Making Gingerbread Houses

It is a tradition at our church that the children make gingerbread houses one night after going to carol at a home for brain injured patients.  Chase is not yet involved in the children's program, but she was invited to make a house, so I thought we'd give it a whirl!  

I now know (not that I didn't already) that 2 is too young!  But, I, I mean she really wanted to do one!

So really for her it was just a great excuse to eat a lot of candy!  She ate things she never even knew existed! And mostly spit them back out.  But, the M & M's she loved!

She almost ate a choking hazard hard candy....but handed it to me instead.  Thank goodness!

Maybe next year it will be more about the decorating than the eating....oh who am I kidding??!!

Summer in Winter

We had a special opportunity to go to Palm Desert this past weekend for about 24 hours.  Our friends were there all week in a great timeshare and invited us to come over for a little getaway.  Talk about gorgeous!  It was in the 80's and bright blue skies....perfect weather for us!  It was strange to see things decorated for Christmas wearing a bathing suit and sundress.  But we'll take this over the crazy cold snap that has seemingly taken over most of the country.

Thanks friends for the fun!!

Happy Birthday Dear Ellie!

Here is John's very first niece, Elisabeth Noel....she became a string of many sweet nieces and nephews...who would have known this 12 years ago?  And there are a lot of other neat things that have happened in those 12 years that no one would have guessed while this little one was eating her first cake!

.....like who would have known that Uncle John would not have a full head of blonde hair in a few years???!!!

...and at the time there was no Aunt Heidi in the picture! (this photo is from 2005)

...and there was surely no Chasey Jo....

...but mostly what was not known was what a sweet young woman this little one would turn into.  Who would have known that she would be so full of creativity, or so loving toward others, or such a big help to her mom (and others)?  And I did not know that such a big hole would be left in my heart when she left our daily lives.  I'll never forget the first memories I had of Ellie.  She and Drew were such little guys, and such good buddies. And Uncle John was (and still is) just crazy about her.  He loved spending time with her and having her over to spend the night with us.  

There are a lot of sweet memories there. We are anxiously awaiting Ellie's first big "flying by herself and coming to stay with us for a month" visit!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ELLIE!  WE MISS YOU SO!

What Have We Been Up To??

Veggin' on the bed while watching Sesame eating snacks....

A baby shower for Lisha....

Decorating for Christmas....

Having fun with hand me down dress up items...

Going to Legoland with Hailey....

This picture is for you Drew...

Breakfast in Bethlehem at Chase's preschool/church with Elyssa...

And our monthly dinner party with friends...

So far December has been a really fun month with lots of holiday activities!  

And we're only on the 8th day of fun....there is much more to come!

Thanksgiving

We had our first Thanksgiving without family in town.  Kind of a bittersweet thing.  We may not have family, but we have very dear friends.

We started our day with a new family tradition.  Or at least when we are in town.  In the past we have done some of the 5K runs on Thanksgiving morning, but they are not close by.  This year, in our very neighborhood, a 5K was started to raise money for ALS.  It was great.  We left our house about 15 minutes before it started, got to the starting line, stretched, saw our little community come together for a good cause, and ran!  We always love starting this particular day with a little exercise.  At the finish line was a little bit of fruit and a playground, good enough for all of us!  John was sweet and pushed Chase in her jogging stroller, allowing me to run freely.  It was a chilly morning.

As soon as we finished that, we moved on to our next activity!  We drove a few minutes to a local park where every year our church holds a turkey bowl.  John always loves this.  This year our numbers were down, but some sweet girls were there that love Chase and they played with her the whole time and I got to chat with some friends.  A lot of fun was had by all.  It started to warm up a bit, but the sun was shining bright.  I am so thankful to live in a location where we can be outdoors year round.  It is such a blessing and I enjoy it so.

We ran home, showered and scooted out the door to dinner.  Our dear friends the Fitzpatricks invited us to their big family dinner.  We had a great time there.  It was fun hanging out with them and I saw Chase get enveloped by their whole clan.  It was really sweet to watch.  Our friends' cousins really took to her and by the end of the night, Chase was watching Polar Express from one of our friend's aunt's laps with another kid.  This was her second time watching a "real" movie.  She did well and hung with all of the big kids.  Dinner was of course delish.  Who's ever had a bad Thanksgiving dinner?  Not me!!  One treat that came from gathering here was avocados!  They have 2 trees and I took home a bag that must have weighed 7 pounds or so.  I'm still waiting for them to ripen....I've given quite a few away.  That's always fun.  Even living in Southern CA, they are like gold to me!!

When we got home and after Chase went to bed, John and I hung out by the fire, eventually ate a little dinner, watched some tv and talked.  We are using our fireplace a lot these nights as it has been cold, to us.  We love it.

I have so much to be thankful for.  I could go on and on.....but mostly I feel so very blessed and fortunate for the life I am living.  What a gift it is!

Miss Sue's Visit!!

Can you imagine MORE visitors???  It was our last one for this year....boo hoo.

My dear friend Sue came for a quick two night visit.  But even that short time was great to catch up with what is going on in our lives and just have good hang out time.  Sue is who introduced John and me, so always a fun reminder of what she's done for us.  I'm thankful for her being in both of our lives!!

Saturday morning we went down to Little Italy's Mercato (fancy word for farmer's market).  It was really fun.  We'd never been, but it was much more than just fruits and vegetables.  Then Sue and I got to go see a movie, like the good old, before kids days.  Not a great choice in movies, but nice to get away nonetheless.  We did a little shopping after the movie, then came home for some yummy baked potato soup.  Sunday morning we drove her up to Temecula to meet up with some of our college friends that live up in the Pasadena area.  That was a bit weird for us, not going to church on Sunday morning!  It was a quick drive up there and then we ate breakfast with Mary, Brian and 6 month old Baby Elizabeth.  Chase just loves babies!!  We were appreciative that they came close to us to get Sue because I had to hurry home to help host a baby shower.

Notice anything funny?

November is almost over, hard to believe.  I actually think that December will be calm for us.  Almost all of our Christmas shopping is done, the cards are ordered, we have no parties to attend.  I am really excited because this week we get to see the famous Radio City Rockettes!  That has always been one of my life's dreams! Coming true this very week!!