Christmas in C-ville

We had a great time in Centreville for Christmas.  We did puzzles, and ate good food and had a great time with everyone.  This year Addie actually got into the big puzzles and was able to really help.  I was surprised how long she sat there with Kim looking for pieces. 

Jason and I went out for our anniversary while we were there, and Jeff and John did a lot more than they probably wanted to.

We had a great time and forgot to take a lot of pictures.  So here are the random ones that we took:

Pajama Travel

One thing we decided to do to cheer ourselves up about not getting to Virginia until right before Christmas was to wear our Christmas pajamas on the plane.  It was Christmas Eve afterall.  So, we opened them in the morning and wore them all day.

 

The little guys got a ton of comments about their cute outfits.  One of the flight attendants even suggested that Dexter get out and push to help us get there faster.  Everyone loved the cape.  No one said anything about my cute outfit.  Rude.

Geese and Blizzards

So this is somewhat random, but I thought it was cool.  When we first moved on Goose Lake Circle, I thought that was a silly name.  I mean, really.  The 'lake' is more like a big pond, and are there ever really any geese on it?  The answer is a definite yes.  And, I know that they're just geese and probably not exciting to anyone else, but I find it so cool that every year in the fall we have lots of geese on our little body of water.  We hear them passing over-head the whole season long.  This year, it started to get crazy.  I looked out our front window and there were literally hundreds if not thousands of geese landing on the lake at the same time.  The sky was full of them.  Later that morning we drove past and the whole lake was full of geese.  So we decided to get the camera and walk back.  By the time it took us to get back, there was not even a tenth of what had been there before:

 

 

We were very sad but took pictures anyway.

There were a ton of geese for several days, and then we got hit with a blizzard.  They must have known it was coming.  We wished that we had known when we were booking our flight to get home for Christmas, because we instead were not able to get there until Christmas Eve.  So we played in the snow for a couple days.

It's Christmastime!

After we got home from our trip we decided it was time to get in the Christmas spirit.  So we got out all of our stuff (we've got quite a bit for our little family) and started decorating.  Here are some pictures of the festivities.

 

 



Look at that perfect cowlick right in the middle of his head.

 

Jason saw Addie doing something weird with the Nativity pieces and asked what she was doing.  She said she was putting them to sleep.  It's hard to see, but you can make out the outlines of the ones that are all the way past her knee in her pants.  I'm not sure why she thought that would be a good place for them.

Thanksgiving 2012

This year for Thanksgiving we headed to the windy city to visit some of our Christensen cousins.  We had a really great meal and wonderful company.  Based on the first few hours, we thought that Addie and Braden were going to be the best of friends.  They played great, but also seemed to bring out the contentious in each other.  After thinking about it, I think it was just two strong-willed oldest children at a 'fun' stage.  Anyway, we still had lots of fun.  We went to their ginormous mall and even visited Santa and we also went into the city which Addie and Andres thought was awesome.

 

These two guys are just a few weeks apart and spent the weekend crawling all over the place.

This picture kind of shows how most of the time was - Addie and Braden being goofy and crazy and Andres . . . just . . . there.

The whole group (sleeping Dexter's foot can be seen in the stroller on the left) in front of Santa's wonderland.

In front of the Cloud Gate (we called it the big bean) and I love this picture because I couldn't get Braden to stop dancing because he was so cold - so funny!

Love those faces.

We had so much fun exploring a little of Chicago with this bunch!

The whole family (even though Addie and Andres have no clue) on the streets of Chicago.

We went to a German Christmas market that they had downtown and it was very nostalgic for me and Jason.  The cold, the crowds, and full of Christmas cheer.



Thought I'd end the post with this fabulous picture.  It reminded me of a Christmas Story.  He didn't like being in the suit until we hit the cold, then he didn't seem to mind a bit.  He was probably the warmest of the whole bunch.

