Valenhogs cupcakes

It’s been a while since I have made a cake or cupcakes for that matter, but I offered to make some for one of Kassi’s events. 

Kassi has an upcoming ‘Valenhog’s Day’ celebration to attend.  It’s a social gathering for the teen volunteers at the zoo.  Last summer they did Christmas in July.  They’re always trying to do something fun and crazy.  So they decided to combine Valentine’s Day and Groundhog’s Day. 

I wanted to try and make some kind of themed cupcakes for them.  I had some different ideas, but when I saw these on Pinterest I knew I had to make them.   

So, I made red velvet with cream cheese icing, butter yellow with vanilla icing, and triple choco fudge with buttercream icing.  I actually made all the icing, baked all the cupcakes, and smooth iced the grassy cupcakes.  But my girls helped ice all those cupcakes.  Mackenzie piped swirled cream cheese icing on the red velvet & Kassi iced the butter yellows.  Both girls did the grass!!

They did a great job!!  I am so glad they like to help.  Hopefully all the zooaides will like the cupcakes.

Dinner Diva

Mackenzie L.O.V.E.S. being in the kitchen.  She has her own skillet, small egg pan, and small flat griddle pan, which come in handy when she makes her own breakfast or fixes a midday or even a late night snack.  She makes great pancakes and egg sandwiches.:)  When she wants something sweet . . . she will bake too – brownies are her specialty.

I am amazed at her eagerness to cook for herself and others.  As long as I can remember she has always enjoyed helping Grandma Karen bake.  Then over the last year, she has become very independent in making her own breakfast and lunch. 

She is the only one of the kids that liked the idea of helping at least once a month to help cook dinner.  She has been flipping through the various cookbooks to find recipes to try. 

So, she found some noodle Italian dish for a dinner last week.  We actually didn’t have to start from scratch with the recipe because we already had homemade sauce to use.  :)  She is looking forward to her spring cooking class she will be taking at one of our co-ops.

I love being in the kitchen with her!  But I marvel at what she can do in the kitchen at her young age! :)

Where do you nap??

The kids love using Chloe as a pillow and she obviously doesn’t mind.

When no one is around to snuggle with her, she finds a corner to cozy up to.

That really doesn’t look comfortable.

COOOOOOKIES

Can you believe it is Girl Scout cookie time????

The sale kicked off this past weekend and Mackenzie wasn’t missing it!!  She made sure Jay had her out and about on the first day. She loves going out door to door and asking, “How many boxes would you like?” 

That was the best advice we ever got when Kassi was a Girl Scout selling cookies!  Never ask ‘if they would like to buy any,’ but ask ‘how many boxes they would like to buy.’  We have even had people tell us if she would have asked ‘if’ and not ‘how many’ then they would of just said “no.”  Mackenzie is awesome too, she even asks how many they would like to donate to the Gift of Caring program.  :)

She will be selling until sometime in March, but she is off to a great start.  She set her initial goal at 500 and will go up from there when she surpasses it.  She has already made it halfway to her initial goal. :)

Nice job, Mackenzie!!  Keep up the awesome selling!!

The Changing theme

I don’t think we have ever taken down our Christmas decorations so early.  I am sure we have waited till at least the second week of January.  But this year the changing of the guard came much earlier – December 28th.

I know.  That is really early! :(  I love how our house looked with all the holiday decorations.  Jay always does such a nice job.  The kids and I help with the ornaments on the trees, but then Jay does the rest of the house, transforming it from its everyday wares to a holiday wonderland. 

I have to say, this year when we removed the ornaments from the trees, there was a new method to the storing of them.  Thanks to a friend and her share on her blog, she inspired me to make tree decorating easier. 

In the years past, we have had an angel tree, a Disney tree, a Hallmark tree, and a team sport tree.  Well, this year we had the Disney tree, an angel tree, and a miscellaneous/catch all tree.  This year the Hallmark ornaments weren’t on display.  The kids receive ornaments each year from us and their grandparents, and usually we mark the boxes and then put them all together.

