Baking With Lily

Lily got an Easy Bake Oven for Christmas. She has been asking & asking for one. She was pretty excited when she was able to bake with it the other day.

Her oven came with 2 things to make; chocolate chip cookies or cupcakes. The cupcakes came with all of this stuff:

I think it was the pink frosting and rainbow sprinkles that sold her on the cupcakes. ;0)

She measured the water, stirred up the mix and water, and put the batter in the mini cupcake pan all by herself!

Then she put the pan in the oven.

Pushing the pan all the way inside with the cool tool the oven came with:

Checking to make sure the pan is inside all of the way:

Finally after 10 minutes of baking and 5 minutes of cooling, they were ready to come out. (That's a long time to a 4 year old!!)

While they cooled even more, Lily made the pink frosting!

Frosting cupcakes by yourself is fun!!

RAINBOW SPRINKLES!!

All done!

And they were quite delicious, if she does say so herself. ;0)

Next up: chocolate chip cookies!

Life-Sized Candy Land Game

On Tuesday, we went to the library to play the life-sized Candy Land game they had set up! The boys had a lot of fun!

Aunt Amy was there too. She was the librarian calling out the colors for the kids to go to on the "board". Each child was a piece on the board and they walked to the color that they drew.

Two news stations were there taking video of the game! Channel 3 & 10 were there.

They got to play twice. Poor Riley didn't get very far on the board either time. He kept saying, "The board doesn't like me, and I don't like the board." He's so funny. Zach cracked us all up too when he asked, "Hey! Isn't Candy Land copyrighted??" Aunt Amy explained to him why the library could use it. (something about not charging to play, so they could.)

During the second game Zach was just a few squares away from winning.

But then he had to go all the way back to the beginning because he drew the gingerbread man card which was close to the start. =( He was a really good sport about it though.
After the game, they went over to the craft tables. First, they made King Kandy crowns.

Then they made scepters using pretzels, frosting, and sprinkles.

They had a lot of fun playing candy land as the pieces and making fun and yummy crafts afterwards. They also got to be on the news! On channel 3 you could see them for a few seconds playing the game, and on channel 10 you could see them doing crafts in the background. They were pretty excited to be on TV! =)

Christmas

On Christmas morning, the kids ran downstairs to see what Santa brought them:

After they played with what Santa brought them and after we ate breakfast, we opened up presents from each other:

These are the ornaments that Zach & Riley made in school as gifts for Jeff & I:

Then we headed over to the Ramsey side of the family for more gifts, food, and fun!

Tonya got Grinch jammies as one of the gag gifts! Too funny! =)

After the presents were open & the food was eaten, this is how the kids entertained themselves; the older kids played with their DS's......

and the younger kids played with Granddad. ;0)

It was another great Christmas! It is so nice to have our own little family time in the morning, just the 5 of us to celebrate, but we are also grateful to be able to get together with both sides of our families!

Christmas Eve

We started out our Christmas Eve by going over to the Logan's side of the family for our Christmas with them. Here are all of the Logan grandchildren:

After a breakfast of yummy quiche, cinnamon rolls, and fruit, we opened presents!

Then we got a picture of the grandkids with Grandma & Grandpa.....

and Great Grandma!

It was such a fun morning/afternoon!

That evening, we got dressed up for Christmas Eve mass.

Later on, after we got home, we got the cookies & milk ready to set out for Santa!

All jammied-up and ready for bed!

**Funny story about the jammies; I had matching jammies that I had ordered online. I didn't actually open them until Christmas Eve night, right before I had the kids put them on. (They all looked like what Lily has on.) Riley was the first to put them on. He said, "I look like a girl!" The jammies were pretty girly looking, even though they were supposed to be for boys and girls. =( Zach said, "I am NOT putting those on!" Riley was going to be a good sport and wear them anyway, but was very relieved when I told him he could put some of his other jammies on. =) So, we called my sister Mary who has girls the same age as my boys, and asked if they would like some new Christmas jammies. Good thing they live so close to us and could come over & get them before they went to bed! At least someone got to wear them! =)

Snow Angel

Yesterday it snowed!
Lily was SO excited! She wanted to go out and make a snow angel. I told her that we had to see how much snow was actually going to fall. Well, not too much fell. The ground hardly had any snow at all. But.....the deck had snow on it! So we went out just so she could make a snow angel on the deck. :0)

She was pretty excited about her snow angel.

Then Riley asked to make a snowman......... I told him there wasn't quite enough snow for that. Even on the deck. ;0)

More Christmas Parties!

Both of the boys had their school Christmas Parties on Wednesday morning. I'm Zach's Room Parent, so I was in his room. Lily was excited to come too!

The kids all made a wreath ornament craft and did a Christmas word search. Santa also dropped by with some treats for the kids!

After the kids got all of their yummy snacks, I snuck over to Riley's room to say hi to him.

He was enjoying some yummy snacks too and showed me the fun craft he got to make. All three kids had fun at the parties!

Then in the afternoon, we went to the party the kids have been waiting for all month; Jeff's work party. Now I realize that doesn't sound too fun, but it really is. Jeff's boss realizes that a lot of us have kids, and it is hard for some people to get sitters, so a few years ago, he started making the Christmas party at The Alley so everyone could bring their kids. So nice!!

They get to go bowling (I didn't actually take any pictures of them bowling though...), eat pizza, and drink pop!

The boys also get to ride the go-karts!!

(Sorry for the picture quality...I took all of these with my cellphone.)

The kids have SO much fun!! And Jeff & I get to talk to all of the adults since the kids are busy with all of the activities. =)
Now all of our parties are over. So today, we are enjoying the first day of Christmas break by making crafts, reading Christmas books, and watching Christmas movies. =)