Making Christmas Cookies

We had such a fabulous Christmas vacation, I thought I'd relive it all by posting some great pictures. I have some awesome ones from the family Christmas pageant, but I'll save that for a later post.

We traveled first to Jefferson City for our break. One activity I knew I wanted to do while we were there was to make cookies and decorate them with icing. I couldn't have handled it without my mom!!
As is often the case, the recipe we made was sticky, so we had a very difficult time with the dough and transferring the shapes onto the cookie sheet. I also wanted to make sure that we had enough cookies - so we doubled the recipe! We had enough!! HA!
Grady and Alice really got into decorating the cookies. They both were pretty good at handling the cookie cutters. The icing of the cookies was even better! Both children really enjoyed and got into the different colors and making designs. It was a really fun project!

Pryor decorated maybe one cookie, but he was happiest cutting up paper. This is his new favorite activity! The trick is just to make sure that the paper he is cutting up isn't important!

Halloween in December??

I am finished with Christmas things, and don't want to pack for our trip yet. One last post...
Our neighbor, Yoshiko Sonoda, used to tie obis (the sash around Alice's kimono above) professionally - for festivals and what not. She gave this one to Alice!! It was amazing to watch her work. She had a thin piece of cardboard in the front to start. She tied it at 11 AM so Alice could go to a birthday party, and it lasted all day and into the night!These pictures don't do the obi (sash) justice. Alice looked beautiful! She loved wearing the Japanese shoes (although she almost didn't wear them when Yoshiko said they were men's shoes! We told Alice no one else at the birthday party would know that! Since the top was navy - that's what made it a men's versus a women's shoe.)
A smiley cookie (local restaurant - Eat N Park - their signature is the smiley sugar cookie - he has smiley body tattoos on his hands - they were too big for his cheeks), girl from Japan and Bob the Builder.

These are our jack o' lanterns. Daddy let them pick which design they wanted us to cut. If I had been there - I would not have let Alice pick out such a difficult one. Needless to say, I was stuck trying to cut out the spider legs!! It was ridiculously hard - but it did turn out well. Stephen got the easy ghost in the window. Next year we are doing a basic smiley face!!


I tried to capture on video the joy of Pryor and his enthusiasm running from house to house. Check out the above movie.

I am blown away at how much candy and other stuff they got for Halloween!


They can't possibly eat it all. Even with my parents here and all of us eating the candy for a week, we still had enough stuff left over to bring down for all the big cousins to eat at Thanksgiving! That's a lot of candy!

Breakfast with Santa?

I don't really think I need any explanation here. The video and pictures speak for themselves. I'll put them in chronological order:


Above is the video I took as we were getting the children ready to sit on Santa's lap. Pryor screamed last year and he wasn't so sure on this day...

You can see in front of me, Pryor sliding off of Grady's lap. Except that Grady was still holding onto him and his shirt, so his entire stomach is showing!
Trying to talk some sense into him...
Wouldn't even face the camera with me holding him!!!
This was as good as it was going to get. Oh well, there's always next year!

Pryor Potty Posting

Well, I think Stephen and I are entering a new phase of our lives...Pryor has gone one whole week without potty accidents! He got the red gun above after one whole day of staying clean. Today, he got the blue gun (same idea, different color) for staying clean for one whole week!!

I questioned whether it would ever happen because he has been SO stubborn about going potty. However, he has almost completely figured it out. Whoo hoooo!! Now this is a cause for celebration!

Alice can ride a bike!

Alice wanted me to take a video of her riding her bike. She was so excited to *finally* get it down.

I don't know which is more cute - her riding her bike, or Pryor talking in the back ground! We did three "takes" before she was satisfied. Pryor (and Grady) kept talking!

Well, this first shot was supposed to be erased and you can see why at the end! Pryor was talking about the digger in the next door neighbor's yard - you can hear the noise. He's saying we can't go over there because the digger was there.

In the second video, you can hear Grady next to me (trying to be quiet - HA HA) and Pryor chatting again. I told Alice we could video one more time!


Fortunately, this video met with her approval. I was supposed to erase the first two videos but I just couldn't! Too funny! Hope you all enjoy!

Breaking news!

Well, I never thought the day would come but: Pryor spent the whole day today in the SAME big boy underpants! Whoo hoooo!!

