Click here to see yesterday's Car Seat Friday shots. The change is subtle. Can you spot it?

hitting the bars this holiday season

I usually bake biscotti for Christmas teacher gifts, but this year bars seemed to be "my thing".

Earlier this month, for my camera club's holiday party, I brought 2 desserts - my Key Lime bars and tried a new recipe, Chocolate Raspberry bars. They were so good, I couldn't get them out of my head. So, I switched gears and decided to bake more bars for the teachers. The Key Lime ones are yummy, but don't travel well - only because the powdered sugar soaks in and they aren't as pretty without it showing. So, I made the Chocolate Raspberry ones and added 2 other recipes - Gingerbread Cheesecake and Salted Nut Roll bars. Both delicious! The gingerbread ones are like a cakey brownie and the nut ones are like a homemade Pay Day candy bar. You need that recipe. It is pretty simple and really good.

Salted Nut Roll Bars

350*

• box yellow cake mix without pudding in it
• 1 egg
• 2/3 c soft butter
• bag mini marshmallows
• bag peanut butter chips
• 1/4 c butter
• 2/3 c Karo syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 2 c salted peanuts

Grease 10x15 pan with butter.

Mix cake mix, egg and the 2/3 c butter. Pat into pan. Bake 15 mins.

Top with bag of marshmallows. Bake another 5 mins.

Melt together 1/4 c butter, Karo syrup, peanut butter chips and vanilla. Pour over marshmallows.

Press in 2 c peanuts. (really press them in - they were trying to fall off some of mine)

Refrigerate until firm.

Between teachers and therapists, we give out 7 Christmas gifts. (2 already given out, I can count and report properly.) I paired Kohl's cute holiday kitchen towels with them. Considering I haven't even done our Christmas card photo or letter yet, this is a major accomplishment for my season!

Booster & Car Seat Friday!

Well, these are photos from both Thursday and Friday. I took some yesterday, but then felt guilty about it not being technically Friday, so out of guilt... I took a few more today.

He loves his new seat! He is telling anyone who will listen that he has a new car seat. Apparently, color is important because that is everyone's first question for him, "What color is this new seat?" Who can see the color when you have this face smiling back at you???

combined birthday and Christmas gift!!

Well, Uncle Kenny is the hero around here right now. The kids love their new gifts!! 2 big boxes arrived on Saturday with bicycles from Katy, Claire & Joey. Lew put them together yesterday, but since it has been raining, they didn't get outside then. That's OK, they rode them in the house all night.
Then today, in temps with wind chills in the teens, Gretchen had to ride outside. We rode for about 15 minutes before we had to go pick up Carl . He was at school, so his bike is currently still in the living room. He is going to fight the helmet.

Thanks to our cousins, Uncle Kenny & Aunt Annie for awesome birthday/Christmas gifts!!! They love them!!!

Lew's turn

Last week at the Christmas party, a co-worker asked Lew if Gretchen & Carl were his grandchildren. Lew wasn't any more graceful than I was when I fielded this question from a Walmart greeter.

The funny thing is, the person who has just accused you of being a generation older than you truly are never seems embarrassed that they asked you this. The guy's reply back to Lew was simply, "Oh, got a late start, eh?"

Disney Day 6, Thursday 11/11

Today we headed to Disney Hollywood Studios (DHS) again. We were supposed to have a character breakfast in one of the resorts at O'Hana with Lilo and Stitch, but it was a very awkward time and we decided to cancel it. When I scheduled it (months and months ago) I did not know anything about Disney and did not realize that it takes a long time to travel from a resort to the parks. Plus, I had figured that by Thursday, we would be wanting a day to sleep in and have down time. I thought a 10:40 breakfast was going to be about all we did this day. Well, since everyone was going to be awake by 5:30 am and ready to hit the park at opening, we felt this fifth character meal could be skipped. Cost factored in, too.

So, we ate at home and got to DHS about 9:30. We went immediately to pick up 4 Fast Passes to ride the hottest ride in Disney, Toy Story Mania. Our return time for these passes was 4:20 - 5:20 pm. But, we were excited to have been able to get them. They run out for the day by 11:00 am. And, we figured, if the kids really got super fussy and we had to leave, we could hand those 4 golden tickets to another family and share some magic. Nice thought. Didn't happen.

We started out looking for a couple penny press machines and for the meeting place for Mater, from the movie Cars. The park back in that area was so quiet, we thought we were not allowed back there. Here they are super excited to be posing with Mater! We never saw any other Cars characters in the park. We were a little surprised they weren't hyping it more because Cars 2 is coming out next spring. Must still be a bit early. From there, we went to see 'The Muppets in 3D'. The kids weren't too into this one. The effects weren't as cool as PhilharMagic and they don't really know the Muppets. I was a bit disappointed, too. The coolest part was that the theater was the Muppet Show theater and Waldorf and Statler were up in their balcony heckling away. When this ended, we made more pennies! I need to take a picture of our stash and post that soon.

