A Good Day...

I did it! We did it!! And it went well!!! And it was fun!!!!

Marissa wasn't feeling very well last night and today, so she stayed home from Church. I stayed with her, and while I was home, I made icing for Gingerbread houses, and got out all the cookies and candies and stuff for toppings and put it all out in the separated trays. When the rest of the family got home, Dinner was started, and after we ate we began the craziness! ;-)

Lots of Icing was used (I had to scrape it/the cement, off the table afterward). Lots of candy and cookies were eaten, and everyone got to make a cute little Gingerbread (Graham Cracker) house of their own, and I cheated and bought the kit with the pre-made pieces for the big family one.

It is fun to see all of the individual creativity that they had on their houses.
Rebekah made a Christmas in Malibu house with 'sand' (cookie crumbs) and a 'palm tree'. She even added a Nativity to the outside of it.

Amanda did more of a little log cabin, with a smoke stack on top and she broke up life savers to make a stained glass window.

Sariah has a bit of a winter wonder land, and did an adorable tree, a person making snow angels, and she has a dog and yellow snow! (eeeewwwww!!!). She painted her house walls blue. And she also did a very small tiny nativity.

Hannah made more of a club house, and has a big cookie headed person climbing a ladder to get into her house.

Marissa's house has lots of color and she used lots of fun candies and icing on hers. She made a little doggy door with a doggy tail sticking out of it.

Liam had a LOT of help from Mommy (hey, I couldnt just let the control freak in me go completely!). He took a big bite out of the first graham cracker piece he picked up, so I had to get a new one to build his house with. He wanted m&m's for his, but after handing him a bunch, and putting a glob of icing on the roof of his house, and showing him how to put the m&m on it, he cried and said NO! he just wanted to eat his m&m's! he finally helped toward the end. When he was done, he ran upstairs and got some books and had daddy sit down and read to him.

The 'Family' house is a little plain and boring over all, since everyone spent most of their time working on their own houses... Amanda put it together, and dad did a little decorating. Hannah decorated one of the gingerbread snowman cookies. I did the tree and the other snowman cookie. Liam really wanted to eat the Cookie Man! I told him we would make cookie men tomorrow. That did appease him.

4 more days till Christmas...

More Giving Thanks

Yesterday, we worked on cleaning up our house (so that we could have a nice thanksgiving and then the next day we can decorate for Christmas).

Amanda spent most of the day working in her own room - which didn't exactly help the family much, but desperately NEEDED the time and attention!!!!! Sariah had a sleep over the night before and wasn't going to be home so she cleaned up Liam's playroom (formerly our music room, part craft room and supposed to be dining room), before I took her to her friends house for the night. Marissa also went to a sleep over but came home early enough to help with a few things. Hannah helped out quite a bit and Rebekah came through with flying colors... she whipped the kitchen into shape!

Now, I have a confession to make -

'Hi, my name is Wendy, and I am horizontal surface challenged!' I am a packrat, and have a hard time getting rid of anything that 'might' still have a use of some kind or other! I also have a problem with 'out of site out of mind'. If I have something that I want to work on, at some point... if I put it all away, I will NEVER get to it! So... I have a hard time putting things all away.

I think I need better organizational tools (shelves, baskets and such), Bill thinks I need to get rid of more STUFF! But, that is an entire post for another day!!!

Anyway, Rebekah helped a tremendous amount.

Then we decided to put together some of the food for today's yummy dinner, so we didn't have so much to do at teh last minute.

Hannah helped me make dough for fresh, home made rolls for today. Hannah also helped put together the sweet potato casserole by opening all the cans (no I don't cook my own sweet potatoes down and make it fresh, even though I do love sweet potatoes and have a whole bag of them).

We put together the cranberry sauce (also canned cranberry's), I got this yummy recipe from our friend D many years ago (when I had Christmas with him and he invited several of his Soldiers over and we fixed a big dinner), since Bill was in Saudi Arabia and I was home alone in Germany, pregnant with Rebekah. D called his mom for this recipe and still had it a few years ago written down on the same envelope he jotted it down on. Bill and I really like this recipe.

Now, this may be a sacrilege, but I am not a huge fan of Pumpkin Pie, and quite frankly... if we don't have pumpkin pie (which I haven't made in YEARS, and probably have never made a regular old pumpkin pie), I'm fine with that. When Rebekah was in Kindergarten a little girl made a yummy pumpkin pie recipe with her mom and brought in the recipe to share for the class Thanksgiving party. I did make that recipe for a few years, but in the past several, we have been blessed to enjoy Thanksgiving day with friends and I let someone else handle the pumpkin pie. ;-) Well, this year, Rebekah decided pumpkin pie was a necessity, (I was going to do a pumpkin cheesecake), so she went on line looking for recipes. Thank you Paula Dean!!! A creamy pumpkin pie recipe with cream cheese and half & half. Rebekah made cute little individual pumpkin pie's in mini muffin cups. So cute, and yummy!!!! Somehow I think I could eat quite a few of these little bite sized pumpkin pies.

Marissa and Liam and Amanda all got involved at times. It was fun. I thought I had more pictures... but can't find them.

Another confession - I am not very patient in the kitchen. I don't particularly enjoy cooking with small children in the kitchen. We don't have 'fun' family cooking events very often. I haven't gotten around to making Christmas cookies for several years (o.k. time orgainization is also not a skill I have in great supply either). I had a fun time cooking with my kids in the kitcheon yesterday. This year I am actually thinking that making Gingerbread houses and christmas cookies might be fun.