We have started and stopped his potty training several times. Even a week ago, he wore underpants all day on Saturday, but Sunday I woke up sick and didn't have the energy to trick him into using the potty.

Well, on Tuesday a friend came over and I suggested to Pryor that he wear big boy pants since Kent was coming over. It was a huge struggle, with lots of changing underpants (and several being thrown away dirty) but we finally had the milestone today!!

He got his "gun" - a noise-making, light-up gun that he has been eye-ing on the kitchen counter for a month! Once he kept clean all day he got one. Now, when he stays clean for a whole week he'll get the other one. I think it will be a while before he gets that!

Westmoreland County Fair

We went to the Westmoreland County fair and had a fabulous time! There was a huge field filled with all sorts of tractors and equipment. The children had a field day!
Alice was just as anxious as the boys to sit in the seats. Unfortunately, the horns still worked. So it would get *very* noisy if a child figured out how to blow the horn!
Pryor thought he had died and gone to heaven! We had to peal him away from this area to go explore the rest of the fair. We came back to the tractors at the end, and literally had to carry him to the car. He was not happy to leave!
The children's tent had several activities, one of them being "milk a cow." My parents took me to the Illinois state fair when I was young and I remember when milking a cow meant touching a live cow! This "cow" at least had real milk.
Stephen and Grady put together a "treasure box." We thought we'd be there for ever but it only took them about fifteen minutes. Grady was so excited to do this! Especially with his Daddy!
Here is the terrible twosome having at this project. Of course Pryor wanted to "help." We could only "milk the cow" for so long! HA! I love this picture because the way they were sitting really highlights their casts. Of course this was a week and a half ago when they still had the casts on. Ah, those were the good old days! HA HA!

Backing up a bit: Pryor's Birthday

I felt bad about posting something for Alice's birthday when I hadn't even done so for Pryor's birthday! Poor guy! We picked up his cake in the morning, so we had it for lunch the day before his actual birthday! It was a cake weekend!Bob the Builder was a big hit this year! He did like the picture in the cake book of Power Rangers - but Mama said no to that!
It took us a while, but we finally got him to hold up three fingers! He was so proud of himself.
I got this for his birthday - even before he got really into Bob the Builder! I definitely think this will be his Halloween costume! One night, he put the whole thing on himself - even getting it over his cast. He certainly is a big boy. I can't believe he is already three years old!

A Hiking we will go

We are finding it difficult to arrange activities for three children when two are in casts!! A week and a half ago we did go hiking - hence the above picture from Duff park. We had an excellent time and the children loved throwing and skipping rocks in the creek. Well, that means that they got dirty. It's fine when children get dirty - not so much when the CASTS get dirty!! I have begun my daily struggle to keep their cast arms from being STINKY! I am almost at my wits end and really looking forward to casts coming off and school starting! Can you hear me screaming, because I'm screaming! T-minus one week for casts off, and one week-one day for the start of school. Whooo hoooo!

Twins

Well, I know now what it feels like to be "different." People have been staring at us everywhere we go! We went to McDonald's for lunch today - and all 4 tables facing the windows were staring at us while we walked up to the door. Once inside - I must have told the story to 6 or 7 people. This one man wasn't satisfied with my pat, one liner. He must have have asked me 5 or 6 questions!

I wanted to take a picture of both green casts - before something else happened! Good grief!

2 Boys, 2 Casts

Well, if you can believe it, I arrived home from our 2 month summer odyssey with Grady in an arm cast, and just tonight (5 days later) got back from the ER with Pryor in an arm cast. GOOD GRIEF!!

I have been hanging around the house yesterday and today because of Grady and his arm. Finally this afternoon, we headed off to the library but first made a quick trip to the playground. Big mistake! The children had a wonderful time, and right when we were getting ready to go, Pryor fell off some equipment and landed on his left arm. I could tell by the way he was holding his arm that it wasn't good.

We left straight away for the doctors office. Of course it was almost 5 PM by this point and they thought he needed a cast, so they sent me down to the ER of Children's Hospital. (The children's doctor's office doesn't put casts on anyway.) Fortunately, Stephen was nearby and I was able to leave Grady and Alice with him.

