find joy in the journey

2006 memories

the circus is back in town

We had just put the kids in bed (big sigh of relief), I was cleaning up the kitchen when I spotted this sitting on the counter.  Conner's magna-doodle note "we are clowns" complete with 5 little faces (I'm assuming for everyone in our family).  What a crack-up!

Not too much earlier Scott and I were the audience for a bizarre (and noisy) show of song & dance put on by Conner, Payton, and Anna.  Conner was the director of chaos, of course.  We just sat there shaking our heads at all the craziness.  The kids were definitely on something tonight -- maybe it was something in the chicken McNuggets we had for dinner.  Who knows.

We have a list of nicknames we use for the collective bunch when they're tipping the scales toward silly:  monkey, goof, clown, turkey.  And they love it when we call them any of these.  They are definitely a lively bunch, full of energy, happy, and entertaining.  Maybe Scott and I need to join their group -- we could be the "Brown Clowns".  But apparently Conner has already sketched us into his act.  Just as long as I can have a big red nose!

christmas play day

One thing that I really enjoy about Christmas is that it always turns into a day of playing.  We forget about the laundry, the chores, the clutter all over the kitchen counters, we don't even think about where all this new stuff is going to fit in the house, we forget about it all and just play.  Pretty cool, huh.

4:30am Christmas morning I receive a little visitor at my bedside whispering, "Mom, Santa's been here!"  We told him to go back to sleep which turned into him making a bed on our floor and for the next 2 hours I got to listen to him shuffle around, get up to the bathroom, move his bed to a new spot, and decide he needed new pajamas.  At 6:30 Payton and Anna were up and the festivities began.

Anna gives a thumbs up to the Christmas Morning Rolls.

We had a very nice Christmas.  The kids were all happy and enjoyed everything they received. 

Payton said his favorite toy was Elefun.  He also spent much of the day playing with his Marble Run.

Conner said his favorite was the Star Wars Legos set he constructed with Scott (I think it was Boba Fett's ship).  He also quite enjoyed these "gadget gloves" -- he wore them practically all day.

And there wasn't a clear favorite for Anna -- although she seemed to enjoy hugging her new dolls and trying out the new stroller.  (I love pic #2 -- leaning over to check on her baby.)

And the playing continued all day long with . . . count them . . . six new games.  We only opened 3 of them (Elefun, Perfection & Let's Go Fishin') but the kids hopped from one game to the next, spending about 15 minutes at a station before heading to the next round.  That excitement of Christmas morning is so fun to watch -- there's so much new stuff and they just have to see and touch it all.  We did take a break to sit down and watch The Neverending Story.  That was very fun and brought back a lot of memories from my childhood.

So now that the Christmas play day is over I do have to start thinking about where I'm going to put all this stuff, the laundry was completed today, chores are back on the list, and I'm working on the kitchen counters.  That stuff will always be there waiting for me.  I think it's nice sometimes to just forget and play together and there's never a better time than at Christmas.

christmas eve cuties

It is no small feat to get 3 turkeys to stand still in front of the camera -- forget about even looking at the camera or making a normal smile or wearing two shoes.  Here's some outtakes to prove it:

Mom and Dad too,

we went to church, the boys (including Payton) sang Away in A Manger with the Primary in Sacrament meeting, I taught the lesson in Relief Society (with a potentially tragic glitch in my object lesson), we came home, made sugar cookies (7 dozen to be exact), frosted the sugar cookies, brought all the non-Santa presents out to lay under the tree (in no way did we want to tempt Anna so we have kept the presents in our room all month), the kids opened their new pajamas (it took quite a bit of convincing to get Payton to wear his new pj's), we made noise on the christmas chimes, watched Mr. Krueger's Christmas and Joy to the World, set out cookies for Santa and cheese for Santa Mouse, sprinkled oats on the front lawn, and I think we forgot about dinner all together and just snacked on treats and cookies!

and just one more pic because she is such a cutie . . .

elf yourself

This is too much fun!  Seriously just laughing at myself.

Click on this link.

or copy and past this into your browser: http://www.elfyourself.com/?userid=07cfc26e8fcaf60f607d5f7G06122208 

If all else fails, go to www.elfyourself.com and do it yourself!

**UPDATE -- Payton is now an elf:  http://www.elfyourself.com/?userid=6eb6e98ed4283bb93180080G06122214

christmas goodies

a little run-down of the things that have been whipped up in Shannon's Kitchen over the past week or so.

