What's Cookin' Wednesday

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Do you feel what I feel??

I always get depressed after Christmas is over. I try to talk to myself ahead of time to prepare myself but there always seems to be that let down when it's over. It just seems like such a build up to Christmas and then it's suddenly all over. I love shopping for the gifts that I hope will put a smile on other peoples faces, I love looking forward to all of our favorite traditions with the boys. I love Mom's Christmas spirit that she brings with her and having Grandma Dot spending time with us and bringing all my favorite treats. I could go on and on. I know we are very blessed and I shouldn't complain but the truth is I always feel blue when it's over. (Maybe it's all the sugar and heavy food I eat..mmm, not giving that up though).

I would love to hear some of your thoughts on the subject and if any of you feel the same way? I also feel like our New Years is a little boring. We really don't have any New Years traditions. Maybe it would help if I had that to look forward to. What are some of your New Years Eve or New Years Day traditions?? I would love to hear them. Just click on comments underneath this post.

My friend Leslie is a life coach and she sends Monday Morning tips every Monday. Her tip for this Monday had to do with what I've been talking about It's worth the read.

http://community.icontact.com/p/lesliegail/newsletters/oneday/posts/monday-morning-tip-combat-depression

Also if you would like to sign up for Leslie's Monday Morning tips by email, you can do it here...

http://www.newlifefocus.com/leslie_gail_contact.html

Les, you can send my commission check by mail...........haha

Christmas

We all had a wonderful Christmas. We open the majority of our presents on Christmas Eve and always have a little party with family. We had lots of good snacky food and desserts. Grandma Susie and Great Grandma Dot were here and Grandpa Dick and Chantal came too. Here are some pictures from Christmas Eve.

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Christmas Day...

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Flashback Friday

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas!!

Merry Christmas

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What's Cookin' Wednesday

One of Mark and Susie's favorite christmas candies is Almond Toffee Crunch. We used to buy it from Stephanies buy they went out of business. I decided to try to make it myself this year. It turned out pretty good but Mark had a couple of "suggestions" that he thought would make it better next time. Enjoy.

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We also made our Gingerbread houses yesterday. Grandma Dot helped me build the houses, get the boys started and clean up.. Thank you Grandma! I was inspired by Terra's Post where her and her beautiful girls were decorating theirs. Note to self..girls are different from boys. Mine did good for a while but when I left the room they were fighting with their little candy gingerbread men..breaking off their heads, legs..etc. They thought it was hilarious. I thought it was disturbing and not quite the Norman Rockwell Christmas memory I was trying to create.. Anyway we had fun.. I think. A little tip. My friend Helen gave me the idea of using Halloween candy to decorate with. The skittles, hot tamales and tootsie rolls work well, and helps get rid of the candy if by now you have not.

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More Christmas Spirit...

If you saw my post about the Christmas Spirit Award I just wanted to expand on that a little. I have to say that my Mother in Law or as I call her "Mom" is one reason I love Christmas so much. When Mark and I were first dating I remember going to their house for Chrismas. Susie creates a Christmas Wonderland through her entire home. Every room is decorated and it is just so festive and happy. She always makes Christmas very special. She is a great present wrapper. Each present she wraps is beautiful and always has a special bow that she makes and/or a special ornament. Her tree was always beautiful and she has this entire family of snow people one of which you saw in my pictures that is in my home now. Anyway here are a few pictures of Christmas' past at Susie's.

From Flashback Friday

From Flashback Friday

From Flashback Friday

From Flashback Friday

From Flashback Friday

Boys School Holiday Parties...

On Friday the boys each had "Holiday" parties. I got to participate in both classes. They had fun. I mean what's not fun about sugar overload??