I was incredibly impressed with Children's (since I had so much experience from the ER a few days ago) and got in pretty easily. Got x-rays right away and saw the orthopedist fairly quickly (in hospital time.) He saw a hairline fracture in the arm, but not what was really hurting Pryor more towards his wrist. The Dr. said since Pryor is so young, the wrist is more cartilage and they are unable to see breaks there. The arm is broken in both places.

So, he put a full cast on the arm, up the elbow, since young ones can pull off a half cast. His cast is green - and I know when Grady wakes up tomorrow he'll be jealous (since his is just white.) We go to the orthopedist tomorrow for Grady, so he may be getting a new cast too!

A Word about Prayer

Well, I haven't been able to get my computer connected in order to upload pictures - so photos from Kiawah and beyond will just have to wait a bit longer.

A cute thing happened today that I thought you all would enjoy.

The children and I are visiting my parents for a couple of weeks. We were saying the blessing before dinner tonight, and my Mom and I watched Pryor as we sang the blessing (his choice was "Thank you, Jesus".) He had his head bent down with his eyes closed, but he looked over at my Dad (with *his* head bent and eyes closed.) I could just tell in his little head he was thinking, "I'm supposed to bend my head and close my eyes." So, he squeeze his eyes shut, and lower his head. Up, look at Granddaddy. See the closed eyes, lower head and squeeze eyes. He did this several times during the course of the 20 second blessing. It was adorable!

After it was over, he said to us, "I made my eyes dark" and poked his fingers in his eyes so we would know which body part he was discussing. So cute! Goodness!

Memorial Day Pool Party

As if being in and watching a parade aren't enough to do on any given day, we were invited and decided to attend our friend's neighborhood pool party and picnic.
It was a gorgeous day but I think the high was in the mid-seventies. More than once, the children got out of the pool with cold lips! We had a great time with our friends and their neighbors.
The food line was already open when we got there at 4:30. Of course Grady, seeing the food, decided to bypass the pool at first in favor of dinner. I think both he and Pryor had (basically) two dinners - one when we got there and one an hour or so later. The congo squares I brought were gone in less than an hour!
The baby pool, like most pools, has a filter system with a cover by the side of the pool. I think Pryor played here for over a half an hour! He'd look in there, open the cover, take out the toys and put the cover back on. Stephen took the above picture while he was watching the toys in the filter! HA! Who needs to actually play with toys when you can look at them instead?

Memorial Day

Well, I am rapidly approaching the current day in my long backlog of photos! Phew! Just in time to get backlogged again during the summer!

Grady, as a Wolf cub, participated in the Export Memorial Day parade. He had an excellent time! We dropped off Grady and Stephen at the American Legion at 10:15 AM for a 10:45 parade. Well, evidently the school marching band (in FIVE school buses) didn't show up till 10:45! Oh well!

Meanwhile, Alice, Pryor and I are chomping at the bit for some to see! Finally the parade started and in a few minutes it was over. HA!
The Boy Scouts were one of the last groups to pass by. I took the above shot while they were still far away. You can see Stephen in a red shirt/navy hat behind these boys and Grady with a yellow hat and scarf just in front of him. I tried to get a video of them passing by but couldn't get it to work!
I gave the camera to Stephen and he took the above picture. Grady is in the middle - again with the yellow hat and scarf.
Unfortunately, I can't crop this picture as I'd love to get rid of my arm and leg off the side of an otherwise adorable picture! My photo software has a glitch and I can't crop photos. Technology!

Grady loved walking in the parade. Lots of people lined the street. It was a pretty big deal! Scouting has been a great activity for him this year.

Powered Up! Cookout

The church had a picnic at a farm for our last Powered Up! event. They had hayrides and even individual horse rides. The picture above is when the farmer took out the wagon to unlock the fence for the hayrides. I guess this is the pre-hayride. We didn't mind.
They had a barn with many horses. Pryor even handed one of the horses hay off the ground and she ate it. He loved that!Grady was the only one of our children to get on a horse. To his credit, he wanted to wait in the horse line for a ride in stead of going ahead and getting dinner. Unfortunately, shortly after his ride, they ended the horse rides. Alice and Pryor got dinner instead!

We already miss Powered Up! and look forward to it starting again in the fall.