Rock has out done himself this year.  He made the Freedom Tower for our gingerbread house this time!  For those who don’t know, the Freedom Tower is the new World Trade Center 1 building at Ground Zero. 

(This is what it will look like when finished)

Right now it looks about like this:

Rock watched it grow bit by bit every day on his commute into NYC so now he has immortalized it in gingerbread.  Though, I guess gingerbread, by its very nature, is not immortal.  Well anyway, here was the process:

The cardboard replica.

The baking process.

The assembly:

The decorating:


They used gum for the windows.

And the finished product:

Libby called it the Ninja bread house.

We are kicking ourselves for not doing this last year when we still lived in the east where this could really be appreciated.  But hopefully the mom and kids we gave it to this year will enjoy it anyway!

Merry Christmas!
And just for the record: This is always a torturous experience, these Christmas Sunday pictures. Trying to get them all to sit still and keep their fingers down, and smile at the same time without making them (or mom) cry takes a LOT of effort so I hope you all appreciate these pictures every year!
Ok, now you can look.

And trying to get a two year old to sit still, not play with her dress, AND smile is not easy either!

Liberty’s coat is nice and warm….and big.

Who needs an air bag when you’ve got a coat like this?

The other day I found Liberty actually trying to make herself pink with a marker. 

Do you think we should go see a shrink?

Levi John Hymas turned the big Five this week.  He is STILL very much into foxes so we made him a fox cake.

He got one of the Lego characters he’s been wanting from his brothers.

And something he’s been dreaming of since last Christmas.

One of our Christmas traditions is to wrap up all our Christmas books (+ one new one) each year and put them under the tree to open each night of December. 

The new one this year was President Monson’s story of the train he gave to the neighbor boy down the street.  He told the story when I was a little girl and I Still remember it.  I was so excited to find that they made it into a children’s book!

Last night, Reagan got to read.

One of my favorites stories is The Last Straw by Paula Palangi McDonald.  It’s the story of a mother who wants to help her four small children stop fighting and feel the spirit of Christmas so they draw names to serve each other every week until Christmas Eve.  Each time they serve their person they put a piece of straw into a little wooden manger for the baby Jesus to sleep in Christmas Eve.  This mother’s approach had the desired affect and so we decided to implement it.  It is so fun to watch the kids serve each other and us.  But Reagan is by far the best at it.  He is always watching and waiting for the chance to serve.  He remembers every day when the rest of us sometimes forget.  This week he picked Liberty’s name. He has been giving her piggy back rides, changing her diaper and getting her breakfast, among other services.  But this one was my favorite. 

All on his own he set up a tea party for her.  He got them all dressed up (note the boa and purse, though the glasses and ties are a nice touch too), set the table and poured the water.  It was awesome!  I love my sweet, thoughtful, loving boy.  (And so does Liberty!)

Around our house we’re getting into the Christmas spirit.  We started by decorating our tree.


When Liberty saw the tree for the first time she said, “That’s a tree.  It is taller than me.”

Now the kids have the perfect hiding place to do their reading!


For those who are curious, Reagan is reading Lord of the Rings and Cade is reading Harry Potter 3. Rock recently fulfilled his life long dream of reading the Hobbit to the boys and Reagan decided to dive right into LotR. I was amazed. Never thought he’d make it past the first chapter, but he did!

We watched the First Presidency’s Christmas Devotional on Sunday and when Liberty saw President Monson she said, “It’s President Monster!”

This year we are getting to see what a contrast there is between Christmas with a girl and Christmas with boys.  I blogged several years ago about Christmas with boys:

This is the nativity… after an explosion.

This is the nativity… after Liberty.

Sugar and spice and everything nice.  Sorry, but it’s true.

This is what Levi has been working on in school this year:

This Thanksgiving we are thankful to have so much family nearby.  We had the Byams, the Derek Wesels and Alli over for Thanksgiving. 

I used the opportunity to get my first nice set of dishes and a new tablecloth.  I love doing this kind of thing so I had lots of fun with it.  Here’s the spread!

Here are the place cards the kids helped me make.

Aren’t leave rubbings awesome!!!  I love fall!

And now for the most important part of Thanksgiving-the People!

Cute little Dustin in Liberty’s doll stroller.

Cutting the turkey

Too many screens!!!

Cleaning off the turkey.  I’m so glad Uncle Calvin was willing to do this most disgusting job! 

Dessert!  Alli was shocked at the number of yummy options. 

Lincoln REALLY got into his chocolate pie.

 
Liberty, on the other hand, was so tired, she couldn’t get into her chocolate pie.  She sat like this for at least a minute.

Hope you all had a happy, deliriously tiring Thanksgiving! 

Watching the destruction of Hurricane Sandy in our favorite East Coast states of New York and New Jersey was hard for us.  New Jersey will always have a special place in our hearts and so we decided to do something to help.  As a family we raked leaves here in Boise to raise money for Hurricane Sandy relief.  Here’s our cool flyer:

We even made a website where people could go to sign up.  We passed out about 50 flyers, but only had a handful of people sign up.  We were able to raise over $100.00, though.  It was lots of work, but it was such a great experience for the kids.

I will say that it was more work to keep the kids on task and raking than it was to actually do the raking, but such is life with little kids.  And ironically enough, if I had to give out a “Hardest Worker” award it would go to Levi.  He is the smallest, but he worked hard MOST of the time.  Way to go Levi John!

We did let them play a little bit.

When we were done at Byams, Uncle Calvin made us his “internationally” famous pancakes.  They were very yummy and the boys are STILL talking about them.

Thank you to all those who helped us with this service project.  Our thoughts and prayers are still with you, New Jersey!

I recently started a Lego Club for my boys and several other kids with another homeschool mom.  So far it’s been lots of fun.

First challenge: write your name.

Next challenge: using just the legos from your kit, see how long a creation you can make.