Reindeer Craft

The little flu that Mallory caught was hard on her.  She had a hard time getting her energy back.  I had a hard time getting her to do school work.  She just was not in the right frame.  She was tired.  So I scrapped school and found some fun things for them to do instead.

We rolled a reindeer. 

Worked on their cutting skills.

She seriously thinks everything we do is so exciting!

Counting.  Patience.  They enjoyed it.

Hey!  Baby Girl!  This is great fun isn’t it?! 

I am totally enjoying Melanie at this age while we school.  Right now she stays where I put her and thinks everything is totally great.  Next year she is going to be t.r.o.u.b.l.e.  Into everything!  I am sure of it.

Finished!!

We hunted

The week before Christmas Mallory came down with a tiny flu-like bug.  She is the toughest kid when she is sick!!  She woke us up in the middle of the night and said, “Daddy, I just threw up.”  We both jumped out of bed and were fearful of what we were going to find. 

She is all chill… no big deal… Made it to the bathroom.  I am fine.  Ready to go back to bed.  Huh?!  Jesse and I were like what do we do?  She is so tough!  So we told her she was amazing and thank you so much for making it to the bathroom!  Tucked her back in bed with a bucket… just incase. 

Never heard from her again!!  She woke up in the morning and she was so pale!  She was still sick, but she was not going to admit it.  Jesse had me come look at her because she was so pale (she was washing her hands in the bathroom) and I took one look at her and she was starting to swirl her eyes and get a little tipsy.  I told Jesse she was going to pass out.  And then I grabbed her and laid her on the cold tile floor.  She just laid there and looked at us like we were the nuts ones. 

Anyway, she camped out on the couch all day.  Which is really hard for her.  She tried to wonder away – but within minutes she was crawling back into her little nest on the couch.  By the end of the day she said it was the most boring day ever.

I eventually got her to nap and Max and I snuck downstairs.  She would be so sad if we would of came downstairs without her so we had to wait for her to sleep so she didn’t feel left out. 

And, well, what else does Max do but hunt.  So him and I hunted.   

Missed.  So he tried again.  Notice how he closes his one eye!

Missed again!  So I had him switch the hand he uses to hold the bow.

Got him!

Melanie tags along too!  We toss some random toys at her and she is totally content. 

That third baby I tell ya!  She is so super easy going and content it is almost wrong! 

We found mountain goats! 

I then felt guilty for just letting Melanie do her thing so I let her sit in my lap and play toys.

He shot the deer off the mountain and brought it over to me and asked me if I wanted to eat it.  The kid cracks me up!

The next night Mallory woke us up but it was totally different reason.  “Daddy, I have never been so hungry in my life.” 

Cookie Baking

It was cookie time!  I was craving all the classic cookies… so we had an old fashion cookie baking. 

I didn’t grab my camera too much – so I don’t have a lot of pictures.

I have a KitchenAid Mixer… which I absolutely love and would be lost without.  However, it constantly spits flour everywhere when I first turn it on!  Been a problem since the first day!  Irritates me no end. 

My sister-in-law bought me a guard… and it still does it! 

Then I seen this picture (below) on Pinterest and laughed until I had tears.  Pinned it to my cookie board.

I am making frosting.  Why me?  Why did they put me in charge of the frosting?  So I am working away on this and I am ready to turn the mixer on… start out slow and it is getting a little crazy.  Powder sugar is starting to fly so I went to go turn it off and went the wrong way and turned it on full blast!!!!  Powder sugar every where!

Jesse attempted to get pictures for me.

Then I put I an aunt in charge of the frosting!

My Aunt Gayle brought me an old fashion picture to go with our old fashion cookies.  It was a picture of my Mom’s side when they were little tiny peanuts frosting cookies.  So we tried to duplicate it.

Individual Frosting pictures.

That’s it.  I can’t stop eating the cookies.  Old Fashion was a great way to go.  We might have to do it again next year.  Jesse even said… those ginger snaps are amazing!  He has been eating them at wee hours of the night while the rest of us are sleeping! 

Oh!  For some crazy cute pictures go here!  My Mom took some pictures of Melanie making cookies.  Adorable!!!   

Trimming the Tree

Ever have those moments where you think you have the most amazing idea/plan?!  I have them… a lot.

I recently started watching the series, Parenthood.  I don’t know why I watch it because sometimes it is like watching my life being acted out by someone else.  Jesse has even told me that I look like one of the characters on there… and it happens to be the person who I thought was acting out my life.  Creepy! 

In one of the episodes Kristine (who just had a baby and hormones are crazy) decided that they needed a family night.  Something that they all could do together.  (Had these moment plenty of times myself!)  She, the mom, was so excited about family night!  They were going bowling.  Yay!  Family night!

Everyone loads up into the car and everyone soon starts having melt downs.  Why are we going bowling?  I don’t want sit in the back?  Baby starts crying!  Kristine starts having a minor panic attack.  She breaks.  She kicks everyone out of the car.  Gets in the driver seat and drives away with her family standing in the middle of the road.

