Christmas Traditions 2011

I started a job on October and so trying to keep everything updated has become even harder, not that I was any good at it before the job. I'm taking my lunch break to type some info and then will add pictures later when I can get to the computer.
Christmas break was a fun, for the Mondays and Fridays that I was there for it. We were able to do a few holiday craft/traditions, which were enjoyed by this parent and the kids. One Saturday, we went over to Dunahee's house and made ornaments. Michelle had purchased different kinds depending on the ages and then let the age groups take turns at the table painting/decorating/designing their ornament. The big girls got to help make some holiday treats (oreo truffles) that we all were able to sample afterwards.

I had purchased some ornaments for our family to do and then Grandparents Scott got each of teh kids an ornament for Christmas. They were well covered for 2011! When the kids leave home, they will have more ornaments than Eric and I did when we were first married.

Patrice and I had been trying to coordinate a day that we could get together to do candy houses. We Hibberts can't go a Christmas without candy houses and the kids had saved a good chunk of their candy from Halloween for decorating with. Eric wanted gingerbread houses instead of the typical graham cracker houses that we usually make, so after a bit of back and forth and he had printed off the recipe, I decided to make a batch of gingerbread.

With the walls standing up,
everyone got busy on their houses.

A better view of the gingerbread housing development.

Gingerbread STINKS!! And that was the reason I didn't make another batch when requested. After everything had been baked, it didn't look like it would be enough to make big houses for each of the kids and Eric asked me to make some more. I told him to bake it because I didn't want to smell it. Eric was able to make the available pans of gingerbread work for five houses, smaller than he wanted, but it worked. Somethings we will have to fine tune next Christmas. It took a while for the walls to harden and there wasn't enough for gingerbread roofs, but oh well. The kids enjoyed themselves, as they do every year.



Exterior Decorator Neta

Landscape Architect Graigry

Nate had a sky light
then moved in a large family of goodies.

Extreme Home Makeover Engineer 
Xela Scott

Roofer Extraordinare with a side job
Landscape Artist - Aurora

After a week, maybe it was right before the new year, I told the kids to pick off whatever candy they wanted because I was throwing the houses away. No one put up much of a fight, which I thought was splendid. I pitched the houses and now the kids have smaller bags of candy on top of the cabinets.

Patrice came over a few days later, while I was in and out with Relief Society needy family present gathering and distributing. I was luckily able to spend some time with my sister and familiy that day. Eric did end up making another batch of gingerbread (ha-ha) and he did agree that it doesn't smell good. Jayden didn't do a lot of decorating, so Patrice ended up taking the icing home and doing it there. It's hard to want to play with a candy house when there are cousins and nerf guns to play with. As I recalll, we had teh missionaries over for dinner that night as well. Patrice and JT bought Papa Murphy's pizza and a fruit tray for the crew of us to enjoy. Yummy stuff.

Lego Nativity

Since going to the Lego Store here in Indy, we have been receiving the free Lego Magazine. We saw a contest about making a Christmas something out of legos and Graigry and Xela went to work. Here is their creation:

THE NATIVITY

I love that C3PO is the angel. If I remember right, they used Luke's head for baby Jesus. Pretty creative I thought and this was before Mom sent the Brick of Mormon. Maybe my kids will put together an Old TestaBrick book. :)

Pumpkin Carving

As I've been going through the pictures, I realized that I had these from the aftermath of pumpkin patch. Usually I let the kids color their pumpkins so that I can cut them up and make the fruit of teh pumpkin useful for cookies, pies, breads, etc. I'd let them draw what they wanted to carve a few weeks before (the same day that Graigry ended up going to the ER from slashing his eybrow open).

They'd been asking and ASKING if they could carve them, so I finally let them.

They had a good time. Can't say the same thing for the pumpkins.

I tried to cut the lines out as best as I could.
Graigry is trying to cut the top off here.

Xela going at her pumpkin

It looks like an anime cartoon.
I love the mischevious look in Nate's eyes.

Butching the pumpkin

You'll notice the glass bowl. Graigry's pumpkin didn't last long. He let me and helped me cut his pumpkin into smaller pieces so I could microwave them, take off the husk and blend the flesh so it was ready for pumpkin treats.

Aurora didn't like having to pick out the seeds.
I wasn't going to do it for her.

I think next year we will stick to drawing on them. Because I was working, I didn't get around to chopping, nuking, blending and freezing all the pumpkiny goodness. They started to mold and we threw them in the back garden. I got Graigry's done and then after another month of sitting on the front porch, I got the monster pumpkin Eric picked out and got the majority of it done before it had to become compost.

I bet we have some volunteer pumpkins next year!