Elody on my table licking custard sauce off the spatula

My little poser child! She had climbed up on the table and was licking out the custard sauce pan. While I went to my room to get my camera, someone had taken the pan away, but she was still cute standing up on the table doing her little pose.

Christmas eve with Matt's mom - kids in their new pjs

Matt's mom came over Christmas eve and brought the kids and us our presents. The kids all got their traditional present of new pjs, which I LOVE that she does that, and Matt and I got a race track. They got it all set up and played with it non stop for two days.

H family Christmas dinner Dec 23rd gathering

Fabulous dinner! So a day before this dinner Cynthia, Matt's mom, brought me two 15 pound prime rib roast and asked me to cook them. I was very nervous about it because I had never cooked one that large before, more or less two of them. Matt asked around at work and found someone who knew how to do it and gave me the instructions. With Jileigh's help, we browned it on our large stove-sized cast iron skillet, seasoned it, and wrapped it in parchment paper and then aluminum foil and plopped it down on my half sheet. Then repeated with the second one. We were told it should take 7 hours at 250 degrees F, but we checked it after 5 hours and it was already to 147 degrees. I was devastated. It's not supposed to be above 130 degrees for medium rare. Fortunately, it was still quite pink in the middle and tasted divine. I also made the icebox cheesecake. That was addictingly delicious. Candy made the nacho cheesecake dip, from my recipe. :)

The sign is to go on Cynthia's entrance to her property. Amanda, Matt's sister, got the wood and stenciled on the letters. Matt used his router and carved out the words, painted it, and stained the wood. Cynthia loved it.

Elody loved being with Hannah as always!

Christmas Story family home evening reinactment

It was Angelique's idea and planning that brought about our Family Home Evening reinactment of the Christmas story. She was the narrator, Safia was Mary, Jaren was Joseph,Elody was Baby Jesus, Beau and Jileigh were the shepherds, and the toy rocking horse was the donkey. Talon was doing his homework and Matt fell asleep.

They did a wonderful job!

Jileigh's choir concert and Angelique's orchestra concert

These are some pics of Jileigh's choir concert and Angelique's orchestra concert. Sadly, I forgot my camera for Talon's guitar concert. Jileigh got to introduce a song title, that's why she is standing up there.

My first attempt at Mexican pizzas - dang good!

A friend of mine, Shari, always makes Mexican pizzas during the Christmas holiday season. I thought I would give it a try. They were very yummy and very filling. Matt took one to work the next day and all the other employees in the cafeteria were rather envious. He ended up sharing a fourth of it with his boss. It was a lot of work though. I won't be doing it again for a while.

Safia lost her two front teeth just in time for christmas and princess dress up

Sariah and Hannah came over for an afternoon and played princess dress up. I also wanted to get a picture of Safia. "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth!" She hated it when we would sing that to her. :)

Dec 10th Ward Christmas party breakfast and meeting santa

This year for our ward Christmas party, we had a breakfast instead of a dinner. We brought a yummy breakfast egg casserole and a gallon of custard sauce to go on the pancakes. The custard sauce was a hit. Several people asked me for the recipe. I just ended up bring the recipe to church the next Sunday and made a bunch of copies for everyone.

The kids each took a turn sitting on Santa's lap except for Jileigh. He siblings literally took off after her. Tackled her down, and carried her to Santa where she finally complied and sat of Santa's lap. Elody wasn't too happy about sitting on Santa's lap either, but Beau was. He hopped up on his lap and gave him a big hug. It was so sweet. Unfortunately, it happened so fast, that I didn't get a picture of it. At least I can write about it.

Common sense

You would think my kids had a little more common sense.

This morning I left to Choir practice at 9:25am and Talon left shortly after I did on his bike to meet up with the other Deacons to collect Fast Offering. At 10:55am he shows up at church (our ward starts at 11am) and comes and tells me he's cold. The kid didn't even wear a jacket. He was out it in the 35 degree cold for an hour and almost a half without a jacket on his bike. Really Talon??? By the end of Sacrament meeting he had warmed up fortunately.

Then this afternoon while the adults were napping, some of the kids made bows and arrow and were playing outside. Angelique got Talon's real bow and arrow and SHOT AN ARROW INTO THE AIR! It went over the neighbor's back yard, over their house, and landed in the rocks in their front yard! Fortunately their grandkids were playing in the backyard and no one was in the front. Really Angelique??? I guess Anne Oakley needs some more weapon safety lessons.

Matt the Mechanic

Matt's an electrician, not a mechanic, by trade. But, over the recent years, he's had a bit more guts to dive into solving his vehicle's mechanical needs. This past week, he took the truck bed off to find where the truck was leaking gas. He found the hose that was cracked. He called the local parts store and they wanted $180 bucks for the part. So he went on ebay and found it for $44.80 with free shipping. Problem solved!

Then his air conditioning was stuck on heat. So he pulled the WHOLE dash off and found the broken part. He super glued it back together and fixed it and put the dash back together. Problem solved!

Christmas Decorations already

I experience anxiety when it comes to setting up Christmas decorations because the awful mess it makes. So this year, when Matt and I went to take our Sunday nap, The kids took care of everything. The pulled down the decor from the attic, set it all up including decorating the tree and then they cleaned everything up. That was pretty impressive! I did re-sweep all the floors the next day, but for the most part everything look really nice. (I usually don't take naps, but there's something about Sundays. After lunch, usually whole grain pancakes or waffles with custard sauce, I crash!)

H. Family Clan Thanksgiving 2011 at the Ranch

This year for Thanksgiving we went to cabin with Matt's whole family clan. Actually, his uncle Ken's family wasn't there and a few of Matt's family, but the rest of us were! Someone counted 103 people. We took homemade stuffing, grain-free stuffing (for Matt's soon to be sister in law), two homemade pumpkin pies, and 3 dozen homemade wheat rolls. (I made 4 doz. but we ate some.) It was a fun day filled with eating a visiting. Unfortunately, it didn't go without incident. Talon got a goose egg on his forehead. A cousin threw an armful of leaves at him and there was a rock in the middle. Towards the end of the day, Uncle Glen was cleaning the turkey and I pleaded to keep the bones. There were two turkeys so they kept one set of bones and I got the other. The next night, I filled two 6-quart crock pots with bones and water and let them cook overnight. We had a fabulous pot of turkey noodle soup the following day. A few days later, after the wishbone had dried enough, Beau and Safia had their turn to pull apart the wishbone. Angelique made them SWEAR to not through a fit if they lost. Beau lost and he did throw a little sad fit. Safia won so I told her to go outside where she can be alone, make her wish and throw her wishbone half over her shoulder and she did!

But... let's not forget Black Friday! Walmart mixed thing up this year. They opened their Black Friday shopping Thursday night at 10pm. There were 1000s of people there. It was ridiculous. We couldn't even get to what we wanted to get more or less get what we wanted. There was only one thing there that we got and it really wasn't a big deal. Anyway, we have had to shop elsewhere. The next morning we got up at 4:15am and to the one store before 5am so we would get what we wanted. We had success there and a couple of other stores. We made it back home around 8:30 and went to sleep for the next 4 hours. I really don't like shopping.