She went bowling with the baby, by herself.

I died.  I laughed.  I cried.  I have so wanted to do that but never had the guts. 

Anyway, my point is… I have these moments (remind me to tell you about the time I thought it would be great fun to go on a work trip with Jesse and cram a family of 5 in a tiny hotel room for two days). 

I have these moments at Christmas.  Okay family!  We are going to get dressed in our snow gear and we are going out to cut down the perfect Christmas tree!  I need these photos people!!  Get your stuff on!  Smile!  Lets do this kids!! 

Everyone get ready.  Yay!  Kids are skipping!  Going to get a Christmas tree!

Max.  For the love of all things holy stop attacking your sister and get your snow pants on!

Mallory!  You can not wear your princess high heels today.

Max!  Your jacket is upside down.

Maggie!  Quit licking me!

I can’t find my hat! 

It is right in front of you!  Look!

Now comes the crying because they have so many layers on they can’t get their seatbelt buckled. 

I am hot Mom!

Are we there yet?

Where are we going again?

Now trudge this snow and pretend to like it!  No whining! 

Dad!  This tree!  I like this one!

No Dad!  I want this tree!  This is the one!

Crap!  I forgot that blasted camera.  How am I going to get the most amazing pictures of us doing this?!

Now pull this over size tree out of here!

Lynn!  It doesn’t fit into the tree stand real good.  Pretty sure it is going to fall over again this year so go easy on the breakable decorations and don’t put Melanie by it! 

Yay!  Smile!  This is fun!  Remember!  Making memories!  Getting those perfect photos that I am never going to print and they will sit on my hard drive and my computer will crash in two years and there went all those happy memories because I don’t back up my photos. 

So…

I wasn’t going to go there!  Nope!  Not this year!  This year was going to be different! 

We were…

getting a fake tree!

There I said it!  Fake!  Yup!  I am pretty sure I swore in blood I would never ever own a fake tree and well… it happened.  Don’t know how.  Just did. 

Jesse said one Sunday morning while getting ready for church… want a fake tree yet?  Um, yes actually that sounds amazing!

He ordered one in 3.4 seconds and done.  Tree will be here in a week!

So this past weekend I dug out this fake tree to take a look at it and get it decorated.

OMG!

Really?!  We spent hard earned money on this?!

Wow!

I thought it was suppose to be 7 feet tall?

Kind of… well… ugly!

We laughed.  Then I cried.  Then I laughed.

Then Jesse spent the next 20 minutes fluffing branches and attempting to make it not look so fake and airy and like they forgot a whole section towards the top. 

Tada!  It worked!

And that is the only picture I have the kids decorating it!

Melanie jumped and got angry at her bird and pulled his feet.

I did remember to put all three of them in front of the tree and take their picture.

Max!  Can you please look at me? 

Mallory and Melanie!  Hey!  Girls!  Look here!

Ah!  Perfect!

Thank you so much for that great smile Max!

Okay you are free to go wiggle.

Even Melanie is starting to get into the chaos!  She hoots and yells and growls right with them.

The tree has not fallen over… yet…

Max went Hunting

The kids and I took the entire week of Thanksgiving off from school.  I did some calculations and we are ahead of the game so we could take the week off and still get done a week (almost two weeks) early in the summer. 

One of the days I took Max out to the hunting shack.  All he talks about is hunting, guns, bows, and animals.  Thought he might think this was great.

While I was getting Max ready I handed off the baby to one of the new hunters to the crew.  Cousin Jake.

Max is all ready and totally embarrassed. 

He kept saying “seriously”.  And rolling his eyes up into his head. 

Once he was outside with just Grandpa John he didn’t stop talking.

Grandpa made it like a real hunt.  He took his gun.  He put a walkie talkie in Max’s pocket.  Just in case they got something they could radio back to the shack.

So pretty out!!  If I was any kind of real photographer I would of stole an orange jacket and followed them for some amazing pictures.  But I didn’t want to ruin their little moment either. 

While they were out walking Mallory and I talked to them on the walkie talkie.  Max didn’t want to talk to us but he told us it was really slippery and he fell on his butt. 

Max and Grandpa headed down another trail and meanwhile these three hung out.

 

Of course Mallory wants a turn to hunt too.

Apparently all she wanted to do was skate around on the ice and play in the snow.  She was not so much into that looking and being quiet for deer.

Melanie was a happy baby that day!  She is a happy baby almost every day though!

Then the real hunters were getting ready to go out and Max watched with great intensity out the window. 

Recently discovered her feet!  Ripping socks off is a great game – so I just don’t even put socks on.

Good luck hunter hugs!

Mallory is back from her hunt! 

Later that night (it is dark out now) Max says something to the effect of Grandpa is still hunting.  I told him no it is dark you can’t hunt in the dark.  His quick response was “But he had that light on his hat for hunting in the dark.”  Little boys!  They notice those details!