Lego Land for New Year's Eve

New Year's Eve 2008/2009 we are at Lego Land.
It will be a short night. The fireworks are at 6:30 and the park closes at 7.
The park is fairly crowded. We decided to get membership passes so we can come back all year.

Legoland Mini land New York & Las Vegas

Lego Land Time's Square for the New Year's Eve Ball Drop

Legoland's mini Las Vegas. We stayed at the MGM Grand when we were there in May. The Excalibur is our favorite place to go and play the "Kiddie gambling"games. Treasure Island is where to go to see the pirate show out in front of the hotel.

Legoland Mini land SanFrancisco, NYC & Los Angeles

Legoland Mini San Fransico. Derek at miniland Pier 39 of San Francisco.

Miniland New york city. Lady Liberty is out in the middle, but she is tan, not green? And that is what the Freedom Tower is supposed to look like in place of the World Trade Centers.

Miniland Los Angeles Observatory and The MissionVentura (i think)

MERRY CHRISTMAS Everyone!

GOD BLESS YOU ALL
MERRY CHRISTMAS!



HAPPY NEW YEAR 2009

Christmas Morning 2008

Make a Smilebox greeting

waiting on Christmas morning

The kids have to wait at the top of the stairs on Christmas morning while mom & dad open the shutters, turn on the lights, and get the video and digital cameras ready.

Christmas 2008

Christmas Eve children's Mass

During the Children's Mass on Christmas Eve Fr. Matt
calls all of the children to sit on the altar with him during the homily.


Derek is in the red polo with the yellow stripes.

Katie is front & center.

At the end of the homily the kids count down and cheer when the lights are turned
on the Christmas Tree behind them.
The Homily this year was the hidden teachings of the Catholic Church
in the 12 Days of Christmas Song.

12- Apostles creed; 11-Apostles after Judas left; 10- Commandments;
9- Fruits of the Holy Spirit; 8- Beatitudes; 7-Gifts of the Holy Spirit;
6- Days of Creation; 5-books of the Pentateuch; 4-Gospels;
3-Virtues - Faith, Hope & Love; 2 - OT & NT; 1-Christ on the Cross.

Nativity Coloring Page

Here is a link to a beautiful one page Nativity scene you can make out of paper for
the little ones.

I thought you might enjoy it, we did!

http://papertoys.com/images/nativity-scene.pdf

Pax!

Gifts cost me double!

Shopping for Christmas gifts often costs me double because I see something that would make a great gift for a special friend, or my mom and I have to buy one for myself as well!!
I saw this at Hallmark and had to buy 2!

Nativity scene

A finished Nativity scene.

My husband loves Christmas Lights!

My husband loves to decorate the house with lights for Christmas.
The more the happier!
We call him the "Chevy Chase of the Street"

This year there are so many that he has to turn them off to run the pool pump and go in the jacuzzi after his hard work!

So we thought the electric bill was high in the summer for the pool....... now we'll have to see how much the lights cost this year.
He's been working on it since November.
And as if this wasn't enough he's building his own wooden Christmas Tree & Lights. He started working on it outside last night. Then he decided he needed a 12 foot pole instead of only 6 foot. He got up and went to Home Depot before we were all awake this morning to buy supplies. However, when he came out it was raining! Now the rain has thwarted his efforts.

Enjoy the video. At the end I show the other houses around ours and their lights compared to ours. Hmmmm.

Caramel Corn batch #2

The caramel corn from the other day was so delicious and went so fast, I had to make another batch.
This time I made only 1 pan of popcorn (2 last time) so the corn is more coated with the caramel
this time.

 

 

Snow in San Diego County Dec 2008

12/18/08
LOOK! It does snow in San Diego County!
This is about an hours drive East and up into the Local Mountains.

We have had lots of rain and cold enough weather for snow to come over 3000 feet.
As in over Sea Level, in the mountains. The actual snow height is about 2 feet.

Geoff took the day off, a Thursday, to take us all up the mountain to see how much snow there was, and go sledding.
I didn't plan to go because Derek was not feeling well the night before and I woke up with a migraine. But after watching everyone get ready, Derek wanted to go.
I got ready to go. We left and got up the road and Geoff realized he forgot the chains. So we turned around. I was already affected by the sun and nauseous from my migraine. I was not looking forward to the winding roads and getting car sick.
SO I bowed out once we reached our driveway and waved goodbye.
They had an awesome time and the dog's first experience with the snow is funny.

cute penguin

I got this last year on clearance and just can't get over how cute it is
everytime I look at it these days.

 

Dear Santa, Please send candy thermometer

and maybe a new digital camera??

I've always wanted to make toffee. I finally looked online and found a recipe to try.
It took 4 sticks of butter and 2 cups of sugar.
Everything was going well, I was stirring for over 10 minutes. The directions said it may take 30.
SO I wasn't expecting it to burn all of a sudden.
I turned the stirring over to Katie while I got the pan ready and turned around.... and bam it went from light brown toffee color to this dark reddish color. I dripped some in a glass of water and tasted it and it was terribly burnt!
I don't have a candy thermometer so I was going by sight and water testing.

I didn't help that I forgot the almonds in the toaster oven and they burnt too. I was off to a rough start.
Luckily my caramel corn was doing awesome in the oven.

My camera did something weird and didn't finish the picture or I turned it off too fast.
It didn't even register the next couple pics of the caramel corn.

So I made another batch of toffee. Determination to succeed. This time I used 1/2 the butter and sugar. It has hazelnuts in it and on on top since I was out of almonds.

I made the caramel corn with double the popcorn, so it came out lightly covered.
Now I think you can eat twice as much!

I didn't know the camera didn't get my pics of the corn in the pans, so here's a pic the next day of the caramel corn in the ziploc bag! Hey at least there was some left the next day to take a picture of!!

Our year of adventure in a Word Cloud

I'm addressing the Christmas Card pictures and trying to decide about including a letter.
But I came up with a bunch of phrases in my list of activities to include from the past year.
Then I put the words in a word cloud and this is what I made.

This one came out pretty cool. I think I'll try again and use different colors and I need to fix a couple words.
Oh the webstie is Wordle: http://www.wordle.net/

Gingerbread house... making it or eating it?

Shots of the kids making and eating the gingerbread house.
I think they ate more than they decorated!

Christmas Play

For 4 summers the two older kids have been attending a Theater camp. It is put on by a non-denominational Christian group.
The organizer, Betty, got a new job at a Baptist church this Fall and decided to put on a Christmas Play.
The kids learn wonderful Christian songs, scripture verses and have a wonderful time in a play singing & dancing.
The play is titled "The Orphan's First Christmas"

The girls are Angels. Katie is waiting backstage with her best friend ThereseAnn.

James is a messenger, King Herod and a stage hand in the play.

Derek is the shepherd in the light yellow & brown. This was his first theatrical performance.

Katie has her FIRST Solo performance!!