More projects

Jason and I both recently finished some cool projects.  I made some pretty scrumptious cupcakes for a church activity.  I was particularly proud of these because I came up with the creations myself (not all of the recipes, but each of the components are from different sources some of which I have tweaked).  The first one is a chocolate cupcake with chocolate peanut butter ganache and peanut butter frosting.  The second is a pumpkin cupcake with whipped cream cheese frosting and cinnamon streusel topping.  The last one is a red velvet (I tried several recipes before getting a great one) with cream cheese white chocolate frosting.

 

 Jason has been working on his milk-jug igloo for several weeks now and finally finished.  We had several people donate milk jugs for several months and used a total of 498!  He was meticulous in washing every single one; he would not use it if he couldn't get all of the stink out (learned that something in chocolate milk makes the jugs MUCH stinkier).

View from the inside.

Looking out.

Those Crazy Kids

We're enjoying some moments of normalcy right now in between holidays.  Here is a look at our normal:

 

Andres occupied himself for at least 30 minutes trying to put on his vest from church.  It kept going wrong, so he devised this method of laying the vest down and then laying down to get it right.  Pretty genius kid.

This little genius has been climbing a bit too much.  I was trying to get a picture of him trying to get up to Addie's bed to play with them, but whenever he sees the camera . . .

Baths around here are a lot of fun.  I can't do it seperately because they all like to be in there and they like each other.  Plus it would take too long to do more than one.  I love happy, clean kids.

I don't know why I love pictures of babies falling asleep in strange places, but I do.

Halloween 2012: A day in pictures

 I actually remembered to get pictures on Halloween.  I did realize that none of them are of me or Jason.  This is not on purpose.  You'll just have to take my word for it that we were there and looked great.

Addie decided to go to preschool dressed as Belle.  Here she is with some of her friends from school.  No, I did not suggest she take her coat off.  As a matter of fact, I thought she was crazy because it was really really cold that day.

Andres dressed as Batman during the day.  I love that his "Batman Shoes" are his church socks and his black sandals.  Awesome.

 For lunch I made green pancakes and we tried to make them into fun shapes.  Some worked better than others.  If you can't tell, there are two spider type things, a 'BOO' and a witch on a broomstick that I was rather proud of but right now looks more like a cowboy sweeping.

 Ready for trick-or-treating.  Apparently, Addie is dressed as Barbie (just in a fancy Belle-type dress).  Andres was, of course, Iron Man.

 Dexter and I stayed home to pass out the candy.  I tried to get a picture of him reaching his hand through to try and get the candy bowl, but this little guy is much too quick for me.

Halloween Festivities 2012

As usual, our Halloween activities lasted for about a week or so.  It started with our ward's Trunk or Treat on Friday night.  We decided that this year would be perfect to dress up as the Incredibles.  It's one of Addie and Andres' favorite movies (really they both like the Jack Jack Attack best) and Andres has been so into superheroes that since we have all the characters it seemed just perfect.  I was able to find a really good deal on pre-made costumes for Addie and Andres a couple months before hand.  Jason found the red pajamas for Dexter at a thrift store for less than $3!  I made and added the logos to Dexter's and to mine and Jason's shirts.  I also made masks for everyone except Dexter (knowing that he would never wear it).  And when Addie saw me painting Dexter's face she had to have that too.  It was probably better that way because she never leaves anything on her face/head for more than a few minutes either.
The actual Trunk or Treat part was really cold so we rushed through it as quickly as possible, but we still came away with tons of candy.

It's Dash, Jack-Jack, and Violet Incredible.

We were trying to show our powers (I was stretching and Addie was holding a forcefield).

Mr. Incredible teaching his boys how to be super strong.

The whole family. Don't we look SUPER?

 And the pumpkins:

Jason worked really hard to get the symbol just right.  He did a great job.

The kids pumpkin is a happy spider (a compromise between Addie who wanted something creepy and Andres who wanted a happy pumpkin).