bald pizza horse cake

Yep, that's my title.

Bald.
Here is a random picture Eric took today of Mags with her Papa Phil. She has more hair than him!! ;)

Pizza.
Today is my Momma's birthday!! HaPpY bIrThDaY to the best mom ever! We planned a fun little evening out with the whole family (minus my brother who was on call and had a pretty rough day...sorry Trav!! :( We missed you!). We started out eating dinner at Charlestown Pizza Company. Mmm mmm good! I'd never been there and I WILL go back!!

Another random pic...my nephew Griffin looking more and more like my brother every day!

The fam :)

Horse.

After dinner, we headed over to the park for a carriage ride!! I was very excited. The Christmas lights in Charlestown are beautiful!

Levi ready for the cold ride!!

Mags is ready, too. I dressed her in about 18 layers!

Mom and Dad took the "princess carriage" and the kids hopped in with them. Mom told us later that they sang "Grandma got run over by a reindeer" the whole way! Look how excited my Dad looks!!! tee hee...

Family pic!

Jenny trying to avoid the camera! ;)

My festive sister :)

Smokey Joe, our horse

Cake.

After the cold rides, we warmed up with ice cream cake at Mom's! I love just sitting around their kitchen table and visiting. Mags entertained us by trying to talk over everyone and when I noticed she was really quiet, I looked over and Uncle Daniel was feeding her ice cream! He's on Santa's naughty list!!!

Happy Birthday, Mom! We love you bunches ;)

recipe

Amanda, thanks for asking for the cinnamon recipe! Of course I will share. :)

Hard Cinnamon Candy

3 3/4 cups sugar
1 1/2 cups light corn syrup
1 cup water
1 1/2 tsp cinnamon oil
red food coloring

Combine sugar, light corn syrup and water into large pot. Stir together for a few seconds. Cook over medium heat (do not stir while cooking) and bring to 310 degrees (this takes a long time!). Remove from heat and add in cinnamon oil and red food coloring. Pour into greased cookie sheet (with edges) and let completely cool. Sprinkle with powdered sugar and break into pieces with a knife.

Usually you have to buy the cinnamon oil from a pharmacy. ***Do not touch the oil. It is potent stuff!!!*** Be careful when pouring the cinnamon onto the cookie sheet and avoid the steam.

my babies...sniff, sniff

Being a Mom is hard. Period. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. Some days, I love it. Some days, Eric and I give each other that "why did we change our wonderful life" look and just trudge on.

On days like this, you realize you wouldn't trade it for the world!!

One of Eric's co-worker's just started her own photography business and blessed us by doing the kids Christmas pictures. She did an awesome job and I'm so proud of my little boogers! I adore them so much.

Keep reading! I've done several posts at once. I have a few more to get all caught up!

t.i.r.e.d.

Eric and I checked on Levi before we headed to bed the other night. This is what we found!

Poor little guy!! I guess he was super tired. :)

i know why i don't own a bakery!

Tuesday was set aside as a very important day. It was our first annual family cookie & candy baking day!!

Now, if you've read my blog very long, you know that I don't cook or bake a lot. I'm getting better now that I'm home with the kids! :) With that said, my mom gave me an important first job.....remove the Hershey's kisses from the wrappers. Humph.
I guess she was right in giving me a basic job! My next job was to melt white chocolate. I burned it. As the day went on, I got better, though!!! :)

Ok, who was there? Precious little Emmy came along to help!

My sister and I were raring to go at 9 sharp! (We were scheduled to start earlier, but the 2 hour snow delay put a kink in things!)

Sister-in-law Jen rolled in after she got little G-Man on the bus!

Of course, Maggers made her appearance in between naps. :)

My aunt Gail drove in from Indy!! And my Mom hosted - big mistake! Her beautiful kitchen was left in a big ol' mess!!! ;)

Alright, people. Here's the nitty gritty. We each brought two (mom and Tricia didn't stick to the two recipe rule!!) recipes and the ingredients. I wanted to make cinnamon candy and the peanut butter crackers dipped in chocolate.

We went way back. I'm talking old school. Have you ever seen one of these?? (Nice manicure mom!!)

