Snow Days - making Snowman with Daddy & Snow Angels all over the lawn!

Merry Christmas 2007!

Our family wishes you a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

CrazyKens

Winter Garden a'Glow Video Clips

Idaho Botanical Gardens Winter Garden aGlow 2007

Lochie and I went to an awesome event tonight with our friend Karen & her kids Miranda, Alex, Jeff & Brocc - it was the annual Idaho Botanical Gardens "Winter Garden aGlow" event(if you click the blue text it'll take you to the official website). I got some AMAZING photos - the entire botanical gardens was alight with a gorgeous array of Christmas lights - and on top of that it was lightly snowing - so that combined for some pretty great pics! The kids had a heap of fun running around, throwing snowballs at each other and "skiing" down the cobblestone paths. There were fire pits everywhere and we saw a reindeer and Santa (again!). We all met over at McDonalds for some dinner beforehand then after we all went and had some Molten Lava Choc Cake & Icecream at Chili's (Karen talked me into it - but I HIGHLY recommend it if you haven't tried it!!). An awesome night all round! Without further ado here are some of the pics and video from the Winter Aglow.

Cookie Exchange Party @ Karen's

My friend Karen hosted a cookie exchange party on Wednesday night where everyone took 6 dozen cookies packaged up in dozen sets. After having some nibblies and hot cocoa everyone was able to take 6 dozen different cookies home. I made apricot balls & chocolate truffle balls rolled in crushed candy canes (thanks Big Nan for the apricot balls recipe & others!). Karen made pretzel rods dipped in white chocolate with different candies sprinkled on top - yummy!

Karen's house was decorated beautifully for Christmas and her tree was gorgeous! Lochie got all excited when he saw the pressies underneath and asked if Santa had put them there!

We enjoyed the sweet/salty mix of the pretzels so much that Lochie and I made our own chocolate covered pretzels sprinkled in crushed nuts and sprinkles - this was Lachlan's first real cooking activity where he made all of it almost by himself. I melted the chocolate in the microwave for him, but he lay the pretzels out on his tray and when I told him they couldn't be clumped up he spread them out more, then he spooned on the chocolate and spread it out then finished up by sprinkling everything with the toppings he chose! He was very proud of his efforts as you can see by the photo! We had a lot of fun!

The family got elfed too!

Get Elfed!

My friend Keri elfed her family on her blog page and it was so funny I did it for our family too!
Copy and paste the following link into an address bar!
http://www.elfyourself.com/?id=1375283569

Santa Pictures 2007

Lochie's Blogspot still has his 2006 and 2005 photos! Click here to see how he's grown!

Lochie goes to see Santa!!

Took Lochie to the Boise Towne Square Mall to see Santa Claus today! All Lochie wanted to do was cuddle up to him! And what a lovely Santa he was too - there wasn't a line at all - noone waiting after us and only one child ahead of us. The little baby in front of us who Santa held for a very long time and walked around so the baby could touch the fishing snowman. He was very patient and gentle and jolly too! Lochie told Santa that he wants a Darth Vader Death Star Transformer for Christmas and that he had been a good boy t his year and Santa said to Lochie that Santa loves him very much. Very sweet! Lochie is such a cuddle-bug! Maybe he was thinking of another older, grey-haired man he loves...



I was annoyed at myself when I got to the mall that I'd taken my flash card out of my camera - I even had my second older camera in my bag too- but the batteries were dead! Fortunately my Kodak has not a bad sized internal memory so I was able to still get a very short video and about 5 photos! When we woke Lochie up in the middle of the night last night for him to go to the potty he groggily said in his sleep "And I get to tell Santa I want Darf Vader toy when I wake up?" - even in his half-asleep state he was aware of his visit to see Santa today!! I had a dental appointment this morning so met up with David & Lochie at the mall and he was so wiggly & excited about everything! Right now as I type this I hear him in the living room saying "Ho, Ho, Ho! Merry Christmas! I'm Santa Claus!" and he is wearing an orange soccer safety cone on his head for his Santa hat! Only 19 more sleeps to go (yikes, that many?!!)...

Christmas Messages #1 (Happy Birthday Billy)

Watch first.

Getting Ready for Christmas...