Cupcake, New Years Eve and a Question

Here is another cupcake creation that Hanna and I tried. It is a tres leche cupcake so we call it cookie and milk. It was very delicious and the tiny chocolate chip cookies were a fun touch (Hanna made those).

For new years eve we made a cranberry almond cupcake but we forgot to take a picture :( It was beautiful (for a cupcake). It had cranberry sauce drizzled over the frosting and sliced almonds on top. I really liked that one and I think my family liked them too. New Years Eve we went to Grunyon Run but I am so dumb, I only took two pictures. So here they are: Kindyl and Andria making gingerbread houses (Greg helping)

Maranda and Saydie making theirs:

Pictures missing: kids bingo game, Hannas first place prize, kids running around and playing games together, adult snack time with another cheeseball and assorted treats plus the healthy veggie tray (thanks Joy), adult bingo gift exchange, adults playing Last Word (Dan won), breakfast at midnight at a neighbors house, Hanna and Kylee after the stake dance. You will have to imagine all the pictures along with the cranberry almond cupcakes.

Question: What is this a picture of?

If you said Zanya on her new big girl bed you are right!

However, if you said 300 lbs of white wheat, 20 lbs of elbow macaroni, and 17 lbs of rolled oats, you would also be right!

Zanya has had the mattress on the floor for a few weeks and we had several buckets of stuff that needed a place to live so it was a win win solution (it was Dan's great idea when I asked if anyone could think of a place to store the newly sealed buckets of food.)

Call me a kook if you must but there are a lot of mouths to feed over here and none of us likes to be hungry :)

Christmas Day

We have a tradition in our home that we leave one present on each child's bed for Christmas morning. It is always a book and can be opened up right away. So when someone wakes up early, they have something to do and they don't have to wake up everyone else. It has worked well these last few years and everyone is excited for a new book. So we don't have to start opening presents until after 7am. Yea!

Here are the kids opening stockings:
Some highlights of the morning:

That afternoon, we went for dinner at Grunyon Run (thanks Garns and Dunyons) with all our holiday food favorites. After dinner, Danica got a sweet new hair do by her darling and talented cousin, Kinsey. She wants to do hair when she gets older, and it looks like she shouldn't have any trouble.

Here we are after dinner, Rebecca is trying our camera. No, it isn't new. We wish it was.

It was a great Christmas Day!

Cupcakes

Did you know that cupcakes are becoming popular now? We've always liked them but now everyone else does too, talk about trend setting. This is great for us because now there are so many new ideas and resources for decorating cupcakes. Here are some that Hanna made for Christmas dinner just for fun. Here is our white chocolate coconut cupcake. The snowflakes are made from white chocolate. This cupcake is delicious but not perfect, we'll work on it.

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve we went to see the temple lights. We like to do this every year so we can also see the nativity display that is in the visitors center at the Temple. This year we decided to go on Christmas Eve because Jordan Bluth was singing there that night.

Here are Andria, Sam and Zan modeling their warm clothes. Hanna even gave me my Christmas present early so my feet could be warm. She is so thoughtful. The added bonus is that now I won't be stealing hers all the time. Temple lights. . .

(Note: Danica was horrified that we were letting Samantha leave the house wearing sweatpants under her skirt. Ha ha. Well she refused to take off her skirt so that was the only way to keep her legs warm. It's fun being the Mom.

Samantha loved the outdoor Nativity, we had to drag her away.

Here is the outdoor nativity. If you go to see it, make sure you go inside the visitors center and see the Nativity displays from all over the world.

Afterwards, we came home and opened our Christmas pajamas. I am so lucky that all my children are happy to wear matching pajamas at Christmas time.

Gingerbread People and the Nativity

Today Hanna and I decided to make gingerbread people. We did this because we are not going to make gingerbread houses which the kids love to do every year but which I did not want to do this year. I told Hanna that when I was a child, my Mom would make gingerbread cookies with a hole in the head so that we could thread a ribbon in them and hang them on the tree. I always loved decorating the gingerbread men then and we also got to eat them after Christmas. This year we decorated boys and girls (we almost did all girls but decided not to discriminate after all). I made one called "going to church boy" and told Chandler it was him. Can you find it? Also, we figured out how to turn stars into snowflakes. Most of my girls like to help with things like this but Hanna is my most faithful partner. She is very clever and creative as well as helpful and capable. Tonight we decided to do our nativity play because we have other plans for Christmas Eve. Chandler has to be Joseph every year but he is mostly a good sport, even though the costume doesn't fit very well. Andria won for the part of Mary and Danica consoled Samantha by telling her it was only 368 days until next Christmas.

Here we have a shepherd and a couple of wise men.

A sheep and Mary

A shining angel with braces removed just today! You don't get happier than that.

I used to get annoyed when everyone goofed around during the nativity play but I have mellowed in my old age. So if our sheep has to baaa during the angel's announcement it's ok.

And if Joseph wants to look like a gangster, oh well. See how I have matured? After the pageant, Zan thought it should be time to open presents. Luckily, there were some for her and Sam that were from Maranda and Andria that were regifted. We let them open those presents (ponies) and they were happy. Dan mocked me by announcing our new tradition of letting the youngest children open presents any time they want. Ha ha ha.

Note: As I type this, I can hear Chandler reading stories to Zanya and doing all the voices. Imagine a huge smile on my face :)

Chandler is Seventeen!

Amongst all the Christmas happenings Chandler managed to turn one year older. He requested Mississippi mud pie for dessert which we enjoyed sharing with him. Danica is missing from this picture because she is the photographer.Also, Chandler was invited to winter formal a few weeks ago. He received a pie while he was at his choir concert. When we got home, everyone was happy to help him find the girls name. It was fun.

Christmas Concerts

Here is a smattering of all the Christmas concerts we have attended this month.

Danica's Junior High Choir concert: Danica does have a beautiful voice but we could hardly believe this was Junior High. The entire concert was excellent. Danica is second row from the bottom and second in from the right. (sorry our camera works great outside but not so great from far away and in the dark.) Hanna's ballet recital. She took ballet lessons for a few years when she was young but has only recently started up again. She was in a duet this year.

Jon Schmidt concert. This year we brought Maranda with us because she has started piano lessons this year. It was an awesome concert.

Hanna's Junior High orchestra concert. The other orchestras that night were not great but Hanna's was really great. Here she is on the back row, you can almost see her.

Samantha's preschool program: She was super animated and fun to watch. She was an angel in the nativity part of the program but really wants to be Mary in our family nativity. She'll have to fight Andria for the part. We videoed the whole program and Zan and Sam have watched it non stop ever since.

Danica's piano recital: Danica is so musically talented. Her piano playing is very rewarding as a parent, too bad she doesn't view it in the same way. Her friend Camille is turning pages for her here.
Maranda's piano recital: Her very first and she did a great job playing Jingle Bells.

Chandler's choir concert: Aaaah High School choir. If you don't know what I mean, your music program isn't as great as ours. I hate to brag, but this is some of the best music in town. Every choir is just excellent and the whole evening was awesome. Chandler is that handsome one in the middle.