Ginger Cookies  (from the Lion House Desserts cookbook - in my opinion, a must have)

• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 3/4 cup shortening
• 1/4 cup molasses
• 1 egg
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 tsp soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 1/2 tsp ginger

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  In a large mixing bowl, combine sugars and shortening until mixture is light and fluffy.  Add molasses and egg; beat well.  Add flour, soda, salt, cinnamon, and ginger and beat well.  Scrape down the sides of bowl, then mix again.  Drop dough by rounded tablespoonfuls onto a lightly greased cookie sheet.  Press down each cookie with the bottom of a glass dipped in sugar.  Bake for 8-10 minutes, being careful not to overbake.  Makes 3 dozen.

White Chocolate Peppermint Bark

• 1 pound white chocolate (I used a 12 oz. bag of melting chocolates)
• candy canes & Starlite peppermint candies broken into small pieces
• 1/4 tsp. peppermint extract

Lightly grease a cookie sheet.  Line pan with waxed paper.  Lightly grease the paper and set aside.  Melt the chocolates (stovetop or microwave) and add the peppermint extract and stir well to smooth out chocolate.  Pour chocolate into the center of the prepared pan and smooth out with a spatula so it is even and approximately 1/4-inch thick.  (It will not fill the entire sheet).  Sprinkle crushed peppermint candies evenly over the chocolate, and press lightly to embed the candy pieces.  Place in the refrigerator for 20 to 30 minutes until it is hardened.  Remove hardened chocolate from waxed paper and break pieces with your hands.  Pack gently into boxes or tins lined with parchment.  Keep refrigerated for best results.

Holiday Pretzel Treats from Family Fun

Reindeer Cookies

I got the idea for these from a scrapbook page in a magazine if you can believe it.  They are very cute and very fun for the kids to make.

• store bought sugar cookie dough
• pretzels
• M&M's

Unwrap the cookie dough and slice into 1/4-inch circles.  Place on cookie sheets.  Pinch the dough in the middle to create the look of a head and long snout of a reindeer.  Have the kids decorate the cookies using pretzels for antlers, M&M's for eyes and nose (of course a red one for the nose).  Bake according to package directions.

Snowball Surprises  (from The Cheerios Cookbook)

• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/2 cup light corn syrup
• 1/2 cup creamy peanut butter
• 3 cups Frosted Cheerios cereal
• candy sprinkles
• small candies (M&M, chocolate covered raisin, marshmallow, etc)

Line a cookie sheet with waxed paper.  Pour the sugar and corn syrup into a 3-quart saucepan. Heat over medium heat, stirring frequently, just until the mixture starts to boil.  Remove the saucepan from the heat.  Stir in the peanut butter until the mixture is well blended.  Stir in the cereal until it is evenly coated.  Cool for 5 minutes.  Place the candy sprinkles in a shallow dish.  Lightly spray your hands with cooking spray.  For each snack, shape about 1/4 cup of the cereal mixture into a ball around 1 small candy.  Immediately roll the ball in the candy sprinkles to coat.  Place the balls on the cookie sheet.  Cool completely, about 30 minutes.  Store the snacks in a loosely covered container.

We decided to forgo the "surprise" part of the treat this time and just made the balls & rolled them in sprinkles.

Chocolate Pretzel Sticks -- we made these with sprinkles and peanuts for teacher gifts.

the things they say

Just a couple cute quotes/conversations from the last couple days . . .

This weekend I took the boys to see the family matinee "Hoot".  I would say the movie was probably meant for kids a little older, but we had the tickets already and the prospect of getting movie candy had the boys sold.  First they showed a preview for Happy Feet.  Then 5 minutes into the real movie, at a point when the theater is deathly silent so everyone can hear, Payton says, "Mom, I don't want this movie.  I want to watch the penguin movie."  It was so cute -- he said it with his sad little munchkin voice and the people behind us were laughing. 

Payton's favorite phrase right now is, "Are you serious?"

Whenever I casually ask Payton the question, "What are you doing?" he responds, "fine."  "No, what are you doing?"  "Fine." with that mischevious grin.  I don't know when or how it started, but I cannot get a straight answer out of this kid!

Lately Conner has become more and more helpful around the house -- doing the dishes, sweeping the kitchen floor, cleaning his bathroom.  And to my surprise, all this is mostly done at his request -- he just wants to help out.  So he also helps out by setting out plates for lunch (again, all on his own) and all the stuff I'll need to make sandwiches, the bag of chips, etc,. etc.  The other day I had begun making lunch and I asked him to get the mayonnaise out for me.  Done.  Then I asked him to get an apple and wash it off.  He grabbed the apple and as he makes his way to the sink he says,

"{sigh} Mom, are you helping me learn how to be a grown-up?"  I'm telling myself, please just hold in the laughter -- Yes.  I'm standing there thinking -- pay attention to this conversation, you're going to need to write this one down.  "Why?!"  I explain because everyone has to grow up someday and you have to learn how to do things on your own.  "Ugh."  A moment later I ask, "Do you like it when I teach you how to be a grown-up?"  His priceless answer:  "Sometimes.  But sometimes I just want to act like a kid."

