May the Syrup be with you??

I know many people have seen these, and I have been staring at them for years now and finally I mentioned them to my mom when she was getting a present for Eddie for Christmas this year. We decided to test them out for dinner tonight, and they were great!

Eddie loves the fun pancakes. 

Thanks Mom and Dad!

Christmas 2011

Christmas has come and gone.
Here's a quick highlight of our holiday, for posterity's sake:

In addition to walking around to look at Christmas lights in the neighborhood, half of which the owners forgot to turn on, we:
*Made some goodies and went caroling on Friday evening with some friends.
*Had a yummy Christmas Eve dinner

with some chocolate fondue for dessert!

*Stayed up way too late building the girls' kitchen from "Santa" (you notice he gets all the credit for Ed's hard work?? What is the deal?)

* The Christmas morning fun

* Ate a filling breakfast
(no pic because I was sleeping... I didn't actually eat until almost noon because Ed let me sleep *love!*)
*Went to church and listened to some beautiful music from the choir. Sad we couldn't do it this year, but we have been otherwise occupied with a newborn :-)
*Sighed at the aftermath of our Christmas morning.

  And this was not suppose to be what it looked like. All that we (Eddie and I) got the girls was the kitchen and a 4-pack of puppets to share. We also got a few little presents for their stockings like books, matchbox cars, pez dispensers... and a couple small things for Hunter. Then we also had the few presents from family elsewhere. They had more toys than they needed as it was, and upon searching through said toys for donation purposes, came away with only a small box of things that they no longer play with on a regular basis. So at least they use what they have! And when the girls initially came downstairs, they were more than happy with those items. We could've ignored everything under the tree and they would've been none the wiser.

  But as it would happen, apparently being a family with 3 young children when you are a low ranking airman in the Air Force makes people want to help you out, so our children were included in the military's Angel Tree and a week ago, Ed came home with two LARGE bags of toys for the kids. It was very nice of them to do this, even though I don't feel like we are struggling in any way. So our modest Christmas turned into the kids getting too many toys. More than any of the years previously :-( It also meant each girl got something that the other didn't, which we really try to avoid in this house unless it's a birthday. Anyone who has little kids knows what kind of drama I was trying to avoid. I hate to sound ungrateful, because it truly was nice of them to think of us; don't get me wrong. But it's kinda like when someone gives you parenting advice- you know what works with your kids, and sometimes the help just throws off the whole groove you've established :-)

  I decided next year the kids will help us go shopping for someone else and we'll just get books and other non-toy things since I can't possible think of adding to what they have now... and we will be moving a few months later :-) What do you think of that idea, Hunter?

Ok then, it's a plan!

Oh, and this year's pic with Santa:

Hunter was getting a new diaper, so he didn't make it into the shot, but Carissa isn't crying!! So it's okay :-)

Worth it

I may be exhausted.

My house may get trashed everyday, no matter how clean it was when I went to bed.

I may have developed a twitch in my right eye.

My gray hair has multiplied exponentially.

I still don't have many clothes I fit in pre-pregnancy.

I have alot of "me" activities on the back burner.

My Christmas shopping...hasn't really happened.

The culprits?

At least they're cute!

Color, Color, Everywhere!

 Christmas kinda snuck up on me this year and so the decorating portion has been kinda...uh... lax this year. I wasn't going to put too much effort into it since I was just tired and no one will probably even see it outside of our little family. That and the fact that I had a whole week without a husband, but WITH 3 kids, right after Thanksgiving... nothing got done that week really. But I've been feeling so "not in the Christmas Spirit" this year and so I thought that I really should do some decorating. So I asked Ed to watch the kids while I did some hanging of lights and bows. Not much really. But the girls stayed completely out of my way. How did he do it? It's called:

"Lexi and Carissa found some kiddie scissors and colored cardstock, which ultimately ended up as confetti! 

All over my entire downstairs!" 

Here is what it looked like in the living room the following morning, though the pictures don't do it much justice.

So to teach Lexi some responsibility, she had to clean up each and every piece when she got home from school. I tried to be nice and gave her the dustbuster for a few minutes, but she wasn't really using it for cleaning as much as goofing off with it. She had until the charge died, which didn't yield much as far as confetti removal. So it was down to the "hands and knees" approach. She started at 12:30 and didn't finish until close to 6... She's got her daddy's attention span :-) I think she finally realized how serious I was when she didn't get a snack (I told her no snack until it was all gone...she didn't believe me). Now she knows that she can have her fun, but she's responsible for the clean up :-)