Holiday Baking

Since the kids were feeling back to normal after a weekend full of crying-we decided to let them have a little fun doing some holiday baking yesterday-we made Cheesy Corn Bites for munchies as we worked  on: mint chocolate chip cookies, chocolate cake mix cookies with HUGS on top, Peppermint Patties for Dad, and Almond Joys!

Emma had picked out a cute little kit at Freddies for decorating a Gingerbread Train. She was so excited about it and quickly named it "The Polar Express". She skipped to the candy isle and picked out some cute candies to add to the ones in the kit and we headed home-over the moon to show brother!

 Both kiddos had a great time with the activity and I was surprised how gentle Emma placed the candies on....I was certain she would be a bull in a china shop-but no! I think it turned out too cute.

Parent of the Year Award!

Follow-up on Emee: The "Owie" causin' Culprit!
A CHINESE MARBLE making it's way down anyones intestines would cause agony don't cha think? We are relieved she passed it on her own, and thankful she didn't have to go through surgery or some such mess. Emma has been happy as a clam, running, jumping and squealing like her normal self. So glad it also wasn't a virus-YUCK! Now maybe when I tell her to stay out of my stuff-she will????

What a weekend!

Poor Emma is still under the weather-she has no fever, and isn't vomiting anymore but she constantly complains of stomach pains. Mike couldn't take seeing her like that anymore and had me take her to the E.R last night-where we spent almost 5 hours attempting to rule out an appendicitis-needless to say, we are back at home without any I.V's or such trauma-but she still doesn't feel quite up to par. It is days like these that I am SO grateful I only work part-time.

Seconds after being home from the hospital in the tiniest gown I've ever seen :(

To top things off:
I have had a Christmas card workshop on the calendar for months, and go figure it was today of all days! Boo... I was completely unprepared and lethargic from a complete lack of sleep, but the cards turned out "ok" I guess. The class literally took all day long because we were making 20 cards and a matching box to hold them in! I had nothing prepared and was doing it all as the class copied me. NEVER AGAIN! Thank goodness the next one isn't until February-leaving me plenty of time to prepare (I hope). Oh well, everyone understood-my kids will always come first and luckily Mike was home to tend to the needs of the little ones today :) Oh my-hopefully tomorrow will be more relaxing and Emma feels like herself again soon.

Poor Emee & The Chex Mix Man

Poor Emee is sick today. I cancelled preschool this morning and sat up with her all night. She still feels yucky complaining of an "owie tummy" and just wants to snuggle on the couch with her "Bo" the bunny. She is trying so hard to be a happy little thing. Waking up at 5am because she heard her brother crying, she wiggled off the couch as fast as she could saying “Bryce, I’m right here honey-I’m coming”….awwww. All the while, all she really wants to do is sit & cry herself. She grabbed a bag of Pirate’s Booty and just wants to hold it. She has no appetite-but whatever makes her happy at this point-and if that happens to be holding onto a bag of popcorn….so be it!

Bryce has a fever but has been acting normal still-yikes....what's going on here?
Since Mr. B still has his energy, we decided to make sister one of her favorite snacks for when she is feeling better....CHEX MIX!

Bryce was SO excited to be able to cook without anyone else to share turns with! He ran in the dining room and pushed a chair all the way to the kitchen counter-he was READY!

You know he had to have little nibbles here and there-it's Bryce!

He was so sad when I then took the pan and popped it in the oven. No concept that we had to wait for it to cook. Bummer. Oh well-he took a few "raw" ones for the road anyways! I think his sister will appreciate his gift from the heart today :)

It's Beginning to Look a lot like Christmas

Mike and I have always put up our Christmas stuff the SECOND we got home from Thanksgiving in Bremerton-but this year was a little crazier...we came home and rushed to plan the current week at school, print the necessary materials, do homework, grade papers, unpack from our trip to SLC, clean the house, get ready for my preschool family show and field trip, Mike's huge final at CWU, etc and ALL OF IT HAPPENING THIS WEEK!....no time for pulling down the "harvest" decor, let alone put up new stuff. So we did it today-hey-it's still the first week of December, so that works...right? Still I feel so behind-everyone else I know is DONE with their decorating and we just started!
Before the whole "decorating" party, Em & I headed down to the basement for the gigantic Christmas Boxes...luckily Em brought along her trusty flashlight, because it was D-A-R-K and scary down there!

