Friday, December 28, 2012

A "Picture" Perfect Christmas

It is SO hard to get a picture of ALL 3 boys smiling and looking at the camer at once.  One Sunday after church all the stars aligned and the boys sat by their Christmas tree and actually smiled for pictures!





Not quite there...


GOLD!  I believe it's the best picture of ALL 3 ever taken by us...ever.  I am SO in love with this picture!



Silly boys!


I am so glad they sat down and smiled for me!  It's a Christmas miracle!

Sunday, December 23, 2012

All Aboard the Polar Express!


The boys LOVE The Polar Express!  We went on a fun Polar Express train last year.  This year we didn't go to the Polar Express so I decided to throw a Polar Express party for our friends!  We are fortunate to have a neighborhood club house we can have birthday parties and events like this!  There's no way we could fit this many families in our house, but at the clubhouse, there's plenty of room!

Here's Matthew getting his ticket!  The kids turned in their tickets before they left to get a bell off of the little tree on the table.  I put down tape to make a train track from the front door to the room.  Jordan downloaded the Polar Express music for me and we had that going as you walked in the door.  My friend, Tracy, loaned me this red board and some other fun Polar Express items!





The kids did a waffle cone/Christmas tree craft.  They decorated their cone with lots of differnt candies.  It was a lot of fun!


I had (fake) candles and bells everywhere.  I love how Matthew is about to jump off the back of the couch in this picture.


I served pepermint sugar cookies and hot cocoa cookies.  Kacy brought coconut cookies too!  We had hot chocolate and all kinds of fun marshmallows.  Berkli  brought a veggie and meat tray as well!  I had cut out little Polar Express art from Etsy onto each red cup.



I'm pretty sure Matthew had a great time eating ALL of the candy.  Goodness!


All the kids did a great job with their Christmas trees!


Miss Elizabeth came early and helped me make hot chocolate and she also read "The Polar Express" to the kids!  She was a good sport to put up with so many crazy kids running around!


And we had a big surprise!  Santa made a surprise appearance!  He gave out little candy canes and each little boy or girl (that wanted to) got to sit with him a bit!




It was the most fun Christmas party!  We had a blast and the kids had a great time too!  We'll have to do it again next year.  Thanks to all of our friends for coming!

A Visit To Santa


 The boys were very excited to go see Santa!  We knew John Michael wanted to talk to him, and we knew that Matthew wouldn't talk to him, and we knew Noah wouldn't go near him!



We watched a little bit of Polar Express before it was time to go!  Can you tell Noah knows how to say "cheeeese!" whenever there's a camera around?


They did a good job talking to Santa.  John Michael told him he wanted a white bike and a pop gun and we got Matthew to lean over and tell Santa he also wanted a pop gun.



Everyone got a chocolate square afterwards so everyone was happy.


We attempted to go look around the Promenade after this but a certain child had a complete and total meltdown and lost his mind, so we were forced to leave.  No fun but totally necessary, unfortunately!  Ho Ho Ho!

Friday, December 21, 2012

Christmas Menu Planning

Yesterday we took a MUCH needed day of doing nothing but staying in PJs and watching Christmas movies and well, just doing nothing!  I made homemade biscuits for breakfast with scrambled eggs and chocolate gravy!  Hello Christmas Break!

All 3 boys slept for nap yesterday, so I decided to do my Christmas menu plan so I thought I'd share!

Last year we had the ham steak the way my mom makes it, gren beans and twice stuffed potatoes.



It looks like this year I'm not very creative, as my menu plan basically looks exactly the same for Christmas dinner!

 Christmas Dinner :

Crockpot ham (I've never made it like this, we'll see that happens!)

Sweet n Sour green beans from Southern Plate ( I plan to make these the day before)

Baked potato casserole (A Pinterest recipe)

frozen cranberry banana salad in individual muffin liners that I can make and freeze this weekend. Also, another Southern Plate recipe

Rolls

And my mother in law will be bringing about 4,000 desserts from Alabama that day! I wanted to make a coconut cake if she hadn't been bringing desserts for us!

