Crazy Christmas 2016

Each year we say "this is going to be such a fun year, the kids are at a perfect age" and each year tops the next.  We loved having extra family here to celebrate with us.  It truly is a magical time of the year!

Christmas 2016 Slideshow

Thanksgiving Feast

Gavin's transitional kindergarten class dressed up as Indians and pilgrims and shared a wonderful thanksgiving feast.  They've been learning all about the food groups and were able to pick something to bring from one of the food groups (fruits/veggies/protein/etc.)  Gavin chose bananas and blueberries.

Breakfast with Santa

It was a whirlwind weekend that started Saturday morning being the first ones to arrive at breakfast with Santa.  Gavin and Jason had to leave for basketball, but not before Gavin had a chance to tell Santa his wish list.  Lola was not a Santa fan at all, maybe next year.  She did love the horses on the sleigh ride though.

Happy Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful time celebrating the time for thanks together as a family.  It was even kind of nice outside so we were able to play a little bit.

Scrumptious Sundays

Fun preschool snacks.  Gavin & Liam each took treat bags to their friends at school with a note telling them they were thankful for friends.  These were all so easy and so fun to make!

ACORNS

Ingredients:

Chocolate Chips

Nutter Buter Bites

Hersey's Kisses

The bite size cookies and Hershey's kisses have almost the exact same quantity in each bag.  Maybe a few leftover kisses to munch on while you assemble.

1. Melt 1/2 of the chocolate chips to use as your glue.  
2. Dip the Hersey's kiss in the melted chocolate and stick to the Nutter Butter bite.  
3. Let cool.  
4. Add the chocolate chip to the top of the cookie; it helps if the melted chocolate has cooled a bit so it doesn't run off the side.

TURKEYS

Ingredients:

Reese's Mini Peanut Butter cups

Candy Corn

Whoppers

Double Stuff Oreo

White Frosting

(Black Frosting if you wan tot add the eyeballs)

1. Open the Oreo, apply 6 candy corns to the stuffing.  Add white frosting to reapply the cookie.
2. Put a liberal amount of frosting on the bottom of the feathered Oreo, apply to a flat Oreo for the base.  If it won't stay you need more frosting.
3. Cut the Reese's so it will lie flat (this works best if they have been chilled in the fridge for a while)
4. Use frosting to apply the Reese's and the Whopper for the head and body of the turkey
5. Cut the remaining Candy Corns to make wings, a nose, and little turkey feet, apply with white frosting.
6. Lastly you can use a combination of white and black frosting to create the eyes.  I used a toothpick but wasn't super happy with the crazy eyes.  I made another batch and left the eyes off, they were just as cute.  You can also purchase candy eyes at a store like Michaels (or maybe use mini chocolate chips)

 We put a Turkey and a few acorns in a clear cellophane bag and delivered to school just before Thanksgiving. Don't forget to make enough to share with the teachers and other staff!  Everyone LOVED them!!  

We already have our Christmas treats planned - reindeer pops coming soon!

Halloween 2013

We barely pulled off another family themed Halloween.  (Barb was sewing up until 5:30 pm to get these done!)  However, we only have 2 family photos of the evening.  Jason was busy pulling the wagon and Barb had a Genie in a lamp to take care of so our hands were full and not thinking too much about the camera.

We had fun, and now we have too much candy in the house!  We've already starting thinking about next years costumes…and will definitely start them a lot earlier.

Gavin = Aladdin

Barb = Jasmine

Jason = Jafar

Liam = Abu (and sounded so cute when he said it)

Lola = Genie

Pumpkin Poop

Snacks for Liam's Preschool class.
So fun!  We love Halloween!!

Ingredients
Cheez-It cheese crackers (we chose the letter ones for the little ones)
Mini Marshmallows
Raisins
Snack Ziplocs
Printable clip art courtesy of Organized Christmas 

  

 

Oh to be a kid again!

Easter Day

Approximately 2 months after Easter we're finally getting around to blogging about it.  Better late than never.  Despite the crazy winter we had and the snow that showed up in May; Easter day was beautiful.  A chilly breeze, but nice enough for a hunt outside.  Gavin LOVED it, and Liam was just trying to figure out how to carry the basket that was twice his size.

We had our friends the Clayton family over for dinner.  They brought this adorable cake that was made with the Pampered Chef mixing bowl as a mold and 3 cupcakes.  So darn cute!

Easter Eve

Nothing like saving the dying of eggs until the night before Easter.  We don't have a lot of hard boiled egg eaters in the house so we took our chances and dyed raw eggs.  We think they turned out pretty darn good.  Maybe next year we'll do them a little ahead of time.

On Easter morning Gavin was very concerned that we were going to use the eggs to cook with.  He has a special appreciation for eggs; we're not quite sure where it came from.  He definitely does not eat them.

After we went to bed the Easter Bunny came in our house and left some treats for the boys.

Easter Bunny Hunt

That's right, we didn't type it wrong.  This was not an Easter EGG hunt...so we hunted for the bunny, found him, and never left his side.  The neighborhood egg hunt was scheduled for Saturday March 23rd; temperatures were in the 20's and we were expecting 10"+ of snow that night.  What a perfect day for an egg hunt.  We bundled up in our winter digs and went anyway.  When we arrived they had decided to have the hunt inside...not a good idea.  I appreciate their efforts for trying to please the families, but they should have had some better planning.  They had 0-8 year olds in one room (the gym), and 8+ year olds upstairs and some outside.  Liam didn't have a change.  The poor kid didn't get one single egg.  Gavin on the other hand went outside with the big kids and had a great old time in the cold!!  Thank goodness for all the other parents, Barb was solo and running in 2 directions wasn't happening.  Gavin was good and followed the crowd, then found us later.

 Woody was Gavin's prize.  The funniest part of the day is the baskets.  Check out Gavin's tiny basket compared to Liam's.  I think we sized them up wrong when we bought them last year.

 Nothing but love for this fuzzy white ball of fur.  Liam chased him all over the place and hugged him every time he saw him.  Bunny Love!

Never easy to get 1 kid to look at the camera, let alone 2.  At least no one was screaming.

Thanks to Cedar Creek for the pancakes, sausage, and orange juice!  Despite the crazy hunt, we had a good time.  We're going to have our own egg hunt on Easter!  Cross your fingers for some sun!!

Our Christmas Season

Our Christmas cheer in the month of December!  Hope you had a wonderful holiday and Happy New Year.  love, The Hendricks

Trimming Time

We got it up before Christmas!  It was really fun this year with Gavin helping.  He was very interested in an elf/camera ornament...kept pretending to take pictures.  Liam was just happy to be part of the trimming.

What its all about

We did something new this year to give back to our community.  More than likely this will be a tradition for years to come.  Homemade spaghetti sauce, meatballs, and pasta.  We made 3 large batches to give to the fire station around the corner from our house (3 shifts of guys).  It was a win, win for everyone - the firemen were so grateful and they let Gavin play in the firetrucks for at least 1/2 hour.  They said to come by anytime and we didn't always have to bring food.

  

How have you given this season?  Share your ideas!!