M Turns 2!

The party continued the day after Christmas to celebrate Mackie's 2nd birthday! Helping make his birthday cake all decked out in his new chef's attire, thanks to Uncle James (the family Pastry Chef) and Aunt Sophie. Pants, monogrammed jacket ("Chef McKay"), apron and hat. Pretty darn cute.

His favorite parts: blowing out candles (did it twice),

and opening more presents!

LOVE this. This is his new face.

McKay, smile! (this face)

McKay, pretend you're mad (this face).

McKay, let Mommy do it (this face).

McKay's catch phrase: "Mackie dood it!"

Love you, Mack Attack!

Glimpses of Christmas Day

Christmas morning dawned....

with excited kids,

and a bug for Cory.

I was feeling much better by now, but Cory decided he wanted to try (and M was still not 100% for another week). We had to wake M up, but once we got downstairs, he was awake and ready to open presents.

L did a really good job not only being excited about what he got, but also being excited for his brothers.

He spent much of the rest of the day putting together Lego's.

We spent the day napping, putting together toys, playing new Wii games, and calling family. We had planned to host a Christmas dinner with some friends, but ended up cancelling, as we did not want to give them a virus for Christmas (fortunately, we rescheduled for a New Year's dinner). Instead, I pulled out all the stops and fed the few of us with an appetite corn dogs; what says Christmas dinner more than that?

Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve morning dawned....
with a "Santa Bowl" football game for Cory,
and a bug for Mommy and Mack.

M had been up for several hours Tuesday night throwing up, but acted fine Wednesday. Thursday he was at it again, and cuddled and slept much of the day. I got a milder version of the bug, so I slept most of the afternoon Christmas Eve. I knew I'd have to be on my game for the evening. By Christmas Eve night, I was feeling a little better, though I still didn't have much of an appetite for our traditional junk food supper. Neither did M.

Writing letters to Santa and preparing a tray of goodies!

Another family tradition is to act out the Nativity. McKay played the part of Joseph to my Mary, Cory was the narrator, Lucas doubled as a shepherd and wiseman, and Gabey was the angel.

Unfortunately, they weren't exactly clamoring for this portion of the evening's festivities.

"Why do we have to do it again?"

"We already did one at church!"

But, once we got going, I think it's safe to say we all enjoyed it.

The kids opened their new jammies, then we all snuggled up to watch "The Santa Clause".

It seems we may have confused McKay when, at the end of the night, he picked up the doll he had so adorably cuddled earlier as Baby Jesus, and said,

"Baby Santa".

Well...we're working on it.

Christmas Preparations

December found us...
Decorating for Christmas...

Looking very handsome...(And older!)

Participating in our church's re-enactment of the Nativity...

While M was too young to actually be in it, he did get to try on G's donkey costume.

Though our church has done this every year since we've been here, this was Gabriel's first time actually doing the play. The first year, he was too young. The 2nd year, he had a meltdown on the stage, and last year had had some crazy allergic reaction during the dinner before the show that nearly sent him to the hospital.

A stable donkey. An adoring shepherd.

L graduated from being an animal this year, and he even had his first line: "Let us go to Bethlehem."

(I bribed G to endure the rehearsal the morning of by allowing him to bring his Superhero Look and Find book)
Making and delivering Christmas cookies and candy...

And being excited for the big day!

Mormon Cheese

This is Cory - just thought I'd post something from a recent business trip of mine.

I recently went to St. Louis with a group of bakers to tour the Monsanto facilities there. The night before the tours, we went to dinner at a nice restaurant close to downtown STL. After being seated, the waiter brought us our appetizers, starting with a cheese/spread selection with bread. He was going through the different types of cheeses and announced that one cheese was made by Mormons. Perplexed, I asked one of the bakers there (who knows I am a Mormon and was also questioning what he just heard) if I heard that right. He jokingly asked me if I knew about Mormon cheese, seeing that I was a little confused. When the waiter came back, I asked him if this indeed was Mormon cheese. He affirmed that it was Mormon cheese, that the Mormons had been making this delicious cheese for centuries. Things started to click then - I asked him where they made the cheese - he said somewhere in Pennsylvania. Ahh - you mean Amish cheese. Now the waiter seemed confused, not knowing the difference. One of the other bakers sitting at the table then helped the waiter out, saying something to the effect that "it couldn't be Mormons - they were kicked out of the East a long time ago."

In all, the dinner was great and I am relieved. I was worried that I was not fulfilling some responsibility of being a Mormon, now having to make up for 14 years of not making cheese...

Gabriel Turns 6!

Happy Birthday, Gabers! Gabriel started off his birthday week with a bang as we headed to the ER with him the Sunday night before his birthday. He had a wicked asthma attack that wasn't responding to anything we were doing, so we had to take him in. Although we are not strangers to doctors/hospitals/ER's with Gabey, it has been a long time since we've had to do that. By his birthday (Tuesday) he was doing much better, but I still kept him home from school one last day to make sure he wasn't going to need his nebulizer every 4 hours.

Here he is, doing much better the night of his birthday. What a handsome little boy! We had tacos for dinner (his absolute favorite) and ate cake.

A very Gabey face.

Caught everyone off-guard in this picture, apparently. The one on the right has them all looking a little less stunned.

On Saturday we hosted a small "Superhero" party. Gabriel is a fan of all things superhero -- particularly Spiderman and Batman. The kids were invited to wear their Superhero costumes (in case you're wondering what Superhero Lucas might be, he is Gambit from the X-Men, of course) and enter the "Superhero Defense League Training Academy". We put them through some rigorous tests of speed, agility, marksmanship, and others to earn their Superhero title.


Speed Test: Hot "Spiderman" (i.e., Hot Potato)

The marksmanship test: Armed with webbing (a can of silly string), they were to web the villains as held up by Cory, while avoiding the innocent bystanders.



The final test came when the Evil Dr. Doomsdilly (his title kept changing) came and stole the cake. The Superheroes-in-training had to apprehend the fiend, tie him up, and get the cake.

Fortunately, they succeeded!

Here is the newly appointed Superhero Defense League!

Love you Gabes; we had a lot of fun celebrating with you!