It's Christmas Time, It's Christmas Time

What kid, or parent, doesn't love the Christmas season.  The lights, the decorations, the excitment of waiting for Santa.  Things were pretty hectic at our house this season and we couldn't have been happier.  We stayed busy with decorating, Light's Parade, 3 nights of dancing for Makayla (pictures coming soon), visiting family in Beaver, and trying to finish our Christmas present to the girls -- their new remodeled bedroom (pictures on next blog).  It was definitly our busiest year so far, but so many wonderful memories were made.

The girls have the most fun decorating the christmas tree.

Emma loved to put the ornaments on -- that is until she had put so many on the
same branch that no more would hang there and they kept falling off. 
She was getting so frustrated :)

The finished product.  Of course mom came along and spread out the ornaments. 
I don't think any of the lower ornaments stayed in the same place all season long.

We missed seeing Santa at ever turn, but we finally caught him the week before
Cristmas and Makayla was ecstatic!!

Emma kept asking to see Santa, but she was just copying her sister.  When the time
actually came she wasn't so sure about it.  Of course you can see the
ever present "puppy" in her arms.

James did better than the two girls did at this age, but he still didn't think
it was so cool for his mommy to hand him to this big red stranger.

Every year I let the girls decorate this gumdrop tree.  This year the girls
found the materials in the box and before I even knew it they were
decorating it together.  It was so cute:)

Decorating the Annual Gingerbread house, which the girls then
beg to eat all season long :)



James in his Christmas outfit



I got to help out with the class Christmas party this year and had a blast. 
This is Makayla decorating her gingerbread house -- I know green?

Thanksgiving

So I am a little behind, but who can blame me with 3 crazy kids and the holidays all around me:)
Thanksgiving this year was a lot of fun.  We spent it with Grandma and Grandpa (my mom and dad) Hare, my brother Tyson and his wife BryAnne and their little girl Maddi, and my little brother Colton.  It was a small year, but so good none-the-less.  We had great food and did something a little different this year.  We decided to spend a little bit of the day at each persons house.  We did breakfast and the football game at Tyson and BryAnne's house -- BryAnne made a killer cinnamon roll pancake (I'm still smiling inside thinking about how good they tasted).  Then we went to my mom and dad's house for the main meal.  We then came to our house for pie and games later that night. 

From Left: Tyson, Colton, Dad and Richard.  I though that is was very funny that it was all the men in this picture eating the meal -- you would think that the women were all in the kitchen cooking:)  Actually in my family the guys do quite a bit to help around the kitchen and some of them make some great stuff for us to enjoy as well.

My beautiful family enjoying the Thanksgiving meal

I contributed the deviled eggs this year since my wonderful sister Megan couldn't be there (she makes an amazing deviled egg).  As you can see there are some empty ones -- this is a special request from my picky eaters who don't like the deviled part :)

I also made the rolls, crescent ones as you can see.  I don't do bread much so these were an interesting process.  They turned out though and weren't to bad.

This was my absolutely favorite part of the food.  I asked Makayla what she would like to have at the Thanksgiving Feast and all she said was rainbow jell-o.  Where she got the idea I have no idea, but it started a quest.  A quest to find out how to make rainbow jell-o.  I found some recipes and said to myself "this doesn't look to hard".  I'm smiling to myself right now because I would soon find out how false this statement really was.  It WAS hard, or rather time consuming.  I started to make the jello only to find out that you could not get distracted as you could not let the layers set up longer than 15 min or the next layer wouldn't stick to it.  Well, not getting distracted with 3 kids is impossible, so I had to scrap the first 2 layers and start again after they had gone to bed.  I started about 9:00pm and didn't finish until 2:00am.  It was so worth it though to see how excited Makayla was with it; not to mention how good it was, as in amazingly good.

