Weston Writes His Own Name!

Here's a photo of Mike's birthday card from Weston. I went over to Julie's for a minute and when I got back he had written his name all by himself! He's been working very hard practicing his letters on a little dry erase board. It's amazing how fast kids learn! Grace loves to write her name also but, so far, she's the only one who can read it :)
By the way, Mike turns the big 30 on Friday and Elsie is 1 today! How fast time flies!

Backyard Fun

Here's a few photos from playing outside on Friday. As you can see we've had a bit of rain lately ;) I dressed the kids up in their snow bibs to try to keep them dry (it didn't really work). Even though we're still sad about not having grass this winter, the kids sure did have fun in the mud!

Laelie also joined in on the fun!

Holding Baby

Here's Grace holding a new baby. Baby Kayla, is the daughter of our friends, John and Beth Opferman. We went over to see their new baby after we attended the adoption party for the Chupps. Lot's of new baby girls to hold! Grace is in heaven!

Adoption Blessing!

Here's a picture of our friend, Kara, holding her new baby girl, Selah Noelle. Jason and Kara Chupp just adopted Selah from here in the U.S. through a private adoption agency. Selah is their 4th child as they have 3 natural children already. I took this picture at Southwest Bible Church where we went last weekend for a little adoption party. We are so excited for their family to be blessed in this way. John and Noelle Piper greatly influenced the Chupps to welcome another child into their home through their website, Desiring God, and specifically their own experience with adopting a daughter. Here's a link to an article from their website.

Christmas with Carrie's Parents

My parents came to visit over New Year's weekend. They were nice enough to babysit the kids on Saturday while Mike and I went to a friend's wedding reception in Newberg. On Saturday we did our Christmas with Papa Craig and Memaw Mary which was Christmas #3 for us and Christmas #2 for them. We barely mustered enough strength to open more presents ;)
On New Year's Eve my parents treated us to dinner at Claim Jumper's restaurant and then we repaid them by whipping them at a game of Hearts when we got home!

Elsie loved the bright colors and the big boxes.

My brother sent Weston real army camo paint, flight patches, and an army hat from South Korea.

Christmas in Spokane

For Christmas we drove up to join Mike's family in Spokane for four nights. We had a wonderful time although most of us were sick with various ailments. Mike's mom hasn't been feeling well, we all had colds, Mike got the flu, and his brother, Tim, had pink eye. We were a pretty sorry group the Saturday before Christmas (especially Mike). Despite not feeling 100% we had a great time spending time with family, playing in the snow, visiting John and Shirley's church for a Christmas Eve service, and just relaxing. John and Shirley prepared a wonderful Christmas dinner of roast, crab, and other delicious side dishes. Unfortunately I realized later that I didn't get any photos of the kids in their snow clothes or of the snowman they built together. On the day Mike was sick Tim was kind enough to go out with the kids, build a snowman and pull them up and down a hill to sled.

You always have to do a bow on the baby's head.

One package was mismarked so that Weston opened Grace's pink poodle puppet from John and Shirley.

Tim graced us with this sweater all day on Christmas. The best thing about the sweater is that all the polar bears on the sweater are wearing Christmas sweaters too!

This is Grace with her new Aunt Christi. Eric and Christi also live in Spokane and were married in October.

Little Christmas at Home

Here's some photos of our "at home" Christmas. We began our celebration by finishing up our advent calendar. We have an advent calendar that includes reading the Christmas story and placing one "character" under the stable every day. We decided Elsie would place Baby Jesus in the manger this year (this avoided whining from Weston and Grace).
The advent calendar is one of the highlights of our Christmas and helps the kids grasp the significance of the our Savior's birth. They became very good at playing "Mary and Joseph" over the month of December. They would stuff a doll up Grace's shirt and she would ride the little plastic scooter (this was the pretend donkey). They would arrive at the stable (under the kitchen table) where Jesus was born. Usually it was during the day that they would play so I was the only one there to be the angel, shepherds, wise men, and innkeeper. This game is especially a favorite of Grace.
After the advent calendar we sang some Christmas carols which included "Hark the Herald Angels Sing". We sang this song at least once a day during the month of December so Mike and I are quite good. Grace belts this one out very well and even opens her mouth very wide to form all the words just like people in real choirs :)
We finally moved on to our stockings, which are always fun, and then on to our presents.
It ended up being a wonderful evening and left Mike and I feeling very blessed and thankful.
We are so thankful that God sent His Son to be born as a man and to die to pay for our sins!
A gift that none of us deserve yet He gives to us freely!


Weston and Grace each got their very own box of fruit snacks! Whoo-hoo!

The kids' big gift was a mini-trampoline. They love to jump their energy out and I love it too!

Here's the kids with their stockings. Elsie's was empty but she didn't mind ;)

Magic Cheerio Trick

Elsie knows a "magic" trick at less than 1 year old! How do you think she got that cheerio to stick to the tip of her nose? Scroll down to find out the secret!

Snot!

Scotcheroos!

Here's a family favorite. I brought these cookies to a girls' party the other night and they were devoured pretty quickly.

Scotcheroos

Lightly grease 9"X13" pan.

In large saucepan or pot (I use my dutch oven pot) bring 1 C sugar and 1 C light corn syrup to a boil. When sugar is completely dissolved stir in 1 slightly heaping cup of smooth peanut butter (I use Skippy or Jif). I have not tried this recipe with Adam's Peanut Butter which is what we normally eat, but somehow I think it wouldn't be the same ;) Mix well and then stir in 6 C Rice Krispies. Stir thoroughly and press into pan.

In microwave or double boiler melt 1 C butterscotch chips and 1 C semi-sweet chocolate chips until smooth. Spread on cookies. Refrigerate just until chocolate is set (if you leave them in too long they will be hard to cut into squares).

Christmas Cookies!

Weston had been eagerly awaiting the day we were to make our Christmas cookies. As you can see it was quite the project (especially for me)! Although it's a lot of work, I know the kids will treasure these Christmas memories.

Here we're wrapping up the rolling, cutting, and baking .

Grace loved the messy flour part. After this photo I went into the kitchen to make the frosting and Grace stayed on the chair playing with the leftover pile of flour for 10 minutes (she also loves to make a mess with her food; a bad habit I'm trying to discontinue ;)

Decorating! The kids loved creating their own cookie artwork.

Grace probably ate cookies and licked frosting off her fingers more than she decorated!

The perfect team! I frosted them and then Grace ate them!

Still going! This was very serious and hard work!

Apparently frosting is fun to squish between your fingers.

Weston's green Christmas tree with lots and lots of green sprinkles.

The finished product! We took these plates over to Dave and Julie next door. Don't tell them about the "licking the fingers" part of the process ;)

Santa's Vanilla Cookies

Makes about 2 dozen

2 C flour

3/4 C sugar

1/2 C margarine (softened)

2 tsp. vanilla

1 T water

1 egg

Mix wet ingredients and sugar. Add dry ingredients. Mix well. Requires lots of flour for rolling and cutting out. Roll dough NO THINNER than 1/4". If you roll it too thin the cookies end up dry and crunchy. Roll thick and they are moist and chewy! Bake at 400 degrees for 5-6 minutes.

The frosting is a basic powdered sugar recipe.

About 3-4 (or more) C powdered sugar, 1-2 T butter or margarine, 1 tsp. vanilla, and about 1-2 T milk. A alternately add powdered sugar and milk until I get the right consistency (it has to be pretty thick to not run off the cookie).