Christmas 2011

Christmas was a wonderful time this year. We enjoyed the holiday season leading up to Christmas and had a couple get togethers at our house as well as a few nice adult dinners with friends that we greatly enjoyed. Christmas Eve is always at my parents house. We start out at Church at the 4pm Christmas Eve service then back to my parents for dinner and presents. This year my mom did short ribs and they were amazing!!!!

The kids by the tree at our church.

 

Haleyanna, Annalee, Christian, Ethan, Nathan, Owen, Savannah, Finley and Mia (next year Emery will be there)

 

Making their silly faces

 

The girls at my parents

 

The girls playing tug-o-war with Cassie's boyfriend Jeff

 

Finley-- still working on that smile :)

 

Christmas morning was low key. The kids explored their stocking loot

 

Mia looking in her stocking

 

Finley getting some awesome makeup-- the girls love makeup therefore Santa made some visits to the 99 cent store this year to bulk up on makeup!

 

More stocking stuffers

 

More makeup!

 

And more...

 

All the kids by the tree :) Finley had candy in her mouth hence the big cheek

 

The boys pretty much got only hockey gear. Both boys got really cool "protective" gear and here he is showing off some of the lower "protective gear". I decided to crop the picture a bit as I am sure you didnt want to see the entire protected area :)

Reading a new book from Grandma and Grandpa Bock

After presents we went to Kevin brothers house around the corner and we hung out there and had breakfast. We had a lot of fun and then came back to our house and got ready for Christmas dinner that we host each year. Kev made an amazing dinner and we had a nice smaller group this year (my parents, sister and boyfriend, brother and family, Kevin's brother and family and parents). We had homemade butternut squash soup that had a spicy kick topped with cream and cilantro. Then we had brine pork loin that had been brining for a day or 2 with sweet and sour pearl onions, savory bread pudding, and chestnut bacon amazing brussle sprouts and lots of good wine. It was an amazing meal and Kev did a great job as always.

Christmas was a great time. It was so fun to watch Finley take it all in as this was her first Christmas with us and she just thought it was awesome! Next year Emery will get to take it all in for the first time :)

More Cookies with Grandma and Grandpa!!!!

We did our second installment of "Cookies with Grandma" last night. I am very sorry for the quality of the pictures, but they were taken with my iphone because I was too lazy to get my good camera out-- sorry!! Anyway, it was a lot of fun but we were missing the boy--- where were they you ask? Well, scroll down...

The girls love painting the cookies

So much fun- they pain with food coloring and egg whites.

 

Grandma Bock and Kevin-- don't they look a lot alike-- minus the beard :)

They loved every minute of it!!!

Thanks Grandma and Grandpa for all your hard work. It is a tradition we all look forward to every year.

Again, the horrible quality of an iphone camera-- and in the dark-- but here is where the boys were.....

Throwing up sick all night. Owen camped out on the couch all night-- he says it makes him feel better to sleep by the Christmas tree-- never to far from his bowl.

And Ethan was no better. He stayed in his bed and it was pitch black when I took this picture so its horrible but the poor boys were so sick. Girls had it last week and they got it this week. For the girls it was only a 24 hour thing so I am hoping it is that way for the boys. They both seem a bit better this morning but it always gets worse as the day goes on. Pray they get better and we all stay healthy!!!!

Way Too Busy and Sick Kids

Last weekend we had a huge event at our church called Bethlehem Marketplace. It is a recreation of a marketplace in Bethlehem at the time of Jesus. It is phenomenal and done sooooo well. This year we had over 3500 people!!! We have been involved in it for 3 years now and this year we were 100% in charge of the food. We run "Uncle Esau's cafe" where we serve beef kabobs, lentil soup, jasmine rice and fresh squeezed lemon lime juice. The food is amazing and Kevin prepared and cooked everything. Our Sunday School class stepped up and really helped with the serving and prep. It turned out amazing but really took it out of us. We were there at the church cooking from Friday till Sunday everyday from about 12 noon till about 10pm. The whole family was involved and the girls, boys and us were there the whole time. The kids loved it and just played and helped the whole time but needless to say, come Monday morning we were all exhausted. I let the kids sleep in before we went to school but as the week wore on, the girls both got sick and we were dealing with throwing up for a couple days-- uggg!! They both are fine now, but it was not fun there for a bit.

