The NICE List

Santa must have been busy eating lots of cookies or napping as he missed all the naughty behavior that went on in this household and put my kids on the top of the nice list.  Check out their loot..........

Ethan got a remote control car, 2 Lego sets, a magic set, a big Panda and treats in his stocking.

Lila received a keyboard and treats in her stocking.  The plan is to have my mom come over weekly and give her lessons.  For now the kids are just banging on it while singing at the top of their lungs.  Pretty darn precious.

Emry loves these squeezable apple sauces that I never buy because they are too expensive.  So she saw them and said 'Oh I love these', trying to be excited about her gift.  Then she reached into her stocking and pulled out.........................................................................................................................

Oh yes he did.  Santa brought her an Ipod touch.  How do I feel about Glenn Santa bringing her this?  Mixed.  On the one hand it makes me very nervous that my daughter is going to turn into this anti-social, always plugged in, tuned out hermit.

But on the other hand I am really happy for her.  She has wanted one for a while and is completely overjoyed.  I want her to be able to navigate technology and not be the type of person who has to ask her kids to show her how the printer works.  Mom's like that are lame, ahem, cough, cough.

I am excited that she'll learn along with the rest of her age group how to do important stuff like download wallpaper, music & find a million adorable pictures of Chihuahua's.  Totally necessary  for today's tweens.

Brutus loved all his bones and greedily searched his stocking to see where all those wonderful meaty smells were coming from.

Why are there so many pictures of Ethan?

Probably the same reason he got the most gifts.  He may be almost 7 but he'll always be my baby boy.  The one I want to spoil and create magic for.  He believes in Santa with his whole heart.  So while he's young I am pretty certain he's always going to be on the nice list.

And when he's older and understands all?

Well, that won't be so bad either.

Just ask Emry.

Thrift Gifts

There's no way around it..........  lots of money is always spent during the holidays.  Christmas cards, making treats, fancy meals for visiting family, fun activities and......... oh yeah GIFTS!  Luckily I am a thrift store pro and did a lot of my shopping there.  Here are the gifts for my sister Jeannette's family.

For Kiera - age 4 1/2

Orange Leggings $0.50, Op jacket $1.50, book $0.10, Roxy Sweater $1.50, Magnetic dolls $1.50
Total  = $5.10

For Nathan - age 7 1/2

Grey jacket $1.00, Pirate Shirt $0.50, Crayola paint set (new!) $2.50, Crayola Explosion books $1.50,
book cover (wrapped) $0.10
Total =  $5.60

For Kylee - age 14

Makeup/overnight bag $2.00, Shirt $1.50, Duct Tape purse made by Emry =)
Total = $3.50

Remember wherever I am.............Brutus is right there.

And for my lovely sister Jeannette

Calendar $1.00 (Target), Pumpkin Butter $3.50 (Trader Joe's), Workout DVD $3.00 (Walmlart clearance), Key Chain $1.50 (Walmart, I told her I got such an obnoxious color so it would be harder to lose)
Total = $9.00

My sister Jeannette appreciates a good deal so she loved all of the gifts we picked out for her family.  I wrapped each of the kids gifts separately and then put them in 3 big gift bags.  They had fun opening their many gifts and I had fun watching them.

The best thing about these gifts is I started shopping early and picked out what I thought each would really like, I hope I did a good job. 

                                                                      Jeannette & Nathan

Coming Soon - The not so Thrifty Gifts - Good thing they were all from Santa!

Merry Christmas 2011

Here is our Christmas picture for 2011.  I took this in our backyard, obviously I was going for a laid back vibe.  I used 'Minted to do my Christmas cards and they turned out really great.

We've been listening to lots of Christmas music, eating lots of Christmas goodies and spending the first week of our Christmas vacation playing, being together and having lots of fun.

If you want to make your friends and family very happy, make this caramel corn. There is nothing on earth that's better in my humble opinion.  We passed this out to teachers, friends, neighbors and even our friends at the library and our local firemen.  

I took the kids tonight to the library to carol and pass out these treats.  I thought we owed them some love since the library is like our second home.  It was really quiet there tonight as I am sure everyone is out shopping.  They were so sweet and acted as though my kids were the best singers in the world.  I love those ladies.

Even more fun was caroling at the Fire station.  The men there are just so cute and really appreciated us coming by to say Hi and drop off some goodie bags.  They gave us an impromtu mini tour and passed out hats and stickers to the kids.  They were a great group of guys.

