Christmas stuff that happened

Marian received this awesome cap from her friend Adrian.  She agrees to pose for a picture so he could see it.  I think it is too cute.

She is also quite cute! (Even if she is less than thrilled about the pictures!) 

Hmmm.... I love finding random selfies of Delaney on my phone! 

I went to a Spouses Event where we made these ornaments.  I know, you wonder how it could take 2 hours to make this.  Well, we did eat, and there was lots of visiting, but this darn thing was so stinking complicated to put together!  It was fun though, so it was worth it.

 The base held it's annual Jingle Bell Jog, and the school walked over to the gym to participate.  I helped chaperone Marian's class.  It was awesome!  Check out this crew that ran in it!

Me and my sweet girl. 

Oh, wait, she gave me a smile.  Love her!

The girls I was in charge of.  Great girls and so nice!

Lots of folks dressed up for the run.  I felt positively un-festive in regular clothes!

Some of the kids out on the run.

So this is what happens when your bowl really isn't big enough for your dough to rise in.  Oops.

This is what you get when you manhandle the dough into submission and make a million cinnamon buns. (Delicious cinnamon buns!)

The sister missionaries came and caroled to us!  And brought fudge.  I felt so special!

Gingerbread Houses

 We made gingerbread houses every year when I was a kid.  I like doing them, and we have made them them a couple times, although not in recent years.  I decided we were going to make them this year, so we did. Sort of.  I noticed there was a set of cut outs at the church so we borrowed them.  Well, they did save on time, and cutting out the dough shapes was so much easier.  However, the cutters were not very even and the roof was a wee bit small, and the pieces did not match very well at all when putting the houses together.  It made life much more difficult when attempting to construct them.

Marian had the patience and skill to wait for her house to set up so she could decorate it.  Rylee didn't have a choice, since I frosted her house together and then dragged her off on an errand while the frosting set.  Callie refused to give up, but also refused to give her frosting time to dry, so she never managed to get the darn thing to stay together.  It was quite the exercise in frustration for her!

While I was out with Rylee at the commissary, I had told them to wait and let their houses dry.  I returned to see my directions had not been followed. Marian was carefully working on her house- applying tiny sprinkles to her roof, one by one.  Callie was near tears because her house kept falling apart.  Delaney..... well, her house was roofless, but it looked like some hooligans had sprayed it all with graffiti.  It wasn't till later I realized she had grabbed the gel COLORS to decorate with, not frosting.  So there was a lot of color going on for her and she was covered with it as well.  Fun times!

Delaneys gel-splattered house and blue-dyed mouth.

Zoom in and check out that lovely border on her roof. 

Look of Death from a cranky Callie.

She finally gave in and just frosted the pieces to eat. 

When attempting to install the roof, Delaney's house imploded and she gave up.  This was the lovely mess of my table! 

Happy to sample the fruits of her labors and not sad at all that her house didn't survive. 

Rylee, decorating her house. 

Callie was happier once she moved on to the eating part. 

Aack!  Look at those hands!

Family Christmas Party

 Dan is attached to H&HS, and the family Christmas party happened on Saturday.  They put on a pretty good shin-dig!  The only sad thing is they ran out of cheesecake.  I waited too long to go through the food line, and while there was plenty of yummy dinner, the dessert selection was vastly diminished.   The kids had been too busy having fun to bother with finding food.

There were drawings and prizes but we did not win anything.  Kids under 8 got to sit with Santa and got gifts.  Delaney and Rylee were delighted, and Callie was pea green with envy.  A very good time was had by the children.

Frosting a cone to make a Christmas tree was a hit.

Rylee spent 20 minutes to carefully color her picture.  She did a marvelous job, too. 

Looking less like a cone and more like a tree! 

And the tree has now become dinner.  You see why there was no desire to wait in the line for dinner! 

This picture cracks me up, every time I see it!  I love these 2! 

Rylee finally finished coloring her page and moved on to frosting a tree. 

Joshua also felt the need to make a tree. 

He said he wanted a picture, and then gave me this face. 

I tried again.  I'm not sure which one is better. 

So happy with Santa! 

And they were even more thrilled when they got gifts.

Waiting for the Bus with Rylee

I'm sorry.  She is just too cute for words and I need to squeeze every last drop of adorable out of her stinking expensive uniform.  Plus, we kill time waiting for the bus taking pictures some days.  So I just knew you'd want to see all her photos!

Japanese stuff that cracks me up

Why yes, I'd love a steaming mug of..... poop? 

This snake felt freakishly realistic. 

I imagine they were going for a "moisture wicking" sort of endorsement, but kind of missed the mark with this one.