I think I need to catch up

I'm feeling bad for not posting in awhile. Maybe I was secretly waiting for some one to comment saying "Where are you? Are you going to post any time soon? We are checking back everyday until you let us know what fabulous things your fabulous family is up to." Not one comment like that for me though.

Any way this is for the one person who might actually check..........

Jeff took the kids sledding one day after a big storm. They stayed quite a bit longer than I thought they would.

Go SUPERBOWL PARTY!

We took Jeff to the Jazz/Nuggets game for his birthday. What a fun game!!!

Ties...broccoli...brothers...and stuff

The men received matching blue paisley ties for Christmas and Katie got a beautiful blue dress. Kyle told her it was turquoise like her rock collection and she loves it!

Katherine was not happy on Christmas Eve when Caleb snatched some turkey and broccoli off her plate. As for the broccoli...Kyle must've taught Caleb something. Caleb loved it!!

Just look at that rat's nest!!!

I just like this picture of these brothers in their pjs.

Christmas wrap-up

I doubled the batch of Christmas cookies and had our neighbor's kids down to decorate. Having friends to help decorate was nice because they lasted longer than normal and I only had to decorate a few when they gave up.

We went to Temple Square on a Tuesday night and it was so nice not to feel like sheep being herded around the buildings. The kids did well despite cold temperatures and an onery mom!

We made our annual neighbor gifts---180+ suckers. I love when this task is done..it's so much work.

The kids made these soda can snowmen for their gifts to others. Pretty cheap and what kid doesn't want their very own can of rootbeer? The picture doesn't include their candy corn noses.

Chrismas Eve presents from Grandma Carlson. This is Katherine's first nightgown and she's in love. I'm pretty sure I will not be able to buy pajamas from now on.

We have proof!

We had to document this moment in Kyle's life. Not many of you know but Kyle is a very creative, artistic kid. This traits manifests itself when Kyle dresses for bed. He has quite a few matching pajama sets and refuses to wear a complete set. He pairs buzz with star wars, spongebob with power rangers, christmas with Incredibles. I asked him one night why he cannot wear a matching set and he replied, "I want it to be rainbow!" Well, that settles that.

Ginger Bread Paradise

Here we are preparing for Christmas by decorating our annual GingerBread House. First of all I'm a super concentrating in this picture because as it does every year, the roof falls off because the icing isn't holding and you'd think they'd figure out that they need to make the angle of the roof less steep. DUH!!!



Katherine got to decorate the christmas tree and took the responsibility quite seriously.


Finished Product

Reflections

The boys entered the school's reflections contest this year. Josh entered a picture of the new giraffe family at the zoo and Kyle drew a picture of flowers. Joshua won honorable mention and got a medal. Kyle was upset he did not win anything but was consoled because Caleb smiled at the scarecrow Kyle colored outside his Kindergarten class.

Harvest Floor

I might be going slightly crazy but I had a blast canning food this summer. I started on peaches a few years ago and slowly added peach jam and grape jelly. This year I canned peaches, pears, plum jam, spiced plum butter, apple butter, apple sauce, apple pie filling, dried apples, grape leather, grape juice, grape jelly and helped my mom can 80 pounds of chicken. I know I'm nuts but it was so worth it. The kids love the fruit so much better than the store and I have tons of gift of preserves to give out for Thanks and Christmas. Jeff loved the applesauce because he had it as a kid and the canned chicken is sooo good and easy for enchiladas and soups. The biggest downfall was very sore muscles and what I now call "harvest floor". If you see the picture of the counter top after grape juice just imagine what the floor looked like. Holy Cow! You don't feel like mopping because the next day it will look the exact same. Jeff was very understanding.

You might be wondering where you put food storage like this in a condo. Well, on top of my kitchen cupboards works well and we have more in our room. It's so beautiful isn't it?