Well, thanks to a friend’s share, I got each of them their own container.  As we removed the ornaments from the trees, they were placed in each individual’s container along with their stocking & Christmas doggie. 

Kassi – Zack – Kenzie .  .  .

they each have a nice collection of ornaments.  So, when they move out, they will get to take with them their ornaments.  But until then, the can decide which ornaments they would like to display on the “Family Tree” each year. 

All the boxes and containers are marked and stored nicely away for next Christmas. 

In the meantime, we – I mean Jay - transformed the house to a winter wonderland. 

Jay did another nice job!  But we need way more snowman stuff.

A Talented Eye

As many of you know, Kassi enjoys taking photos, and she is really good at it.  She has been wanting a new camera because her old point and shoot just needed some repairs.  It still takes nice photos, but it has more than gotten its use. 

So, her big gift was something we thought she would really enjoy and definitely get a lot of use out of.  She got a new camera. It was another awesome deal at Target – it was on sale AND we got a $75 gift card kicked back to use on other gifts.  Forget ‘Black Friday’ deals, we got awesome deals on other days!

Kassi hasn’t wasted any time  . . .

See what I mean about being good at it!?

The Way to Gift

The kids made their wish lists in November.  I remember a time they would go through the Toys R Us Big Book.  They were encouraged to circle two things per two page spread and each item had to be less than $50.  These would give us and family some gift ideas. 

As I have mentioned (previous post), now that they are older the ‘toys’ that interest them are way pricier.  So in years past, when they wanted a big ticket item they just asked family for gift cards or cash. 

The girls made their lists – with the cost in mind, not putting anything on it that was way out of budget.  Mackenzie had put a sewing machine on her list, but shortly before Christmas she scratched it off.  I felt bad because it was the ONE gift I made sure to have for her.  I later found out she scratched it off because she felt it was too expensive. 

Jay & I shopped wisely – stretching our dollar as far as we could.  Between Kroger’s holiday bonus bucks and Target kicking back gift cards with purchases of some items we were able to get hundreds of dollars of things without using our actual money.  We even watched certain items, i.e. the sewing machine, on-line till we thought it hit its lowest price at 55% off. 

I am SOOO glad, we were able to get the sewing machine.  I think she is happy about it too!! She started sewing on Christmas day.  She even made a couple last minute gifts.

A couple days later, while I took a much needed nap, Mackenzie made a pillow case.  She has a craft drawer full of scrap pieces of fabric. I think she is set for a while.

Christmas Morning

Having had a late night between church and wrapping duty, we had instructed the kids not to wake us before 6:00 a.m. – especially since Dad had a church service to lead.  Jay & I didn’t get to bed until a little after 2:00 a.m., but believe it or not the kids didn’t get up till 7:00 a.m.

Now that they’re older some of the excitement has worn off.  Which is some what sad, but then again we do enjoy our sleep.  They know Santa is coming, but they also know now that they’re older, Santa doesn’t leave as much. When they were little it was amazing how much Santa could bring them, but now their requests are a little pricier.

 

Each year the kids pick out their Santa paper – so when he arrives he can wrap all their gifts in their individually selected paper. We’ve accumulated quite the paper stash over the years, but we try to recycle it by wrapping their gifts from Mom & Dad and their siblings.

Once we all made it downstairs, their presents were distributed.  This year Mackenzie picked out some really cute owl paper and her other gifts were wrapped in last years Frosty paper.  Zack picked out a really cool black and white snowflake print for Santa’s gifts and we recycled Star Wars for his other gifts.  Well, Kassi she picked out yet another Tinker Bell print on a turquoise paper and we used the red Tinker Bell from last year.

Kassi’s

Kassi saw this pillow pet and WANTED it! So Mackenzie and Zack wanted to get it for her. After much searching I was able to locate it, and she was very excited when she opened it.

As I mentioned earlier, now that the kids are older their requests are pricier.  Luckily Santa was able to get Kassi this really cool camera.  Kassi loves taking pictures and she she would like to explore the field of digital photography.  Her point and shoot camera takes some neat pictures, but it is old and a DSLR would be much better.  However, those DSLR’s are extremely pricey.  So, Santa found a really cool hybrid. 

