So, anyone out there who reads my blog is probably wondering why I haven't posted much...or pretty much anything for the last month. Well, it has to do a lot with moving all the way across the country, from Washington to South Carolina and taking a two week vacation in the middle of that. Although we had a lot of fun traveling I can now honestly say that I am glad we made it and are in our apartment, so that we can get settled and be stable...at least for a few months.
Now that we are here I will be going back and filling in the other blog posts but I wanted to get at least one up for now just to show that we arrived and we have our stuff. These are just a few pictures from the day we moved in. By the time they had brought everything in we felt like we were drowning in boxes!
This was partway through them bringing stuff in...the piles got higher :/
When everything left our house in Washington they just loaded it on a 53 foot truck and it only took a little over half the space in the truck. Then when they brought it to us here they brought it in crates and so it took 3 trucks...Looking at all the trucks Drew and I were both feeling like we needed to get rid of a lot. (Luckily some of the crates were pretty empty)
Alden did a good job of helping to entertain his brother while Drew and I were helping to supervise the guys as they unpacked and brought everything inside.
However, Anders is getting much more mobile and so we had to keep a pretty close eye on him the whole time. He got himself stuck like this when I turned my back just for a second. I had to take pictures because it was a little funny.
It was really cute because even when he was stuck like this he would still turn around to try and play with his toys. It was definitely an eventful day getting everything delivered but all of our things made it here and we are just glad we can now get unpacked and feel like we have a home again...even if it is only until October.
So, what do you do when you are getting ready to move and trying to pack things up and not have too many toys out? You play with giant boxes and build lots of different things out of them! The boys (including Drew) had tons of fun playing with these boxes. They built houses, forts, caves, castles, boats and more. I loved watching them play and seeing all their creativity come out and be used. Here are some of the pictures from the boys adventures with the boxes.
Alden is hiding way in his house.
He even had a door so that he could get in and out easily.
The boys all had a great time cramming in this box together so that they could hide! Anders thought that it was really funny.
It was fun watching the boys silliness and playing peek-a-boo with all of them.
Alden also had fun using all of our throw pillows to help fill and pad some of the boxes.
Now, who do you think Alden just buried?
Daddy! They had so much fun taking turns hiding away.
Now they all have their own boxes to hide inside.
Anders had tons of fun crawling around in the boxes!
This is the boys in their boat together. Anders kept trying to push Alden out of the way so that he could see out of the front too.
Anders finally got where he wanted. These boxes were so great for the couple of days that they lasted before they got destroyed!
I can't believe that Alden is old enough to be a Sunbeam at church. That means that he gets to move out of Nursery and go to Primary with the big kids. Alden seems really excited about it and it is so cool to see him take another step in growing up, although sometimes I still wish he would slow down.
Alden loves getting to pick out a tie to wear to church each week and he was so excited to wear his green tie this week! He is so adorably handsome when he gets dressed up!
Making Christmas treats is one of my favorite parts of the holidays! I love making tons of different cookies and things to give away to friends! Most of the year I try to keep my baking addiction in check and don't let myself go too crazy but, December is the one time when I let myself make as much as I want. I also let myself try new recipes which I always find fun.
I love how much Alden likes to help me out when I am baking. His favorite part of the whole process is getting to help mix things and then, for the first time this year, taste test. Making cookies and treats together is a great family bonding experience and tradition that all of us participate it! I am so glad that Alden seems to enjoy baking with me and I hope that he continues to enjoy it as he gets older.
So, this year we made seven different kinds of treats. We made Chocolate Crinkle Cookies (140), Gingersnaps (100), Sugar Cookies (50), Snickerdoodles (60), Gingerbread Cookies (30), Grasshopper Bars (60), Rice Krispy Treats (20) and Candy Bars (20). My favorite are the Gingersnaps, but I think everything came out fairly well. The Grasshopper Bars and Candy Bars were both new this year but I thought they were both yummy. Here are the pictures from our treat making adventure!
We started with the chocolate brownie base for the Grasshopper Bars.
Alden loved taste testing that.
He was so excited when I gave him a beater to lick at the end!
Next we had to mix up the mint filling for the grasshopper bars and Alden was so excited because it was green! He loves using the little hand mixer by himself and I just think it is adorable!
Alden has now discovered how much fun cookie cutters are and loves helping with that part of making cookies.
Drew even had fun helping to roll out and make some gingerbread men.
Here is a video of Alden and Daddy making cookies together.
I love watching them work together!
Here are some of our cooked gingerbread men. They came out really nice and soft, which is how we like them!
These are the gingersnaps that I made that I absolutely love. I have to make sure that I put those away quickly because otherwise I will just keep snacking on them all day long!
My friend Sarah came over and helped us decorate the gingerbread cookies which was a lot of fun!
Alden loved decorating the cookies and he was sure to make sure that his cookies got enough sprinkles!
Here are some of our gingerbread men/women. Sarah and I had a lot of fun decorating and trying different designs.
Alden loved sneaking bites of cookie as he decorated.
Oops! Where did the cookie go? Alden accidentally dumped almost an entire sprinkle container on one cookie.
Alden wanted to take some pictures of his cookies and these were the ones that he took.
The snowflake is the one that Alden accidentally dumped all the sprinkles on but it did come out really pretty! The bell and tree got dipped in the dumped sprinkles to help use some of them up and they came out looking pretty nice too.
Drew wanted to help me decorate the sugar cookies so we had fun doing that after the kids were in bed. I love decorating sugar cookies this way and they end up tasting really good!
Can you find Drew's Grinch and Christmas Slug?
This was the tray that Drew took to work the next day to share! Hopefully everyone could find something they liked!
Well, here are the Christmas slug and Grinch that Drew made.
These were the plates that we took around and delivered. I love doing this for people around Christmas time because it really helps get me in the Christmas spirit and it just makes me so happy! I hope that this continues to be a Christmas tradition that our family keeps for many years to come!