FYI - Glenn made me this caramel corn paddle.  After pouring the caramel  over the popcorn you want to mix it all really well and a big paddle does a great job.   He made a bunch and gave them to all of his siblings last year because they all love to make their Dad's recipe for caramel corn.  So fun to home make gifts.

Some recipes do not call for baking, I prefer to bake it as it makes it crunchy and absolutely mouth-watering. My neighbors call it Crack Corn.  As in Jimmy?  I won't delve into that one.

My mom, sister and I took the kids and our niece ice skating this afternoon.   So Christmas-y!!!  Every year a rink is set up smack dab in Old Town and with a snow machine blowing and Christmas music playing it is such a fun tradition.

 

 

 

 Emry Wallwork, Ethan Wallwork, Nathan Roberts, Kylee Roberts, Iree Mitchell, Kiera Roberts, Lila W.

Thank you all for your friendship, advice, support, kind comments, making me feel apart of your life and being a part of mine.

I am learning slowly how to navigate the computer, my camera and this blogging world.  It is such a fun creative outlet and I am ever so grateful to document my thoughts here.

May you all feel God's love and peace during this time.  Enjoy your families, friends, and all the wonderful blessings of life. 

snow

If you knew me........

You'd know I:

* Love all the frozen yogurt options, but only ever get Taro with granola & almonds

* Would schedule a masseuse to come to my home every week if I was rich

* Go to the books first, then the linens when thrifting

* Have nothing good to say about pregnancy

* Go by Marie Mitchell Wallwork

* Have 6 brothers

* Could watch 'Shawshank Redemption' over & over

* Can run 6 miles pretty fast, but am constantly asking my kids to retrieve things around the house because I am so lazy

* Got sucked into a 'Teen Mom 2' marathon last weekend and overnight I feel like the most awesome mom (and wife, & human being)

* Think I am not one of those people who goes overboard and gains 10 lbs over the holidays.  I totally am.

* Could never in a million years sew these adorable stockings.  My sewing machine is apparently for the kids to play with as I've realized sewing is way (way, way, way) out of my league.

 I am not crafty and alas I cannot perform Christmas miracles.  The kids stockings were bought at Pottery barn a few years ago.

The story behind them is I  fell in love with their adorableness and told Glenn I was ordering them.  He told me not to.  When they showed up at our house a few weeks later he was mad that I spent almost $70.  I was baffled and told him I thought he was kidding when he told me not to order them because he had never told me no before.  

Clearly he has spoiled me and it's his own fault that that word did not register with me. 

Glenn's red one was made by his mom, and mine was made my mine.  Brutus' was bought at a Thrift store & Lila put up the miniature green one (on top of Brutus') for our hamster that died a couple of years ago.

Apparently Lila has a hard time dealing with  reality as well.

Biscotti for Ethan

The other day Ethan asked me to make "those cookies we eat with hot chocolate".   I've been wanting to make biscotti forever and why it's taken me so long I am not sure.   I can't believe how easy they are.  And how good!  

I could buy a container at Costco for $15, or make my own for less than  $3.  There are many things I will leave to the experts but there are some, like these cookies, that are too easy, delicious and cheap to make at home that I could never justify or want to buy store bought again.

I have had THIS recipe bookmarked for about a year.  Something about the name appealed to my  inner old-fashioned baker.  Not sure if these are more old fashioned than biscotti, but I just loved the name.

I think Mandel Bread is softer than biscotti  & since I was going for crunchy I baked it twice as long as it called for.  YUM!  I also dipped it in chocolate.  I am pretty sure there was a typo in the original recipe that left that step out.

This is the type of recipe that is really hard to mess up.   Add nuts, add chocolate, add vanilla or almond extract.  I am pretty sure it will all turn out great!

This recipe made about 3 dozen and it took us less than 2 days to polish them off.  Yup, we're good like that.

My brother Kyle is in town with his daughter Iree and his girlfriend Anna.  Dinner tonight was out of this world good.  Fish tacos with all the fixings & warm brownies with peppermint ice cream for dessert, courtesy of my sister Jeannette.

After seeing Instagram on so many blogs I had to find out for myself what this new-fangled app was all  about.  I am completely hooked.  My husband is mad at all y'all cause now every time he turns around I am taking photos with his phone.  Of course I use Glenn's phone as you know I eschew technology.  Obviously.