Connor's Class





Alex's Class

Christmas Spirit award

Thank you Terra at Emerson girls blog for awarding me this Christmas Spirit Award. You have been so busy but you somehow keep that Christmas spirit and spread it around to your family and friends. You surely deserve this award. This award is for bloggers who keep their blog going this busy time of year and who love Christmas. One of the requirements is that you list at least 5 things you love about Christmas. I would like to pass this award along to
Tamara at The Bailey family. She has a brand new baby girl this Christmas (her first) and is one of the most loving Mom's I know. She has always loved the Holidays and gets into the spirit of it. So here are my 5 favorite things about Christmas..................


1. I love decorating the tree with my family. I love seeing all the old familiar ornaments and talking about the stories that go along with them. Also watching the boys excited faces as they discover ornaments they had forgotten about or that they love. I love the ones they made at school.

2. I love the smells of Christmas candles.. cinnaman, spice..etc.

3. I enjoy looking forward to family coming over or coming to stay and just being together.

4. I love coming home to see our outside lights all lit up making the house seem warm and inviting.

5. I love listening to old familiar Christmas Cd's that are now on our Ipod.. wow we are catching up..haha I also love checking the mail everyday to see if we have any new Christmas cards.

Here are a few pictures of our house at Christmas.. Terra did a post (Terra's post) showing her house and I really enjoyed it so I thought I would do the same...

From holidays

From holidays

From holidays

From holidays

From holidays

From holidays

From holidays

From holidays

From holidays

Flashback Friday/Christmas's gone by...

Christmas 2001. Connor was almost 4 and Alex was a little over a year. There's those little vests again. I wish they could still wear them. Maybe I could find some like them. I'm sure they would be just tickled pink to wear them for me. I can dream can't I?

I believe this was Christmas 2003. Connor would have been 5 and Alex 3.

Julie update

I just wanted to let everyone know that my sister is now in a rehabilitation facility and is doing really well. Her voice sounds strong and cheerful. I had told her about about the post I wrote about her and how a lot of people were sending prayers and healing thoughts her way. I even read the comments to her. She was very touched and wanted me to thank everyone. She will probably be at the rehab facility until February.

Thank you all again for all your encouraging words and support.

What's Cookin' Wednesday

Mark's Bowtie Pasta... He made it the other day and I thought it looked so pretty. It might be a nice side dish for a Christmas Dinner.

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Our Snowmass ski trip

We left on Thursday for a little ski vacation. We skiied Friday and Saturday and came home on Sunday. We had a good trip. The boys are both skiing well and having a lot of fun with it. One night when we were coming back from dinner we spotted a fox right in front of the condo we were staying in. We think he must be fed a lot by people because he let us walk right by him. I got a few pictures. Mark actually fed him some scraps and eventually he went away but he hung out for awhile. The weather was pretty good. It snowed a lot of the time we were skiing but wasn't very cold and the wind didn't blow much. It was really beautiful. All the trees were flocked with lots of snow and it was so pretty going on the trails through the trees. On our last night it snowed over a foot. We weren't sure we could get home but we made it. The roads were pretty snow packed and icy in spots. We saw a couple of vehicles that had rolled over, a snow plow in the ditch and several cars on the side of the road. We just took our time and didn't have any problem. Here are a few pictures from our trip.

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Flashback Friday/Alex's first Christmas 2000

Alex's first Christmas. He was almost 4 months old and Connor was almost 3yrs old. I was trying to get a cute pose but it just didn't work out. You know the one where you get everyone dressed cute, get everything staged and then someone starts crying (like me haha) or something?? Well I finally gave up after this shot. Connor was finally cooperating but then Alex was crying..oh well, they are still cute, right? I ended up going to Babies are us and standing in line for 2 hours to get thier picture. Maybe I can find that one to post??



He's happier here.