(yep-that's the flashlight...it annoyingly barks but let's out JUST enough light to be handy!)

Some of my favorite items are the snowflake card holder from Pottery Barn and the matching family stockings that Mike's mom made. The tree of hands was something I made in Kindergarten & my mom saved for me.

I got the fuzzy little snowmen faces this year when I went to Utah....too cute! I LOVE them-I also got the HO HO HO blocks and the giant cream sparkle star to put above my Willow Tree Nativity. (I am obsessed with The Quilted Bear & Tai Pan-they have so many cool things!)

The kids had so much fun helping decorate. Em enjoyed watching each new ornament get unwrapped-especially the ones that belonged to her (The Grinch, "E", Baby's First X-mas), and the "Twinkles" (the lights). Bryce of course said "oooooh" to everything in sight and just wanted to touch. He put his "B" ornament on & off the tree what seemed like 27 times.

The Mickey Hat is Emma's first Christmas ornament (we spent that xmas at Disneyland) and the Onesie is Bryce's. Then the other 2 ornaments are our family-so they are particularly special to us.

The tiny white snowball looking twinkle garland, was a decoration from our wedding reception. The first year we were married Mike said he always thought a themed tree would be nice, so we picked candy cane colors (red & white) and added the grinch green when Em was born. During that first christmas we came across the white/clear beaded garlands in a box & thought they were PERFECT for our tree. We still think we were right-plus now it makes our tree extra special!

Now the challenge will be, how to keep our sweet peaches away from the tree....no not the dogs-OUR KIDS! Good luck to us huh?

The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza

Last night was my annual Preschool Play/Family Show & Dinner called, "The Little Red Hen makes a Pizza with the Big Bad Wolf!"...a mouthful I know-but it's what the kids wanted :)
This is my most nerve-racking event of year, but always worth it. After spending weeks with my stomach in knots and a lot of time in the bathroom this morning, Mike clued in and helped me set up for a few hours this morning, thus relieving a lot of stress. After going around and around with the school district to allows us to use a room, for 2 hours and LESS than $650...my great friend Courtney finally got us a deal at Morgan Middle School for $20~YAY! Let me tell ya about the undue mental overload THAT issue has caused...anyhow-Em & Bryce enjoyed that I made some fruit pizzas for the event too.

The kids were pretty nervous at first, so I had all the adults leave the room and I had a pep talk with just "us"...smiles came around pretty quickly and so did their excitement to show their families what they had been working on so hard for 4 weeks!
All the artwork/decor were projects the kids did in class. They have been hung up all around the classroom for the past month, and became GREAT decor for our set! I made their simple costumes/facemasks out of posterboard and tempera paint-less is more with these things-with the kids faces in the middle...I must say, they are adorable!

How cute are my students: Red Hen-Sienna, Big Bad Wolf-Cash (who even had his Grandma make him a special "wolf" tail for the occasion!) These 2 were the main characters and had so many lines they memorized and then performed without a hitch-I was SOOOOO proud of them!

The 3 little pigs: Miss "Barbeque"-Karley, Miss "Hamlet"-Kamryn, and Kevin "Bacon"-Ayden (the parents got a kick out of the play on words...it was pretty hilarious since the kids had NO clue!)

Goat-Finn, Dog-Amie, Horse-Hannah and Cow-Lily (who was throwing a fit at the time of this picture...such a drama queen)

The kids performed a couple songs (to help make them comfortable about being in front of a crowd of 60 people)...then they did their play (where EVERY child had memorized their lines beautifully)...afterwards they came back together for a few more songs including, Tony Chestnut & the Chicken Dance (which the parents joined in and performed with their kids). I turned the kids loose to join their families and we all enjoyed Pizza together for dinner. It was a great turnout tonight (relatives traveled from all over JUST for this event) and I got the best feedback I ever have before from parents, their friends and grandparents too! It was just the thing I needed to keep me going and continuing to love my job. My students were too cute for words, and I couldn't be more proud.