 Kyle & Anna

Ethan my love  <3 HEART<3 HEART<3 HEART

 Jeannette with her daughter Kiera

Glenn & I   my first love

Doesn't everyone eat ice cream and then make all the kids compete to see who can do the most push ups?

Also, isn't everyone who is able to transfer Instagrams from their email to their blog for the first time without any help considered a genius?

Christmas Magic

I wanted to surprise the kids with a good snack when they came home from school today.  They love the soft pretzels from the shops at the mall so I thought I would try and find a recipe similar to those.
 
THIS ONE came pretty darn close.  Even Glenn said they were the best he's ever had.  Wow, thanks honey.

I love how AllRecipes has the comment suggestions at the bottom. After reading through a dozen or so I took a few of the suggestions including decreasing the flour from 5 cups to 4.  While not as good as the mall pretzels, they were really soft and yummy.  And easy!  I'll have to keep practicing.

I love prepping food in the morning.   Better yet I love prepping and cooking food so that when dinner time comes all we have to do is sit down and chow.

I always lose steam as the day goes on.  Especially in the winter when it becomes dark, I always get anxious that I should be putting kids to bed, not starting on dinner.  So I adore my crock pot and use it a lot.

Seeing how I only have about an hour and a half of daylight by the time the kiddos are all home, I want to spend that with them at the park or on a bike ride, not in front of the stove.

I stumbled upon Slow Cooker Split Pea Soup on Kath's blog and thought 'oh yeah, split pea soup, why haven't I made that lately?'

So I did.

Plus a hearty healthy soup balances out all of this............

Physically the kids have 1 more day of school.  Mentally, they are already on Christmas break.  No homework tonight meant we could all snuggle up and watch Elf.  My kids loved it!

At the end a reporter says "I guess we'll never know what happened on this Christmas Eve" (or something similar).  Ethan said "I know what happened!" (meaning he knows Santa came)

Emry's in the know, Lila's not letting on if she's in the know.  But Ethan............he believes with his whole heart.  To see that wonder, there's nothing like it.  To experience Christmas through a child's eyes is the most wonderful experience.  I know it's only a matter of time.  But for now......these next couple of weeks and for a few Christmas' to come, I will bask in his wonder & awe. 

   

Merry

I saw these snowflakes HERE  and thought them the perfect craft/snack.  Perfect in that their easy assembly and 3 ingredients appealed to my non-crafty lazy side.

Although I learned they aren't really for the lazy because you are left with tons of colored sugar throughout your now very sticky kitchen.

Probably just my kids.  They like to pretend it's snowing sugar.  So fun.

This is Emry with 2 little kids she was babysitting.  They look like they belong to us huh?  Apparently White People can all look alike too.

 So after a day of shopping, making gingerbread, 'easy' snowflakes and tons of cleaning we took our 3, my sisters 2, and the 2 Emry was babysitting to our church Nativity Festival.  Yes that's 7 children.  To a festival with tons of breakable Creche displays.

Glenn and I are super smart.

Our church does this every year and it is awesome!  It totally gets you in the Christmas spirit with all of the displays, music from groups and schools throughout the community and a room with an actual live nativity.

Didn't think it appropriate to take a picture of baby Jesus, but he was absolutely precious in his little manger.  The room they were in was decorated so authentic and Mary and Joseph looked so great with their robes and their little baby.  Although I did notice baby Jesus had "his" ears pierced.

LDS people from all over Temecula donate their Creche's to display.  The result is stunning.  Especially with a beautiful symphony singing and playing Christmas music.

This Harp music was lovely.  She was just your entrance entertainment.  As soon as you entered the main Hall there was choir upon choir singing and jingling their hearts out.

All our darlings.  Mine are as follows: Ethan with the 'I am going to ruin your picture' face, Emry with the 'I am hiding the sweater you made me wear because it's so ugly' pose, and Lila rockin' the hot pink leg warmers' because what else would you wear to visit 'Baby Jesus'.

I was on those kids the whole night.  'Don't touch', 'Back away', 'Stay together', 'Just look', 'No reaching', on and on and on.

That's why I love Glenn.  He's so chill.  He kinda, sorta parents differently than me.  You know me with no cell phone who's eyes never leave the 7 kids around all the hundreds of breakables.

Glenn knows how to put all the responsibility on me.

Well played Glenn.

Well played.