This park has a huge playground - yeah, another one where you can't see your kids all the time and you hope they don't leave on you - from "Honey, I Shrunk The Kids". It was a big scaled up outdoor area with huge bugs and toys like Playdough around. We had wised up and as soon as we entered, I staked out a great spot by the one exit. Lew placed himself directly across from me and we actually texted back and forth to be sure someone saw both kids every few minutes. Somehow, we managed to get them to leave there. I think at that point we bribed them with lunch and the promise that we would come back later in the afternoon.

Between the playground and lunch, we spotted the short line to meet Mike Wazozski and Sully from Monsters, Inc. The kids both drifted towards Mike (the shorter green guy, if you don't know the movie. He is voiced by Billy Crystal. Sully's voice is John Goodman's. You can see the resemblance, right?) and shied away from the very large, Sully. This was one place where they had Photo Pass photographers taking pictures for you. They actually were all over, but a few characters we met did not have photographers with them. These photographers happily used my camera if I gave it to them. This guy said, "Whoa, that is heavy." But, he took this awesome shot for us. I love this movie - and I am so happy this photo is so cute! It is high on my list (if not the #1) of favorites of the whole trip. We dined at the ABC Commissary. Lew & I split some curry chicken and the kids both had cheeseburgers. All good food yet again. We went into this vacation not expecting much in the line of food. We knew it would be expensive and felt it would be decent, but not great. Maybe the low expectations helped because we enjoyed every meal we had on vacation.

At this point, we split up for a little while. I took the kids back to the Playhouse Disney puppet show while Lew went and rode the Aerosmith Rockin' Roller Coaster. He was able to ride twice without a wait. Both kids were too short for it and that was fine. Lew said it was very fast and they wouldn't have liked it. On the other hand, they loved the Playhouse Disney show, so we all made good choices. The show had floor seating for everyone so the kids could stand and dance if they wanted to. And mine did. Once we exited, we got right into line to meet Leo, a character from the TV show The Little Einsteins.

We stopped to watch a few minutes of the afternoon parade. The kids really are not parade people. So, we headed back to the 'Honey, I Shrunk the Kids' playground. This filled up the time until our 4:20 return time for Toy Story Mania. I don't know if you can see this in the picture below, but it is the time we are returning with our fast passes. These passes we obtained earlier int he day allowed us to move right to the head of the line. The line that was 140 minutes long! See the Stand-By time on the sign below? 140 minutes. Yes, 2 hours and 20 minutes of waiting in a line for a ride. And people were actually entering this 140 minute line!!

The ride was a lot of fun. You wore 3D glasses as you rode through a classic arcade, playing the games. Lew went with Gretchen because of the 2 parents, he is the better video game player and of the 2 kids, she would be the one who would be better playing and also more into the actual playing. Carl & I had fun trying and watching the scenery and 3D characters. It was fun, but not 2 hours and 20 minutes of waiting fun! Still, I was really happy we got to experience it for the 15 minutes of waiting we did. It really is the one ride that many people don't get to do, so it was fun to have gotten even the chance to ride it once. Some people claim it is addictive and you want to better your score each time. These people must also enjoy standing and slowly snaking through queues.

I did jot down our scores when we met up outside:

Jill's score: 54,200 with 65% accuracy

Carl's score: 500 with 15% accuracy

Lew's score: 128,000 with 29% accuracy

Gretchen's score: 18,000 with 11% accuracy

We had one last photo taken with Mickey's huge sorcerer's hat behind us before leaving the park at 5:15. Another shot high on my list of the week's best.Once back to the condo, we changed to go swimming. We got there just in time for the boys to have "one minute" of slide time before the life guard for the slide area was done for the night and locked the steps to the slide. Carl was too light, he struggled to actually slide and fall out. Lew, on the other hand, came shooting out of the tunnel. Carl got to go 3 times, Lew only once. Both guys had fun!! If you want to check out the slide and pool, here is the home page for the condo and the pool slide photo is in the middle of this page. We all swam in the supposedly heated water until the kids chattering teeth got too loud. It was pretty cold! But, we all headed into the hot tub for a few minutes and that was wonderful! Ahhhhh!!

Lew cooked hot dogs for the kids and we fed them grapes, green peppers, bananas and milk to go with it. Lew had to run out and pick up the ignition coil he had on order. The kids went to bed before he got back with the pizza for our dinner. They were always easy to put to bed. Gretchen had a queen sized bed to herself and Carl had the twin. He chose it first. He liked the sock monkey sheets. They were actually the same exact fabric as pajamas we have. The kids don't call them Sock Monkeys, they call them "Bowling Monkeys" because on the jammies, the monkeys are doing different things, including bowling. Look how grown up he looks on the bed (with sock monkey sheets) watching TV. They loved having a little TV in their bedroom.

