December

 

The Delbi Castle is underway!

 

The kids helped wherever possible and Nicole made sure everything was level.

 

Katy had fun dancing around and being near the activity.

 

Love this crazy girl

 

Boxes of fudge for Jim to deliver to referral sources. I made 80+ lbs this year.

 

Katy loves scavenging for snacks and usually has an apple, little orange or banana with her.

 

We went with one of the doctors Jim works with as well as the doctors office staff to Meadowlights. It has a ton of lights to see as you ride a train.

 

The kids expressions of delight, especially of the toy soldier firing the cannon, were enjoyed by everyone. Our troop of six kids was fun to watch.

 

Katy all bundled up past her bedtime and in awe of the lights!

 

Feeding John on the train- it was the perfect timing to feed John since the lights place was a far drive.

 

Favorite part of the adventure was the candy store with hundreds of buckets of classic candies in pretty cheap portions. The kids picked fun ones- circus peanuts, rock candy, chocolate covered brazil nuts, big spice dots. Diana especially was so good, it was so fun!

 

One morning it was so very cold and Jim was working out with the kids on the fort and I was dying to bake some holiday goodies. So I made ginger cookies dipped in white chocolate as well as double chocolate cookies, some drizzled with the rest of the white chocolate. We enjoyed some, then gifted the rest to our beloved primary teachers.

 

Our neighborhood had a santa brunch, but the poor Santa wasn't nearly as popular as the clown working there painting faces and making animal balloons (she seriously had a 45 minute line!) We had basketball games so grabbed some tasty bagels and a shot with the only two brave enough to get near Santa.

 

Michael shooting free throws. He's really grown. We finally had his 8 yr dr appointment and he's 66lbs (75th%) and 53 inches (96th%). He is full of questions, has a sweet little boy heart, plenty of goofiness, gentleness with his sisters, and loves math.

 

All the cousins on teams this year. Nicole played Kiersten's team and Kiersten's team won by 1 point. It was funny to see the girls guard each other, Nicole had a huge grin on her face and I was surprised they played any ball at all considering how much fun they were having. Nicole was so sad to lose after our very tough season last year, but she thankfully won the next week.

 

After the games we attended the Apex Nativity put on by the Stake. The children's room has some fun nativities for the kids to play with.

 

Katy is so cute when she gets immersed in her imagination and says such cute stuff. Little squeals and fake crying with the "mommy" coming over to help.

 

We capped off our day of baking, building, santa, basketball and nativity with dinner at Daniel's Restaurant. When it was time to leave, Diana was very upset because Daniel- her uncle Daniel- was not there. We really couldn't blame her expectations. When we said Daniel wasn't here, she said "What about Uncle Josh?" haha

 

I made English Toffee for the kids teachers.

 

And loads more fudge for Jim to take around.

 

John is 6 months old in a few days! I didn't get a chance to share his size at 4 months- he measured 15lb 7oz (58th%) and is 26in tall (82nd%). He feels ginormous compared to sweet Katy, who has only been on the charts at all in the last six months. I love how very... healthy! he is and how well he eats and it makes for a good arm workout.

 

Teaching Diana to read is quite the experience. She is very intelligent and can say sounds really well and that's wonderful. If she is distracted or not focused, the reading itself proceeds at a snail's pace. I've used techniques Michael "taught" me and we are 7/10ths of the way through the book. Yes, I am keeping track. What I've learned is that if I keep on and do this book, then we can get prettymuch any reader from the library and they can read most if not all of it. So the patience-stretching on tough days is worth it, and Diana loves the 1 on 1 time. 

 

Sweet Katy catching a nap before her siblings get picked up. She has really bulked up and is 25 lbs (7th % hooray!) and is 37in tall (72nd%).

 

John fell asleep like this. I feel like it should be captioned. He's so stinkin' cute.

 

Diana had her preschool Christmas celebration. She is hard to see because we were literally in the very back, but she's at the center of the pic in an angel costume. Fun and sweet to see the little ones sing. No pushing this year either- whew!

 

Well hello cutie.

 

Diana getting in on the action. John is pretty tough for all the love he gets :)

 

Nicole at the tipoff of one her games.

 

Jim was on call and I had all the kids at the game. They each wanted a picture. Here's Michael displaying his darling dental stage of two front teeth and no incisors on either side.

 

Diana grinning so big that her veins start to pop out. That's happiness!

 

Jacob's scrunchy cute smile. He has completely charmed his teachers.

 

All three- that continued to be quite an hour while Nicole played. Thanks to mini pokemon figures, the energy was mostly contained to battles that greatly entertained the parents around us.

 

We've made a point to be doing 1 on 1 dates with the kids and it was Diana's turn so I took her to lunch and shopping for presents from our ward's Angel tree to get things for families in need. At Longhorn she ordered a water, apple juice, along with ribs, fries and fruit. As I took this picture I noticed the background photo of a cowgirl standing up riding a horse. We were seated in the right booth!

 

Katy enjoys this toy as much as John, and is probably nowhere near the weight limit.