Christmas Eve Dinner

We decided that we are going to brave the Christmas Eve service at church with all 3 kids, so I want an easy meal I can put on a plate right when we get home from the service.  I'll put this "Mississippi Roast" (or Man gettin' roast as I like to call it) in the crock pot all during the day and we'll have it when we get in from church.  I'm going to add potatoes and carrots before we leave for church.  We need fast and easy on Christmas Eve! I'm going to devote a whole blog post to the wonders of this roast.  It's insane and great and easy!


Christmas Morning :

make ahead sausage casserole

pigs n a blanket

monkey bread

Orange Juice

and peppermint hot chocolate

I wanted to try and prep my monkey bread the night before by cutting the biscuits into pieces and mixing the sugar and cinnamon in a large ziploc and then just dumping it all in the bundt pan early the next morning.  I'll try it and see how it goes!

No matter what we eat, we'll all be together and that's what really counts on Christmas!

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Sunday Singing and a Party


 Matthew and John Michael had their first choir concert at church!  I help with John Michael's choir class, so I was really excited for all the little kiddos to get up and sing their Christmas songs we had been working on all semester.

Here they are before they went on....don't they look so excited!?!



I was pretty nervous about how Matthew would do onstage, and he did not disappoint.  He was on the very front row and basically he messed with and poked the mircrophone the whole time.  A little embarassing, but that's just what kids do.  He's a curious guy!


You can see Matthew reaching over with his hand on the microphone.  That's better than what he did at rehearsal, so I was happy!  Overall, the kids did great singing their Christmas songs.  I was proud of them!


After church we had a rare Sunday treat of eating lunch out.  Our littles are usually melting down so badly after church but they did great that day.  It was so warm that we were able to eat on the patio!  It was wonderful!

After lunch, we went to my friend Caryn's mother's house.  They hosted a Santa and hot chocolate party.  It was totally fabulous!  I cannot even beging to explain how precious it was!


JM was in Heaven because of all of the sweets to choose from!


Even Santa found a way to come for a bit!


Matthew and Noah were asleep in the car for almost the whole party, so JM wandered outside and played with some kids that were bouncing on the trampoline.


He had a really fun time and played and played!  I really admire how he will go and play with any kids and just not be afraid or shy about wanting to play or join in on fun.  He's really blossomed and he really enjoys playing with his friends.


Toward the end of the party, Noah and Matthew woke up and came inside for a little bit.  They had some cookies too and refused to see Santa!


It was a super cute party and the boys LOVED having so many yummy treats to choose from.  We had to literally pull them from the house.  They didn't want to leave!  It was a fun way to kick off December!

Monday, December 17, 2012

A Taste of Christmas Past


Most every Christmas morning I always remember Mom making the same meal.  We usually always had a breakfast sausage egg bake and a yummy garlic grits casserole and maybe cinnamon rolls or pigs in a blanket.  Now that I have a family of my own, I try and continue the traditions and have some of the same things for Christmas.

2 years ago we had my grandfather's sausage/scrambled eggs, grits casserole, and little pigs in a blanket with orange juice and peppermit hot chocolate.




Last Christmas we had fresh squeezed orange juice, pigs in a blanket, and overnight french toast casserole.


This year I think we'll have the sausage/egg overnight casserole and garlic cheese grits. IF I have time I wanted to do pigs in a blanket as well.  The combo of the grits and the sausage casserole will make me feel like it's Christmas morning back home!  I'm happy to carry on traditions and maybe one day my boys will always think of Christms whenever they have a casserole or grits and pigs n a blanket!  Christmas, family, the glow of the tree, pajamas, warm coffee and Christmas music humming in the background plus a belly full of warm food is a wonderful combination on a Christmas morning!

The best part is, I can assemble both of these the night before and put them in the oven early the next morning.