I hope her Christmas was a pleasant surprise with her new boots, pillow pet, sing-a-ma-jig, and her new camera. 

Zack’s

What do you get a kid that really only likes to game and whose birthday is in December?  Zack is at that age where he isn’t afraid to ask for money for his birthday so he can save up to get what he wants.  That’s exactly what he did.  He’s been sitting on a stash of money/gift cards for a while anxiously wanting to buy what he had saved up for.  Luckily we have a rule – no buying anything from October till after Christmas.  That way we don’t have to say ‘No, what if Santa brings it?’ or ‘What if someone else gets that for you for Christmas?’  It’s worked out great and no one ever tries to convince us otherwise.

I know. I know.  It’s a toy gun.  I’ll be honest, I am not a fan of toy guns. It’s too bad that over the years guns and gun play just aren’t the same as when we were little.  We have never encouraged nor bought any form of a toy gun.  However, the girls – with Dad’s selection – gave Zack two Nerf guns, and by the way, he and Mackenzie have been having a great time shooting each other.  UGH!

If Santa would have wrapped Zack’s gift as is, there is no doubt he would have guessed what it was before even ripping the paper.  So, Santa decided to play a game or trick on the boy.

This box was inside that big box.

Oh wait . . . there’s another box inside that one.

Oh yes, another box.

Oh, there it is.  The thingy he’s been saving for and Santa beat him to it.  He was so sure he wouldn’t get it for Christmas and so wanted to bend our rule. 

Mackenzie’s

She was so excited about her monkey pillow pet. YAY! Way to go Kassi and Zack.

Mackenzie is the artsy kiddo.  She loves crafts.  But what do you get that kid that has a closet and bins full of felt, buttons, foam, pipe cleaners, glue, and glue sticks?  Well, Santa brought the perfect thing . . . a big fancy sewing machine. 

I am pretty sure Santa did good!  The kids have been very busy with their new ‘toys’.  Kassi has been busy taking pictures. Zack has figured out how to use Facebook on his Nintendo 3DS.  Mackenzie has been busy sewing. 

Christmas Eve services

This was our first Christmas with our new family at Saint Paul Lutheran Church.  Jay was beyond excited – he LOVES this season, for more than one reason! 

We were excited too as our family joined us for the evening.  Jay’s parents and his brother’s family joined us for dinner before service and then attended church with us.  It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to attend Christmas service with family. 

We weren’t sure what to expect since Saint Paul has two Christmas Eve services – one at 7:00 p.m. and the other at 11:00 p.m.  We attended the first service and the Church was full – 140 joined in the celebration.  It was a very nice service and Jay loved the candlelight part.  He said we need to see it from his point of view – from the alter. 

After church, we talked a while with members and then home for our Christmas Eve tradition – opening gifts from afar.  Since we were still recovering from illness, we didn’t all go over for the second service.  Mackenzie wanted to go and she did. 

We had heard that attendance for the later service is small enough to have the service on the alter and the members sit in the choir loft.  So, Kassi and I sneaked over and caught a glimpse.

The church looked really nice at night.  I tried to catch it, but this photo just doesn’t do it justice.

Kassi and I tried to be as quiet as could be so no one would notice us taking pictures from the coat room.  It was really neat to see them all gathered in the choir loft.  Knowing there would be a few from the earlier service, Jay had another sermon prepared.  There were 28 at this service – some who had and some who had not been to the earlier service. 

We are thinking about starting a new tradition next year.  Since there are two services, we are thinking about having an open house between services.  We’ll see what next year brings.

Eve tradition

Several years ago we started a simple tradition on Christmas Eve.  My family is out of state and they ship the kids’ their gifts.  So on Christmas Eve, after attending church they open their gifts.

This year they opened all their gifts from afar – from the Schmitts and the Mitchells.

They were excited about their new things and the gift cards!  Thank you for thinking of them on this holiday.