One evening the kids were out of control -- running & screaming through the house.  We herded them all in and said that it was time to calm down and have some quiet time watching The Small One.  The 25 minute movie ended and wouldn't you know it, within a few minutes we were back in the zoo.  While running laps through the round-and-round Conner stopped and said to me, "Watching Small One didn't work.  We're still laughing & running!"  Thank you so much for the observation Conner.  Now do you think you could do something about that?!

btw -- Small One is the sweetest Disney animated movie - I highly recommend it.  I had never heard of it until I married Scott -- apparently he watched it as a child and now we have it on DVD.  It's a story of a little boy outside of Nazareth who has to go into town to sell his best friend, a donkey named Small One.  After running away from the tanner and trying the market (where nobody wanted him) he eventually comes across a man who needs a donkey to take his wife to Bethlehem.  It's just a really sweet, simple movie and the boys love watching it over and over again each year.

santa's lap

gingerbread revue

Last week the kindergarten classes at Conner's school held their annual Christmas program titled "the Gingerbread Revue."  All the songs revolved around gingerbread -- the Gingerbread Hokey Pokey, Who Stole the Gingerbread from the Cookie Jar?, and others.  It was so dang cute!  I brought my video camera but was so disappointed when I turned it off and missed "The Gingerbread Boys" poem.  All the boys recited together

We are the Gingerbread boys, And we love to play with our toys.

rat-a-tat-tat, honkety-honk,bumpety-bump, pow-crash-bang,clickety-clack,grrrrr!!

We are the Gingerbread boys, And we love to make lots of NOISE!!!!! (yelling at this point)

All the girls had their hands over their ears -- it was great, totally boyish . . . we love our boys!

As his class was preparing for this program obviously there was a lot of talk about gingerbread and even at home gingerbread was on Conner's mind frequently.  He kept asking me if I had the dough ready to make gingerbread men, he prepared ziploc baggies with the parts needed to make the gingerbread men faces (2 marshmallows and a goldfish cracker -- ???, I'm sure he was just trying to improvise). 

On Monday (being the great mom I am) I found a recipe online and we made Gingerbread men cookies for FHE.  The boys loved decorating them with M&M's and raisins and chocolate chips.  And they are still enjoying eating them -- for snack, for lunch, etc.

done

The christmas shopping is finished.  The christmas cards have been mailed.  The decorations are up.  I'm done!  I think all I really have left to do is sometime pull everything out from their various hiding spots, take an overall look to make sure things look as balanced in person as they did on paper and then eventually wrap it all.  I also have a few packages in transit so I'm waiting for those to arrive.

Our family christmas card photo from this year is gracing my new page banner and it's tucked away in the Our Family album as well.

And if you want, you can see my christmas decorations over on my vox blog.

7:15 am

Sometimes we have the most beautiful sunrises.  Isn't this gorgeous?  All week we have enjoyed similar blazing orange sunrises viewed right from our family room.  One morning I thought, oh I should take a picture of this.  I went into my bedroom, brushed my teeth, and by the time I came out with my camera it was gone.  So I was prepared today with the camera waiting on the kitchen counter, and as you can see I was rewarded for my efforts.

party

Last night we attended the annual holiday party for Scott's company.  For me, one of the perks of him making this most recent job change was being able to go to a nice party again.  Family picnics at the zoo (with his former employer) were fine, but really how often do you get the chance to get all dressed up, enjoy a really good meal (at a table with linens and 3 forks at each place setting), dance with your husband . . . and all this for free.  Not very often.  Pretty much, never.

So I started planning months ago.  Bought my party dress, found these hot shoes.  That's what I call them -- my "hot shoes". 

The party also had a Mardi Gras theme so there were beads and masks, a polka band (tuba, banjo, & clarinet) played while wandering through the ballroom, and for dessert we had tea cakes with a jordan almond hidden in one slice.  The "winner" got to take home the table centerpiece.

It was a fun evening.  As we were walking in downtown with all the twinkling christmas lights, passing lots of cool restaurants & stores, it felt very fun to be in the city.  We talked about coming here more often for our dates and trying out some of the restaurants.  We'll see. 

Today we set up the christmas tree and Scott put lights on the house.  And I've got boxes of christmas decorations to put up around the house.  It's fun to finally get everything looking like Christmas -- it's been a little bit weird listening to my christmas music with little pumpkins and vases of wheat around my house.  Now everything can co-exist in harmony.