Christmas

Now that Boeing is old enough to be excited (well, semi-excited) about Christmas and presents and all the yumminess involved in the holiday season, I had hoped to do so many fun things in preperation for the big day. Sadly, however, CSUN and middle school took my time right up to Santa's visit and I was overwhelmed and burnt out. Boeing has mentioned several times that he "had a great Christmas!" That makes me happy!

Community Parade
Picking out our tree (same lot every year)
Handmade card for teachers at Parent Education
Making a gingerbread (graham cracker) house in class
Boe was not so into making the house, but was easily convinced to make a shed for his train car.
Playing with his friend Ryder
and Katie
Excited to go in and sing Jingle Bells for an audience.
They are all just too cute! Especially my guy!
Listening to a holiday story from Santa in class with his friend Sammie.
Looking at lights with Auntie Amy. So fun! And of course, traditional peppermint ice cream shake after!
Dinner with friends at our annual (second) book exchange holiday playdate! I made meatloaf and tried to make little santa clauses for the kids. They look like little bling mice!
Getting ready to sprinkle reindeer food on the lawn Christmas Eve.
Every year Auntie Cole (and I guess Uncle Bubba too) get Boeing his Christmas night jammies. It has been their tradition since his first Christmas. Well, this year, I suppose I should have prepared him that his gift would be clothing. Here he is just prior to opening them. Wish so bad there was a shot capturing the disappointed expression on his face when it was not a toy! Priceless!! Bubba told Boe to tell Auntie Cole "Thanks for nothing", and Boe said, "but she got me jammies." That was just the start of his lack of interest in anything clothing related received for the holiday. On Christmas GramE and GrampE gave him a big box with lots of fun things (toys, books, more jammies). He tossed out the jammies first thing and said, "Oh" in the saddest voice. Luckily he quickly recovered. Nama and Papa gave Boeing a Thomas the Train pillow Christmas Eve, and a bag of clothes on Christmas. He said, "Oh, somebody forgot to put toys in my bag!" It was too funny! Other than a few clothing items, that little guy sure did score!
We gave him an early gift before bed Christmas Eve. Luckily Richard Scarry still takes a top rank for him!
Cookies for Santa and carrots for his reindeer. Boe wanted to leave chocolate milk!
Christmas morning! As I write this blog post weeks later, it is still his favorite and gets played with (wrecked) daily!

2012

2012

2012

New Year's Day

11-11-11 Pretty cool date!

Today was Veteran's Day and no work for this mama! My boys and I enjoyed a beautiful day in sunny Santa Monica getting some things for the house. We had a great time and a wonderful lunch. Only had my cell phone for photos, but did capture a few bits of our lovely day.

Boeing's Third Birthday

A lot has happened around here these days, but most importantly was when our little piece of perfect turned three. Who needs a time machine when you have kids; eriously, where did the time go? Although I have been planning his party in my head (and on Pinterest) for several months, I could not get motivated to start doing stuff until I returned to work(s) (teaching middle school and college). However, the day went off almost perfect (not counting the downpoor while setting up in the morning) because of all the help I got from family. It could not have been done without them. We had about sixty guest (fourty adults and twenty kids) and a celebratory County Fair theme. This was Boeing's first real birthday party and he did not have a real oppinion about what he wanted, so I picked!!! He had a great time with all of his friends; the abundant amount of sugar did not hurt either.

Auntie Amy freehanded this cute welcome on her vintage chalkboard.

Games


GrampE made a fun StrongMan (the kids loved this one)!

Auntie Cole made caramel apples.....mmm



The photo doesn't show how much beer and wine we had; gotta make sure nothing runs out!

Lights strung over the midway looked extra great when the sun went down!

Someone had a good time!

At Boe's request, we also had Kettle Corn!!

Face painting by Auntie Amy. Boe had a snake painted and chased everyone with it!

We served fried chicken, potato salad and watermelon.

Dessert!




Favors

What's Cooking

Boeing and I did a lot of cooking this summer. His interest in food clearly comes from my side of the family (Kent says it is an Olympic event for us). I can sit him on the kitchen counter while I gather the items and go about following our new recipe. This summer we tried grahan crackers from scratch, as well as granola bars. Boeing is loving granola bars lately (and oatmeal daily for breakfast), so I wanted to show him they don't just magically appear in a box from the store. They were quite delicious!
Graham Crackers



Granola Bars




Zucchini from Papa's garden; we made olive oil pie crist and put some eggs and cheese with the zucchini. It made for a nice dinner and breakfast the next day.

Anytime I pull out the parmesean cheese, Boe wants some in his dump truck. Silly!

Boe loved it! He is really a good eater, always eating his veggies off the plate first.

We were given some fresh peaches, so we HAD to make peach pie!



I had recently read on a cooking blog about putting an egg onto the bread of any bready type food for some added protein. Thought we would try it in leu of meat in our quesidilla. It was very good. The fresh garden tomatoes on top didn't hurt either!