It's called a candy thermometer. Yes. I had no idea they existed. You stick it on the side of whatever you are cooking. Now, this was my grandmothers, so it's really old. When mom showed me where it needed to boil to, it reads "310 - Hard Crack". I thought that was hilarious!

But, it worked it's magic and ta-da!!! Beautiful hard cinnamon!

It took us ALL.DAY.LONG. But we finally finished! I'm so proud of our baking so you have to endure a picture of each thing we made!!! ;)

Peanut butter crackers dipped in chocolate (even mini ones, too!)

pretzels with Hershey kisses & M&M's

haystacks

Peppermint bark

Peanut butter cookies with Hershey's kisses

Iced sugar cookies

Wreaths

Chocolate covered Oreo balls

Chocolate toffee pieces

Oh, and really cute little chocolate covered cherry mice!!!

The peanut butter fudge was probably my favorite! (Of course I tried everything!!!)

And, the finished products!!

We all had a really fun day! We made up little tins of goodies for all the kids teachers, Sunday School teachers, bus drivers, neighbors, and helpers. I love giving stuff away during the holidays! I have an incredible family and am so blessed to be able to do these things with them!!! Love you guys!

gangsta

Don't mess with me. I know people that know people.

hot stuff

Check out Little Miss Thang who can sit up all by herself now!!!

(Of course, after a few minutes, she falls over like Humpty Dumpty!!!) ;)

open wide!!

Levi had his first trip to the dentist on Monday! I didn't tell him until we were getting ready to leave. Bring on the tears!! He was adamant that he did NOT want to go. I bribed him with a new toy AND told him that he'd get a new toothbrush! ;)

Ms. Olivia was great!! She made him feel totally at ease and even offered to sing the ABC song to him. He said "No thanks." Ha!!
He looks so big in this picture!

I asked Levi to tell me some cool things about the dentist:

1. He got a green toothbrush. His favorite color!!

2. His dentist's name is Todd, which is the name of our neighbor.

3. He got to pick out a new semi truck.

4. Papa Bobby, Papa Phil and Curious George all go to the dentist too.
5. He got to hold the "slobber sucker" all by himself. :)

thankful

After my little jaunt to Bowling Green, I was a little excited for some down time over the weekend! Friday night, my mom and I went to my sister-in-law's Thirty-One party. I really like their stuff!! In fact, I was able to buy three Christmas gifts and am excited about that. :)

Saturday, Eric spent all day putting up Christmas lights outside...YEA!! I haven't taken pics yet of the inside or outside of the house. Will try and do that tomorrow! It feels so wonderful to be all decorated for Christmas. This is one of my favorite weeks of the year! I love Thanksgiving just as much as Christmas. In fact, the two holidays kind of run together for me. We have lots of family traditions over the next month. SO.FUN!!

On with my weekend...Saturday night was supposed to be some girl time at my sister's house. Jill, Lisa, Tricia & I try to get together fairly often to hang out. (We all grew up together!) THEN...my sis and her girls had to go and get the CHICKEN POX!!! Eeek! Yes, they all have them. Poor little family. :( So, plans changed and Jill, Lisa & I went to Cheddar's for dinner & the Pie Kitchen for dessert. It was really fun and just nice to sit and chat!! We haven't done that since right after I had Maggie. Time flies!

On to today. Our sermon was about being Thankful. I.loved.it. It was as if God was speaking directly to me. Be thankful in the little things. Be thankful at all times. I'm thankful for SO many things...my family, my friends, my church, all the little daily things that I tend to forget about...the list goes on. Most of all, I'm thankful for Jesus. I mean really...He died. For me. He died for you. Because of love. And that's all that really matters. All of these things in life that seem so important - they're not! It all comes down to Jesus.

I don't mean to preach...I just get happy about that. :)

So, as we head into the week of Thanksgiving, I'm planning on starting each morning by just being thankful! Good food! Time with family & friends! Shopping on Black Friday! ;)

sometimes you just have a vision

I certainly did! I had a vision of how I'd planned the perfect little get away. I'd been looking forward to it for weeks and we were gonna have so.much.fun.