They can't work the remote, so it was tuned to Disney and safe for them to turn on at any time. Like, say, 5:30 am.

we saw Santa!

Thursday night was the family Christmas party at Daddy's work. Did you realize Santa works with Daddy? When he is not making and delivering toys, he helps people with phones and computers. This is our 4th Christmas here and we are experts in the holiday party department by now!

We arrive right at 5:00 pm for the start. They were much more organized this year and as you entered, you received a number letting you know when to get in line to see Santa. We were number 8. Had to call daddy on the cell phone quickly and say, "Get down here NOW! We are in line and it's almost our turn!" He made it with one family to spare. Phew!

They take photos for the families and during the party, they print them. So, you leave with a photo or two of your kids and family with Santa. Of course, you are also allowed to shoot your own pictures, too. They also put all of their photographer, Nat's pictures up on a share folder at work for families to download. We had 13 shots total that he took. It's a very nice gesture and program for all the families at the plant.

The kids didn't smile as much as they did last year, but they were busy talking to Santa, so I am still very happy with the pictures. And, Nat snapped one of our whole family with Santa, so our monthly challenge family photo (the final in our 2010 installment) is complete!

If you look closely, you can see the drawing Santa is holding reads, "Dear Santa Claus, We love you" and has Gretchen's name at the bottom. She wouldn't sign Carl's name or let him sign it because on the other side was a drawing she made for Santa. A family portrait including cats. She wanted to make Santa a present because she was worried he wasn't going to get any presents. I love that you can read it so clearly in the photos, but, even moreso, I love that she is just that sweet!

Mrs Claus is holding the little stuffed elf and snowman the kids received as gifts this year. Perfect choices! They love small stuffed animals!! Especially Carl! As always, there was a table of delicious treats. This year, they even had a big ol' bowl of pretzels shaped as stars and trees. Carl was very happy to see something he liked! You know he won't eat cookies or chocolate. Now Gretchen doesn't have any trouble with sweets. She managed to get us to let her have 2 big frosted sugar cookies throughout the night. Gee, wonder why she didn't eat much dinner later.

They had about 6 different craft projects set up at tables for the kids to enjoy, too. Gretchen loves glitter glue! and sequins! This party is heaven for her! And then, her parents are left holding precious snowmen and ornaments for the rest of the evening because you can't put something with wet glitter glue on it into a bag to carry easily. Carl is not as much into art, but for the past 2 years, he has made me 2 ornaments. One, a shiny Christmas ball that you put festive stickers on and the other, a popsicle stick reindeer head. He loves squeezing the glue bottle! So, he was willing to glue on 2 eyes and a nose. Gretchen made hers much more elaborate by adding a gazillion beads, too. With glitter glue. Once it dried (the following day) I went to move it and every single bead came right off! Shhh... do not tell her, but I had to open up a photo to see where they were placed and re-glue them all back into the spots they left in the glitter glue. I used Tacky craft glue. Let's hope they stay this time!

Here she is decorating a foam tree. She has 3 ladybugs painted on her face. She was pretty pleased that they remained on there, although faintly, for school the following day.

And here they are hard at work with glue, googly eyes and beads!

Carl's finished reindeer. I do have the pipe cleaner antlers, just forgot to add them yet.

Gretchen's masterpiece.

more Hanukkah!

I took a video of them singing the dreidel song - and it is Cute (yes, cute with a capital C!) But, you have seen what happens with my videos when I upload them here, so I won't bother. When I get some free time, I am going to look into the software to help me correct that. It seems to be a glitch in formatting between our camera and the sites I upload them to. I think the sites are converting them to their lowest usable quality, and our camera has too much info to be compressed that much. So, if I can convert them myself prior to uploading them I may be able to make the host sites happy and the viewers happy, too.

* edit 12/11/10 - Lew finally looked up video converting software for me. He found a free converter - so we'll see if it works! So without further ado; (OK, apparently, his software makes it very tiny. Oh well. We'll keep looking for the solution. oops - I did not notice the Santa doggie sitting in on the Hanukkah celebration until now.)

Anyway, you don't celebrate something for 8 nights and not end up with a few photos, right? Carl was the most into it. He'd ask all day long, "Can we light the menorah?" "Why, Buddy?" "I want a present!"

The votive cup menorah looked pretty when the candles were burning, but the cups got very hot and they ended up sticking to the mantle by the end of the evening. I tried those fake tea lights, too, but they weren't bright enough to be seen.

A friend of ours sent a painting project for the kids. Carl wouldn't paint his dreidel, but Gretchen had a lot of fun doing hers.

By the eighth night, you get to see all the gear... the knife for wax digging, the ugly lighter, even a week's worth of wax drippings....