Garlic Cheese Grits

1/2 cup quick grits

1 1/2 cups water

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 stick butter

6 oz roll garlic cheese (a roll, usually Kraft, found in the cheese section)

2 eggs

1/2 cup milk

Heat oven to 350. Cook grits in water with salt in saucepan until thick. Melt butter and cheese over low heat. Beat egg and put in measuring cup. Add milk to make 1 cup. Combine grits, cheese mix, and egg mix in 1- quart casserole dish.  Mix well.  Bake 35-40 minutes. Serves 4.

Cheese-Egg-Sausage Brunch Treat

8 slices white bread

1 1/2 pounds link sausage

1 dozen eggs

1 tsp dry mustard

2 cups milk

2 cups sharp cheddar cheese

Day before serving, butter large casserole dish. Trim ends of bread and cut each slice into 4 squares. Cook and drain sausage. Cut into bite size pieces. Beat eggs, add sausage, mustard, milk, and cheese.  Pour over bread squares in casserole dish. Cover and refrigerate overnight.  Serves 8.

Next day, bake at 300 degrees for 1.5 hours.

Thursday, December 13, 2012

Halloween 2012

Last year's Halloween was a horrible, terrible, no fun day.  I had no-napping children who whined all day and then Noah was little and screamed most of the day.  This year, everyone was older and we actually had a really fun Halloween

Our friends made Halloween special by coming over to eat before we all went out to trick or treat.  We had hot dogs and some chips and dips and Halloween cookies.





Here they all are before everyone left to trick or treat!  They all looked so cute!


John Michael requested to be a pumpkin, Matthew was Big Al, and Noah was a little spider!




A block up from us, our friends hosted a big neighborhood outreach event for our church.  They were so sweet to have this in their front yard.  The boys had a great time playing games, winning candy, and jumping in a bouncy house!


It was a fun and very tiring Halloween!

Monday, December 10, 2012

Don't Do Disney (with Kids!) Without These!

 For this trip to Disney we decided to travel with our Graco stroller for airport and park use and then rent a nice double stroller from a company in Orlando.  I loved having the double stroller and everything was ready for us when we got to our hotel.  I simply left it there when we checked out.



It was a really great stroller and I was happy to have everyone strapped in when we were going through crowds.  I would definitely do it this way again.


We didn't have a meal plan so we knew we were going to have to take a lot of our food into the park.  It's SO pricey to eat every meal out.  Our first night, Jordan and I headed to Walmart and bought a lot of food.  We bought 2 styrofoam coolers and a nice, flexible, deep cooler with straps that we used to take into the park everyday.

Every morning while the boys ate breakfast, we (and I mean Jordan or his mom!) made and packed turkey and cheese sandwiches or peanut butter sandwiches. We also tried to eat breakfast every morning in the hotel room.  We had cereal, muffins and fruit and a treat of doughnuts one morning!  I packed our diaper bags and made sure we had diapers, lots of wipes, sunscreen and all those little things you need with kids!  It took us forever to pack up every morning!


We packed sandwiches, fruit, whales, crackers, cheese, cookies, and other little snacks the boys like.  We bought the little ziploc containers there and brought lots of ziplocs from home.  Every night we washed everything out and repacked it for the next day.


Every morning on the way out, we stopped by the hotel's ice machine and filled up our flexible cooler.  Surprisingly, this cooler held ice for a whole day.  It was VERY heavy with all the ice (it sat in the bottom of the Graco) but it was worth it to have everything we needed to eat on for the day, for a fraction of what it would have cost to eat one meal in the park.  It zipped across the top and never leaked the whole trip!


And now, for the biggest life saver at the parks: these water bottles!  They fold flat and weigh very little.  I bought a 6 pack on Amazon and they came with these handy D-rings on each one!  I cannot even count how many times we refilled these in the parks.  We also brought in the little flavor pouches you can mix into water and we would put that in ours sometimes for a change from water.  We washed and refilled them at night and left them in the cooler full of ice overnight and they were SO cold.  They stayed nice and cold in the cooler each time after we refilled them.  We still use these for an afternoon out or to go to Silver Dollar City.  Best purchase ever!


Sky On Fire!

 What a beautiful sunset!





Bravo, God!  Bravo!