 

I tried four different flavors of fudge and we went caroling to neighbors. For some reason it is always so cold when we do this! But it is a great opportunity to spread Christmas cheer and connect with our neighbors.

 

Over Christmas break, I made sure to keep working out even though the gym was not an option. Diana got a box of potatoes and did the whole workout with me.

 

Creating the basis of our gingerbread houses. I saw this recipe done by Mary Berry on the Great British Baking Show Christmas Special. The gingerbread tasted very good and she had this awesome idea of melting of lifesavers in the windows to make stained glass windows!

 

I made the icing and showed the kids and then they were off! It was not easy to put my creations in their hands, but they did this amazing roof pattern and Diana made some really cute trees. Katy ate things here and there, my favorite was watching her try to get icing on a gingerbread man.

 

I glued them together and Jim made the icing look like snow on the roofs.

 

The windows turned out so cool!

 

It made a mess, but wasn't nearly the sugar overload and mess that our graham cracker creations are. I made two thinking that it wouldn't be enough, but just one house would have been perfectly fine.

 

The kids sharing what they did to help.

 

Christmas eve dinner of cod chowder. The cod was so fresh and the spices like cracked black pepper totally made the best soup. I made my own evaporated milk from rice milk and it was so nice to eat it without feeling sick!

 

Cranberry walnut apple feta salad

 

And I tried making lava cakes, but overbaked them (you have to bake it just right or the melty center bakes away). It's hard to leave a baked good wiggly, my brain is trained to make sure its totally done. It was still delish!

 

Christmas morning!

 

Enjoying the gingerbread house

 

Phoenix taking a bath and really wanting to explore the house instead.

 

Gorgonzola Walnut Rye Pull-Apart Bread

 

 

I got this recipe from the same baking special. It was amazing.

 

Garlic Parmesan roasted sweet potatoes, squash and zucchini. The recipe used fresh garlic and wow that made everything taste amazing!

 

For dessert I made another Mary Berry- Neopolitan Baked Alaska. The outside layer of toasted Italian meringue was, as the British say, "scrummy"

 

I used coconut ice cream in the three flavors so that I could eat it- but I think it would be better with the more soft dairy ice cream. However, this did not stop us from devouring it in two days.

 

Sunday morning breakfast. The Christmas baking spirit was with me and I couldn't resist.

 

Watching the Mormon Tabernacle Choir while playing Mouse Trap.

 

The kids enjoyed some Bulls basketball from my Michael Jordan DVDs. They shot hundreds of baskets over the break!

 

Double Chocolate Walnut Cookies.

 

Apple Cheddar Bread

 

So good!! But really only good the day you make it in my opinion. Fun to try a new bread!

 

By the time New Years arrived I was done baking. So instead we bought way too many snacks and played tons of games together while snacking.

 

Katy with her hoard of cookies, pretzels and chocolate.

 

Jacob with grapes

 

We raked the back yard and the leaf pile was huge!

 

New Years fireworks! We had some amazing fireworks. For the first one, as it started going, Nicole asked Jim if he's watered the lawn. He said "Nah" just as sparks lit a fire on each side of our driveway. It was a great fire safety demo haha

 

Stratego is the new best game ever in our family. The boys are always dying to play. On Sunday, Jim gave a talk and while I was keeping the youngest three happy I also had to go over and stop the boys from making so much noise- because they had drawn an entire stratego game and were playing with full sound effects. Never underestimate the potential of paper and pencil in Sacrament meeting!

 

Nicole loves brain games. She does puzzles regularly in her room because she says she wants to exercise her brain. So teaching her mastermind was fun- she definitely enjoys making me guess the code best though!

 

Rummikub and Stratego games. We spent hours and hours over break just playing as a family. Everyone was healthy, we had good food and the chaos of the first two weeks of December's concerts and parties and events was over.

 

Jim took pictures while he was working with the kids.

 

Nicole and Michael made drawings off how they wanted it to look and the special features they wanted. Katy was plain cute. And Diana somehow took and lost Jim's hack saw during this. I found it when raking leaves this weekend.

 

Nicole's choir concert- the pic is fuzzy from zooming in. She did great and felt on top of the world getting flowers from Daddy.

 

Playing with remote control toys on Christmas morning. Michael insisted on wearing his Santa pajamas all day it was pretty hilarious.

 

Diana and the newly finished castle!

 

Bowling with the present from our cousins!

 

Jim took Nicole on a date to a trampoline park.

 

Jumping into the pit! Jim tried this too and the pad sank all the way to the ground :)

 

Harnessed and climbing as high as she dared

 

Dodgeball. Nicole was the last remaining person on her team against six other teenage boys. She loved it!

 

About 10 minutes after they arrived, Jim saw this mechanical bull. He fiddled with the controls, showed Nicole how it works and got on. She put the level on hard and within seconds he was flying to Nicole's delight! Then an employee came running telling them they had to have an assistant. Poor Jim also almost went out an emergency exit before Nicole stopped him, as she informed me with a smile. Our goal was to have Nicole laughing and smiling making memories with her dad and Jim sure delivered!