YEAH!! Must be my lucky night. I actually found the picture I was looking for. This is the one I ended up getting for Christmas that year. I was so sure I could do it myself, I mean how hard can it be?? See first picture.. and that was just one of many that didn't turn out I'm sure. Anyway as I was saying I ended up going to Babies R us for their picture. It was first come first serve which meant you had to stand in a long line, which really works out fabulous when you have an almost 3 year old, an almost 4 month old, a Mom who's still learning that having 2 kids is way way different than having 1 and she's probably going through a little post partum depression AND it's the holidays, no stress there! Then combine all of this with about 50 other mom's in a similar situation waiting in line to get a precious picture of her precious angels also, anyway we all survived and came out with this picture.



We went to Florida that year and had Christmas with Grandma and Mickey Mouse!




Great Grandma holding little Alex at Disney World.



Connor, Grandma and Goofy...





PS. When Mark read this post especially the first part, he didn't smile or laugh he just looked kind of sad and said "Where was I during all this"? Well, you honey, my best friend, love of my life were working nearly 24 hours a day to run your own catering company so that I could quit my job and stay home with our babies, something I will never regret. Thank you for working so hard so that we could achieve that!

Christmas Party...

( I am reposting this because I doubled up on posts the day I posted this and not sure anyone saw it..:)


Last Friday night we had our 3rd annual Christmas get together/party with our friends the Gails and the Meyers. I think it gets better each year. So fun to get the kids together and watch them melt together like they play with one another every day. We really do need to get together more often. We will do better in the new year. We get to share some of the Jewish holidays with them. It's a fun tradition. I think the kids will always remember our get togethers. Alex loves Matzo Ball soup... and he wants me to make potato latkes, I may need some help with that..Les? Jenny?

We had Italian food. I made lasagna and Spaghetti and meatballs. Mark made some delicious and beautiful hors deorves. He decided a couple of hours before the party (he operates best under pressure with little time, must be all those years of catering) He went to Whole foods and threw them together. I could just kick myself for not taking pictures. It would have been perfect for "What's cookin" Wed". Oh well maybe he will do it again for Christmas Eve...

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Make a Smilebox slideshow

What's Cookin' Wednesday

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The Nutcracker

We attended our first ballet on Saturday. Our dear friend Lauren was performing in The Nutcracker. She did a wonderful job and we were all so excited to see her on stage. She is such a perfect ballerina! Her pretty face got a little covered up in this first picture.

We did have a great time and it was a wonderful performance but you'd never guess to look at these handsome boys what I went through before.........

First, I was so proud of myself because I started thinking ahead a couple of weeks ago, it goes something like this.

1. Check out all boys dress clothes or lack thereof to see what we need to buy or not buy for them to wear to the Nucracker..

2. Struggle with them for a few days to try on pants, shirts, belts, shoes..etc. to see what in their closet works and what doesn't.

3. Finally make a list of which boy needs what.. both pants, Alex Belt, Connor nice shirt, Alex dress shoes, Connor can wear his Merrels, ties...etc.. Whew..ok

3. Next, wait for Kohl's coupon to get the best deal on clothes, shoes etc.. because most likely the next time they need to dress up they will have outgrown some or all of this and we will start over at #1. So lets get the best deal we can.

4. yeah.. get a 30% coupon for Kohls! I'm doing so good, I'm even ahead of schedule!

5. Go to Kohls by myself, I prefer to do that and then take the items home for the boys to try on, much easier to bring something back and exchange it then to torture them by bringing them. I'm such a nice Mom :)

6. Some items work but not all.. do decide to bring them with me, Mark comes also,bless his heart.. exchange and return home. Still haven't found shoes for Alex though.

7. After "torturing" the boys to try on all their spiffy new duds.. (is it just a boy thing that they hate trying on clothes? I loved it as a kid..not so much now but that's another blog) Anyway we are good except Alex's pants are about 8 inches to long.

8. I ponder over the fact that we have a brand new sewing machine we bought about a year ago because I was determined to learn how to at least hem our pants which is somthing at least 3 of us in this family need a lot of. Well it's still in the closet and I think maybe I could sell it on Craig's list? Maybe I will never be a seamstress sewer person.. but arn't all Mom's supposed to at least know how to hem pants? My Mom did, Mark's Mom and Grandma do.. What's wrong with me?? anyway I'm getting way off track.