Our Family Holiday Traditions

There are lots of things we look forward to during this festive time of the year but the things we are certain to do (almost) every December are:

• bake mince pies for Momma & Peppermint Patties for Dadda
• paint homemade personalized ornaments (mine are always tacky as you can see-painting is NOT my thing!) This is a Martone tradition that I was trying to keep alive for Emma, but after attempting and failing for 10 years....this is probably my last year. Time to throw in the towel and cut my losses! :)

• spend a day baking homemade candies & gift packs to take around to friends (we made this one for Marissa & Ayden this year-they are getting it tomorrow, so I'm not spoiling anything :) We went with a "Grinch Family Night Fun" theme. Em & B had a BLAST going through all the GRINCH stuff! We hope the Schnebly's like it as much as we do! I filled it with bags of Popcorn, Mini Sprite bottles with tags that say "May Your Days Be Merry and SPRITE", fudge, Grinch tattoos, Grinch pens/pencils & erasers, Grinch soundtrack, Grinch shaped soap, Grinch shaped chocolate lollipops, a cute tile with vinyl lettering, and a Grinch board game! There's something for everyone in this puppy! I think the best part was everything had a "Grinchy" label on it to tie in the theme. :) Oh-and don't forget my annual tacky ornaments tied on the front too! lol!

• look out each day for "The Elf on the Shelf"(she spies on the kids and tells Santa if they're well behaved or not-will be even greater leverage the older they get!!!)
• buy 1 new special ornament to add to our collection from Kris Kringle shop in Leavenworth
• kids get to eat 1 chocolate each day from the Christmas advent calendar (usually sent from Nana)
• watch 'Twas the Night Before Christmas" & "The Grinch" cartoons 
• take a drive to look at Christmas lights around town
• get new Christmas jammies
• open 1 gift on the night of the 23rd
• open our gifts at home on Christmas Eve day and head to Grandma & Papa's that night
• read the Night Before Christmas before retiring on the 24th
• have kids Christmas pictures taken in their fancy outfits (we don't do Department store/Mall Santa pictures...I think they are cheesy & overpriced-though the kids usually have SOME other type of Santa picture at some point during the season)
• let Dadda put the star on the tree (last of all the decorations)

When we were kids, my mom always stressed the importance of homemade gifts between my sisters and I....not because we couldn't afford it, but because of the thought that goes into it. To this day, I still enjoy those things the most (for any occasion). And YES-I am the person who enjoys the wrapping as much as the gift inside the package-annoying, I know. :)
Anyhow-this year Mike and I have decided that we are spending a limited amount on each other and the BIG gift we give each other is supposed to be "homemade". I am super excited for the idea I finally came up with for mine...sorry, can't tell. Mike is REALLY nosey this time of year! Now just keeping my fingers crossed that it turns out the way I picture it in my head!

An Old Fashioned Christmas

Took the kids to get their pictures done today-and I LOVE how they turned out. Plus, how darn cute are the old fashioned sled & car????Em & Bryce were asked to hold hands, so they did....and then impromptu-they started dancing while Emma sang the song from Sleeping Beauty! It was hillarious. Afterwards I gave them the treat I had promised...Jamba Juice & Pirates Booty-mental note: DON'T SHARE YOUR DRINK WITH THE KIDS AGAIN (I order mine with an "Energy" vitamin booster....) Need I say more about the rest of the afternoon?????

Nevertheless-no matter how crazy a day can be- the sound of a giggle from Bryce will always melt my heart, making me forget that I was JUST about to go crazy! I wish I could bottle up that sound so it would never go away. Now I understand Emma's Tinkerbell movies when they say "the sound of a baby's laugh is how fairies get their wings". I love my munchkins!