I found the inspiration for this platter on pinterest.  They had used red, yellow, and green peppers for the feathers, but I though the red and yellow tomatoes, and celery would get a better reception from my family.  It turned out so cute and since I was up until 2:00am making jello and had about 15 min in between each layer it really didn't add any extra stress to my life :)



We made these fun little placecards with the girls as a Thanksgiving craft while we were waiting for dinner.  They turned out so cute, but BryAnne and I ended up making most of them, since little girls attention spans are only so long.



My Latest Projects

I purchased these letters from the Wood Connection in Salt Lake.  I loved the way it turned out and since I don't have many Thanksgiving decorations it was a welcome addition.

This is what we gave Makayla's teacher for Christmas.  I found the idea from a couple different pins on pinterest and designed my own.  Makayla loved it and was so excited to take it to school and give it to her teacher.

These letters were also from the Wood Connection and since my familyand I are avid Grinch fans (only the original cartoon movie though), I just had to have it!!

I found this idea on Pinterest and knew that it would make the perfect birthday gift for my Grandma Lowry.



My cute Grandma.  Look at all those birthdays.  All of these hearts are here because of my wonderful Grandma and Grandpa Lowry.  They have 5 kids and 4 son/daughter-in-laws; 22 grandkids and 5 grandson/daughter-in-laws; and 7 great-grandkids with 2 more on the way (that I know of). 



Hair Cut(Chop)

Well I finally did it!!  I had my hair cut after both my girls, and have been contemplating it since James was born.  I finally got up the courage today and just went with it.

Before



After

 *This blog is a rare find as I do not like pictures of myself

Leaves Are For The Kids

My grandma and grandpa Lowry have the most amazing trees for dropping leaves.  The kids love to go out every year and play in the HUGE pile of leaves. 

Just Your Crazy Everyday Family

My girls love me to shape their hair into all sorts of funny looks when they are in the tub.

Emma obviously missed her nap this day :)

My little terror

We always get big boxes from diapers.com and I love to let the girls keep them for a couple of days.  This one was James' first box and he loved it.

The girls were sitting with Daddy and James kept trying to get to him so I finally put him up there too.  As you can see he was so excited.

Makayla is such a good big sister to both James and Emma.  She is always wanting to hold James.

And another episode of "I Can Sleep Anywhere".  This one was slumped over in his highchair.

Halloween was such a "Fright" :)

Halloween this year went by so fast, but we did get in some fun times.  The girls were so excited all month and had a blast decorating, playing at the pumpkin patch, carving pumpkins and trick or treating.

It is never too soon to put away these cute little chickens, after hearing the chicken dance song for the 100th time.  They were definitly Emma's favorite this year.

This is my little witch tribute.  I made the hat, broom, and shoes.  My cute sister-in-law BryAnne drew and colored the picture.

Makayla went to the pumpkin patch for a field trip with her class.  Of course she can't knowingly have a picture taken without posing!!

We went to the pumpking patch as a family a couple days later.  Pour little Emma had the croup here - although we didn't know it yet.

Little James was so cute sitting in the corn stalks -- as always he loved being outside.

Our good friends the Griffiths joined us at the pumpkin patch.  This is Makayla and Macey on the hay ride.

It doesn't look like they were excited at all ;)

James thought this business with the pumpkins was just great

Richard spent tons of time on his pumpkin . . .

It was well worth it -- that's my artist!!

Makayla loved every minute of it

Her pumpkin turned out really cute too.

Emma wouldn't even touch a pumpkin and definitly wouldn't let me take her picture that night, but she was more than happy to pose in her costume.

Makayla wanted to be a princess; no a fairy; no a witch; no a cowgirl??  She finally decided on a "Pink Princess Fairy".  She even had to have her hair painted pink.

James was our little stinker this year -- wait isn't he that everyday :)  This costume was so cute on Emma last year that we just had to recycle it for James!!

This is after Trick-or-Treating.  Can't you just see him saying "Okay, I've been cute long enough, now get me out of this thing"?

Overall the holiday was a whirlwind of activity and we had a blast all along the way.