New Year's Eve

For the fun of cooking and the challenge of trying to stay up to midnight we began our day with some grocery shopping. We decided on onion dip with sweet potato chips, homemade mozzarella, and the Pioneer Woman's mint chocolate brownie bites. The   homemade mozzarella ingredients proved a little trickier than we expected.  However, we finally returned home with the loot for our midnight snacks. See, the idea is cook all afternoon and eat all night to stay awake :) The mozzarella started off pretty good. Alas, it never made it to edible option. ... The onion dip was tasty and satisfying. The brownie bites were Fabulous. We added silver sprinkles to make them New Years sparkly. We just barely made it to the ball dropping:)Good bye 2012- you were a nice adventure.

Dollhouse assembly

Santa made an interesting decision to deliver the Doll's new play house unassembled. Maybe the elves had the weekend off. So we spent today making ourselves familiar with glue and yarn construction. We also lined out some paper we could use for wall paper. Once the glue was slightly dried we started painting and wallpapering. She has a very unique decorating style that her new little fox family will be happy to live with. 

Snowman fun

Dad and and the snow bunny went out to wrestle a snowman from the yard. It was so wonderful to have the beautiful snow to play in together.

Our snowman seems to be affiliated with a sponsor. Does that mean it's not eligible for college play?

Christmas 2012

 Merry Christmas Pepper!

 A New Fox

 Homemade Nativity

 How'd Santa know we needed hiking shoes!

 Homemade keychain

Yeah! a new robe!

Cat curious

Curiosity gave the cat a brain freeze. Then his buddy wanted to try it too. Strange house pets.  

Blustery day 4 days until Christmas!

With the snow trying to come down outside, Lola and Pepper take a nap. We made some 6 point snow flakes out of paper. And we counted down for Christmas with our Advent Christmas Calendar. 

70 degrees December 3

Where has fall gone off to?? We had a lovely morning of learning about Christmas in Israel and singing Silent Night. After our morning lessons and lunch we headed out for a little fresh air. It was warm and the migrating birds were chirping but the fall air seemed to be missing. Here is Lola with one of our favorite neighborhood trees.

Hanging of the greens

A unique way to dress up the sanctuary was by having it as part of the evening Service. The fathers and sons carried the wreaths and the mothers and daughters lit the candles. The children from choir hung the angels on the Angel tree. It was very lovely. 

Away in a manger

Away in a Manger....

If you are looking for an awesome yard decoration for Christmas, let me tell you about this cool place online that we found. It's called Outdoor Nativity Sets.We like that they are a great company, and their products are made in USA. We will be making this part of our Christmas tradition by adding more pieces each year. Merry Christmas!

Festival of Lights

We're off to see the lights

Festival of Lights at the Cincinnati zoo was lovely with over 2 million lights. We liked seeing the Reindeer :) We also really enjoy the Winter Puppet Show by Madcap Puppeteers. The Nativity scene was darling. Taking advantage of the 60 degree weather was definitely a good idea. 

Candy Cane Lane

Nativity 

searching for the 5 fairies

Public service announcement...... Don't try to go on the weekend! The parking situation was ridiculous with an hour and half wait just to park.

Maybe Dasher?

UK Blue Tree

Breakfast in Bethlehem

We had a lovely morning at church remembering Jesus' Birthday. The children had breakfast and then did a craft. After that they heard a story from one of the youth and sang Away in the Manger. Then they dressed up in Nativity clothes and took some sweet pictures. What a fun way to be in fellowship!

Pepper in a Manger

The Manger must have looked like a cozy place to snooze. A whole house to nap in and Pepper picked the Nativity. He's so cute.

Hands on Museum fun

Hands on Fun is great! Lola and I had so much fun with the animal spacial awareness game. We played it again and again. Then Lola found the construction station where she hammered and hammered. She was so focused on getting all the nails in the board. (Gives me an idea for Christmas...) It’s nice getting to the museum when it’s not busy.

O Christmas Tree

Happy Thanksgiving

 A wooly worm was a nice treat to find on a warm Thanksgiving Day. We had a lovely Thanksgiving meal with family. How nice to share a meal and listen to stories. After dinner we hiked up the hill in the country and enjoyed the fresh country air. Lola also loved playing corn hole with everyone. It was special to have four generations together to be thankful together. After a day of running around the girl was out before we hit the highway. 

Pre Thanksgiving workout

We had a lovely morning visiting with friends from church this morning and we invited them to 'school' with us. We did our hymn study and Bible study then cooked up some Indian corn snack. After that we made corn dolls from husks. After lunch we headed down to Lexington because the boys were going to play golf with Granny and Papaw, then later go to the basket ball game. The girls meanwhile visited the park and made a 'ham' run for tomorrows feast. What a gorgeous day to play at the park. Love watching the Doll do the monkey bars.

Pepper is caught in the act

We've been having our concerns about this little guy, wondering why he is sooo weird and hyper and odd. Well, this morning I caught him in the act of drinking my coffee. Not just tasting it, nope... head in gulping it down.... I guess, the cream was more than the coffee.