Wednesday was Gretchen's birthday. Eric had Thursday & Friday off of work, so HE suggested I go down to see her Thursday night and come back Friday. He'd watch the kids. Sa-weet! So, here's how the night was supposed to go down. I'd get there around 4 and we'd leave to do some shopping, a nice leisurely dinner at Olive Garden (Yummy!!), maybe some more shopping and then find a great dessert place, stay up late chatting, hang out Friday morning and do a fun breakfast and then I would head home. Now, come on, doesn't that sound fun??? Yeah, I thought so too!!!

Let me fill you in on the real story. (If any of the following sounds sarcastic, it probably is!)

I left Indiana around 2. I was so excited! Headed down to see my BFF and go out for her birthday! Woot Woot! I stopped to get a large Diet coke from McDonalds - a great way to start my trip. I cranked up the Christmas music and just sang my little heart out. (I know...what a sight!) I smiled at all the truckers as I passed by. (Now that I think about it, I probably was giving them the wrong idea! I was just happy to be kid free for a while! They might not have seen that in my smile! Oops!) So, two hours later, I arrived in B.G. ready to have some fun! While we were sitting on the couch chit chatting and waiting for Paul to get home, Hope did a fashion show and showed me every pair of shoes she owns. She's so funny!!

Then it happened. Gretchen's phone rang. She was expecting Paul to call and say "Hello my darling Love Bug, I'm on my way home so you can go out and have a carefree evening." But, that's not what he said. At all. It went more like this "Blah, blah, blah...I won't be home until 8." I saw Gretchen's eyes get really big and in her high-pitched "trying to be nice but I want to scratch your eyes out" voice, she said "Okay. Um. Okay. Are you serious? You're kidding, right?" He wasn't kidding. So, us, being the incredibly cool and flexible moms that we are decided "Kids, we're going to Olive Garden!" I mean, still gotta eat, right?? Just going to do it with kids now. Hope was excited because they have mac n cheese. Pierce, on the other hand, was not so excited because this was the place that took "a long time to get your food". ;)

Insert cute pictures at Olive Garden
Cool and flexible birthday girl & her cutie patootie

Happy go lucky Tracey & my adopted daughter, Hope

Salad. Need I say more?? MMmmmmmm

And something fruity!! :)

I know, I know. The excitement of this night is killing you, but there is MORE!

We took Hope to Master Cuts in the mall for a hair cut. :) (Pardon me. I forgot after shots!!)

And to top off the Mall adventure, we checked out new eye glasses for Gretchen.

Um, these weren't my faves:

What about these? (Has anyone seen NCIS Los Angeles? The little lady on there?? Yeah, she's Gretchen's twin!)

And the winner is (Drumroll please...........)

Super sheik, super cute, totally DKNY! What a cute soccer mom, don't you agree?? :)

Let's see. At this point, it's time to take the kids home for bed so that Paul can take over and we can go out for some dessert.

Look at these cuties!

And, self pic. Same pose, different clothes. ;)

That's all the pics I have. The rest of the night was less exciting. I called to check in on my peeps back home. A little background info: I took Maggie to the doctor Wednesday after we were up all night together the night before. Walking the floors until 4:30 am = not fun!!! She had a double ear & a sinus infection. Poor bebe. Okay, back to the story. When I called Eric, this is what I heard in the background:

"Waaaaaaaaaaa"

It doesn't look that bad typed out, but over the phone, it was a screeching scream. A non-stop scream. Eric said she wouldn't calm down. She wouldn't let him sit down. Just screaming. I looked up at Gretchen while I was still on the phone and she said "You're leaving, aren't you?" Yes. The Mom in me took over and in the next 15 minutes, I was Indiana bound. I probably over reacted, but I've been there, done that, and know how hard it is to console a baby. Didn't want Eric to have to do that alone. I'm a sucker for my kids. A sucker who walked in my house, saw two sleeping kids and breathed a sigh of relief. I kind of wanted to kick Eric in the shin REALLY hard because of how the night panned out, but I refrained. ;)

So, that's how my FUN BIRTHDAY evening turned out. I feel thankful that I got to see Gretchen for a little while, even if we did it with kids & me choosing to leave abruptly - both not planned! But, when you become a mom, I guess things don't always go as planned! It's a wild ride, but one I wouldn't change for the world.

Love you, G, and I hope that despite the craziness, you still had a good birthday!!!!!!!