Easter 2011

Apr 25, 2011 | Holidays | 1 comment

All our Easter preperations begin the same way- making chocolate peanut butter eggs at Grandma’s.
Katie was over on Friday so we introduced her to the time-tested tradition of eating every other egg carefully lining the molds with chocolate and filling them with peanut butter after the chocolate hardens.
After church we went to Carol and Brian’s for dinner. Molly and I sat together because we’re “like, best cousins or something.”

The Easter egg hunt was fierce this year. Molly and I were on a team and we scored no less than 29, but so did Zachary so we technically didn’t win. We’re already preparing for a rematch net year. 
Before I end this unbelievably short recap, I must relate that I went running with Aaron last night when we got home and I survived. 
It was nothing short of an Easter miracle.

We did,in fact, have Christmas this year

Jan 5, 2011 | Holidays | 0 comments

…and here are a plethora of pictures to prove it.


On Christmas Eve day we always go to Grandma’s and make the mini meatballs for the chicken soup and roll the meat for the antipasto. Between the 5 of us, we made 137 meatballs.


Here’s the boys team-

 And the girls team {minus yours truly}-


Each family has a decoration on Grandma’s tree. Our family is too big to put everyones names, so it just has the kids.  

Brian was SO EXCITED about Mom’s chocolate chip cookies and couldn’t understand why he had to share them with the rest of the family.

Wesley came with Daniel and Erika and once again played the piano fantabulously while we sang.

The next hour was spent in opening loads of presents and throwing wrapping paper balls and bows. 
Zachary and Molly both wrote me books as gifts. Molly’s was called “the flaur” and Zachary’s “The disaperang mitin”. I couldn’t tell at first what his was called and thought it said “the disciplinarian”. I immediately began to rethink my babysitting habits.  

 The Yankee Swap was pretty intense but Alyssa and I joined together and managed to keep our heads above the nonsense. As is their custom, Daniel and Erika choose what they brought without even looking at any of the other gifts which is borderline cheating. Alyssa and I considered calling them out on it, but we were too busy planning our strategy.


Before Daniel and Erika left, we went back home and did our presents with them. 

To be continued…

Thankful

Nov 25, 2010 | Holidays | 1 comment

I wasn’t able to write out my Thankful ABC’s this year, but I did have time to make this little collage of just a few of the people I am very thankful for. If I had made a collage of all the babies and little people I’m thankful for, we’d be here until Easter because there are so many.




“Thanksgiving, after all, if a word of action.” W.J. Cameron

July the 5th

Jul 10, 2010 | Holidays, It's all relative | 0 comments

Monday the 5th was hot,hot,hot. We had the boys and their respective wives, Grandma, and our friend Blake over for a cookout. {Technically it was a cook-in because the grill was broken, but that’s just a small detail.}


The two pictures below are my attempt at making up for not taking a picture of Andrew and Debbie together. I hardly think two side-by-side picture would qualify as a “picture of them” to two newly-weds, but I did the best I could.


Andrew really is a fashion icon, don’t you think?


The only way to truly beat the heat was to walk across the yard to our uncle’s pool. After all, somebody has to use it. The most popular method of entry was jumping/flipping/belly-flopping from the trampoline right next to the pool into the water. I’ve done this before, but since I value my life{also my dignity}I went in the way normal people do. And I was mocked for it. Once the mockery ended, we started a game of Sharks and Fishes. It’s like Marco Polo in that one person closes their eyes and tries to tag another person. Once they’re tagged, they also become a shark and so on and so forth. Eventually, there is only one poor, unfortunate soul who hasn’t been tagged being chased by six maniacs. I should know…it happened to me and I barely made it out alive. It really is a delightful game. 🙂
Erika the Shark makes her way towards the three little fishies who she now shares a last name with. Aaron seems to be the only one with any chance of survival.
You know things are getting serious when the purple noodle comes out.

Daniel came up with a “sweep the pool” plan he tried teaching to his fellow sharks while they all have their eyes closed.

Daniel: “Ok, everybody. Take the hand of the person to the left of you.”
*everyone starts waving their arms everywhere*
Erika: “That’s my face you just hit!”
Blake: “Who keeps hitting me? I’m trying to find your hand! Wait. What’s this?”
Erika: “That’s my bathing suit!”
Erika: “I have two hands now.”
Blake: “Somebody’s holding both my hands!”
*Blake and Erika do more maneuvering and finally, everyone is connected*
Daniel: “Ok, ok everybody. Now that we’re holding onto each other, the person all the way to the left is going to hold onto the side of the pool and we’ll all move forward in an orderly fashion.”
*more chaos ensues as none of the three actually knows who’s all the way to the left*


It was so funny to watch. What made it even funnier was Daniel trying to do the whole thing over each time a new shark was tagged!
Andrew and Aaron. Aaron and Andrew. Brothers and former room-mates.

I hardly think these two need an introduction.

Monday was one of those days{actually the whole week was one of those weeks}. I was so excited to be making a cake like this and everything was going wrong. I woke up too late, there were bugs in the sugar, we didn’t have milk, the batter was really lumpy, and on and on. I was sooo close to just giving up but I didn’t want to waste the ingredients and batter I already had. I decided to cut out the layer of stars and just make it a red, white, and blue cake. It was much simpler that way even if it wasn’t quite as fancy. After the morning I had, I wasn’t going to attempt decorating the top much, so I used a flag and some of Aaron’s Army men to re-create the famous Iwa Jima picture. It wasn’t perfect, but I ended up being happy with the results!


This Independence Day celebration was given to us courtesy of the greatest country in the world. This flag is its trademark.