Some snow

We have had an unexpectedly white week after Christmas. A beautiful layer of snow has covered everything and I just can't help but be amazed at how pretty it all looks under a gray sky. My phone camera does not even come close to capturing its beauty, but at least I can take a picture to remember and share. There's something about the stillness and the whiteness of snow that just makes it magical.

On Monday morning this is what things looked like (about 2-3 inches)...

On Tuesday morning we still had a pretty good amount of snow so we (April, Alex, and I) finally took a walk around the neighborhood to see what everything looked like. It was a beautiful walk.

Yay for snow! 

Christmas 2021

Mini Light Bright--A Christmas tree by April

Christmas is over and we survived! It was a good year for our family and we were certainly blessed to have such a good Christmas this year. Today was a peaceful day of being together as a family enjoying the gifts everyone received.

Christmas Eve is where we should start though. We spent most of the day down in Springfield at Michele's parent's house visiting, making pizza, and exchanging gifts. It was a nice day with his family. After that, we drove back home to begin our family Christmas "white elephant" gift exchange. The kids chose to do a white elephant gift exchange in lieu of pajamas for our Christmas eve present opening. I kinda missed the pajamas this year, but this turned out to be a fun thing for all.

April got pretty creative with the wrapping too...

We set all the presents in a pile in the middle of the living room and exchanged them one by one. It was supposed to be a sort of funny gift that the person receiving might think was funny. We had some good laughs for some of the gifts, and some were just fun. All were great. It was fun to see the thought that went into these gifts.

Now onto Christmas day...

The stockings are about the only thing I got pictures of. First we have Salem's stocking (the cat). I don't usually get anything for the cat, but I just couldn't resist this Stranger Things arcade and scratching box.

Alex's stocking...

April's stocking...

Mom and Dad's stocking...

Aaron's stocking...

Aric's stocking...

Our tree this year just before I went to bed on Christmas Eve. 

The kids' gifts this year were all large in cost, not actual size. It's interesting how their "piles" change over the years as they get older. Less bulky toys, more electronics or necessities. They each pretty much got one big gift and a few smaller things. April received a Stand Up Paddle Board. Aaron received a new computer chair, Aric a phone, and Alex a basketball hoop (which was actually more for his birthday). It was fun to see them enjoy what they got today.

Salem finally came out to enjoy his gift for about 2 minutes in the afternoon. Long enough to snap these pictures (below), then he was gone. He must have thought the living room was too crazy most of the day because he just wasn't around.

Merry Christmas!

Thankful Thursday: puzzles

I have many things to be thankful for on this very rainy Thursday before Christmas, but today I'm thankful for puzzles and perseverance. I wanted to give up many times on this puzzle. At one point I had the chimney on the opposite side of the house before I realized it was supposed to be where it is! But I fixed it (the sky border was the problem), and kept at it even though I thought it was impossible at many points. I am thankful I finished it and even before Christmas. It's always a great reward to see a puzzle come together to the end. 

Wordless Wednesday: A classic

The boys loved these!

Making Pretzels

I purchased a pretzel making kit from Pampered Chef a few months ago and we finally got around to using it on Sunday. I don't know why it took so long to break it out. I think I was a little intimidated about making pretzels because I've never really done it before. But, this kit made it so easy that I'm already wanting to do it again but with my own dough. 

The tools in this kit made it so easy for kids to help. Alex was thrilled to be helping me. He jumped right in and wanted to do it all.

Eventually Aric saw what we were doing and decided to help form a few pretzels too. 

I love how uniform the pretzels are with the little pretzel forming tool. We were all able to get them about the same size and shape.

The finished pretzels looked so amazing. I was pretty proud of how well the kids (and even me) were able to do this. Our cheese dip was another story. It wasn't very good because I cooked it too hot and made the cheese grainy. Time to perfect that part too!

Such a fun night of making pretzels!