9. I think, I know I will call my friend Julie. She is a great seamstress and she has lots of free time. She only has 2 kids, and is working two jobs this time of year. And it's the holidays.. I bet she would be tickled to do me a favor..:)

10. Call Julie, she say's she can (yeah) .. I tell her no hurry because I am ahead of schedule :) and I won't need them for a couple of weeks. Thank you Julie for taking time out to help me in my time of need.

Okay so after ALLLLLLLLL of this, Nutcracker day is here and it goes something like this.. "Mooooooooommmmmmmmmm why do we have to dress up??? (They usually enjoy dressing up, don't know why not today?) "Do we have to take a shower????????" "We take showers every day!"..on and on........

Showers finally done.. I call my friend Helen (next door) and tell her we are all getting dressed up to go see our friend Lauren in the Nutcracker (I'm very excited) Could she please come over in about an hour a snap a picture of us..maybe to use for our Christmas picture....oh I'm thinking this will be perfect. No problem she comes through and says "just call me when you are ready" :).

Connor comes up the stairs with a wet messy head, Jeans on and a regular shirt.. I think to myself "This boy is not serious". I calmly say Connor why are you wearing that.. he can't figure out why it's not okay.. I'm baffled. He usually loves dressing up....what is going on with my usually smart cooperative boy? Back down he goes.

I go to Alex's room to check. I'm so proud. Even though his hair is dripping wet. He is actually sitting on his bed half dressed (including underwear! yeah..things are looking up). I notice that he has on a white shirt and really needs an undershirt.. we "discuss" this for awhile then I call in the big gun Dad who Alex will actually believe when HE tells him he needs an undershirt.. Then I come back, notice that Alex's shirt is buttoned wrong.. I nicely tell him. He fiddles with it.. I go to check on Connor.

Connor comes up.. I inspect. Still needs belt, and needs to put on his dress socks that I bought at Kohl's for 30% off and was so impressed with myself for remembering!
Oh and hair sticking up. When I remind him to comb his hair he replies "I already did". Okay.. then why is all messy??


Back to Alex.. I enter his room, doing pretty good except shirt still buttoned wrong. I tell him in a gentle way not to downplay how independent he's being and getting dressed and everything. He tells me it's not buttoned wrong it's the way the shirt is made.. at this point I'm not sure whether to laugh or cry.

Anyway this goes on and on.. uh oh.. it's been an hour and Helen will be coming over to take our picture.. Okay everyone look HAPPY!! We go outside, Helen takes some pics.. by this time I'm mentally exhausted and look way to fat in the picture. Can I just use Mark and the boys in the Christmas card?? As I think to myself every Christmas. "next year I will be 30 lbs lighter and look great"..... yeah right!

Anyway, we had a great time and believe it or not it was worth it. By the way I wonder if the boys even brushed their teeth??

These are some of the pictures Helen and I took.

Julie

My sister Julie had triple bypass surgery a few days ago. She came through it pretty well but she is still very weak and will have a long recovery. She spent several months in the hospital last year and ended up have a leg amputation. She is quite a trooper and one of the strongest people I know. She has been a real inspiration to me and many people who know and love her. But as she told me a couple of days ago she's "tired of being strong" I don't blame her.

I would appreciate anyone who could send a positive thought and/or a prayer (or two) her way. She can use all the good thoughts and prayers she can get. Thank you!

We are pulling for you Jul, and we love you very much.

Flashback Friday

Connor's first Christmas 1998. He walked for the first time shortly after on December 31st. He was a few days shy of 11 months. He just loved that little truck and would go everywhere on it. I think Grandma gave it to him.. (maybe Grandpa too)... correct me if I'm wrong.

From Flashback Friday 1998

From Flashback Friday 1998

From Flashback Friday 1998