 

I did not take hardly any pictures because I was soooo busy cooking and serving the whole time. Someone tagged me on Facebook with this pictures of Ethan so I decided to post it. He was dressed up as well.

Since the girls were both throwing up-- sorry TMI-- I had them sleep on the leather futon so it made for easy clean up but luckily they didn't throw up on the couch-- they made it in the bowl. Notice Mia's nasty pillow-- I had her sleep with that one since it could be tossed if necessary.

Notice the bowl... poor girls...

They are fine now and back to school.

I think our whole family is healthy right now and I am praying it stays that way.

We have some Christmas parties this weekend-- should be pretty busy but nothing compared to last week-- looking forward to relaxing a bit :)

Cookies with Grandma and Grandpa

Our yearly Christmas tradition of of making cookies with grandma and grandpa Bock has been split into two wonderful experiences. We decided to decorate gingerbread cookies in one event and then do our normal making sugar cookies and decorating them in another event. We thought it would be more fun for the kids and sure enough, the first event was great!!

Grandma and the girls. Grandpa was watching the game so he was in and out- sorry I didn't have many pictures.

 

Grandma brought lots of goodies to put on the gingerbread boys and girls. The kids loved decorating them. They had not done gingerbread decorating before so this was a lot of fun for them!!

 

The boys had a lot of fun as well. Grandma also brought hot chocolate so the boys were enjoying that as well-- like Ethan's mug-- ya a measuring cup :)

 

And Kevin got in on the decorating as well.

 

We had a great time as always!!! Looking forward to the next cookie making event :)

Thanksgiving 2011

Thanksgiving is always the tradition of going to the central valley of California to our cousins house. We use to go to my grandparents house but they have both been gone for a few years so we still maintain the tradition of going up north so we can see all our family once a year. It is such a great time!! We get a hotel (3 hour drive) by my cousins in Tulare and spend all day and into the night on Thanksgiving at her house then go to our land the next morning and top it off at our favorite Mexican restaurant El Tap in Porterville for lunch and then off to my other cousins for dinner. We have a wonderful dinner with family with a huge fire and all kinds of shooting festivities for the kids. We then take off and drive home late Friday night. It is a wonderful time!!! Of course I forgot about pictures when we were with the family but got lots from the land.

It was pretty chilly so the girls were dressed for warm!

 

Ethan and Fin

 

Playing around the stream

 

The Girls-- Mia, me, Fin, Hailey and Savannah- front

Cassie (sister), Mom, Amy and Annalee (Annalee is 3 months younger than our Emery will be so it will be fun them growing up together-- Savanna and Mia are only 5 months apart as well)

 

Yes, this is what you think. Sorry for this but it was too funny that they were all squatting by each other totally on their own. I told them to hold hands and smile!!!

 

The boys conquered the massive hill!

 

My big 13 year old!!!

 

And then someone got the great idea to get IN the water-- not the best idea but we went with it!

 

Until Owen stripped--

 

And the girls decided to get everything wet-- luckily we had a change of clothes.

Yes, this is Ethan driving my dads car. Now, this is not something we like, but my dad drove his big truck on this property when he was only 12 so my brother and my dad decided that the boys-- Ethan-13, Owen-11 and Christian-11-- all needed to practice driving on the land. And so they did-- only on the land and they knew it!!! They actually did a good job. Christian lives on a farm so he gets to drive tractors all the time-- they all did a good job.

So that was our awesome Thanksgiving!!! Lots to be thankful for. Finley loved her first Thanksgiving and we are so blessed in so many ways!!!

Hockey and Makeup

We have been busy around here with hockey always dictating a lot of what we do. Since Ethan is on the high school hockey team (as an 8th grader)and Owen is the stick boy and gets to practice on Tuesday and Thursday with the team so he is getting really good. Every week we have 2 practices and on Saturday we always have a game in Anaheim right by Disneyland at the rink where the DUCKS practice. In fact, we see DUCKS players all the time and Teemu Salanie's son is on one of the teams we play in our league so we see him all the time. Anyway, we make hockey a family event and the girls come to all the practices and games. They know the rinks well and have figured out all the fun stuff to do. I swear they are half raised in a hockey rink-- poor girls-- but they love it!!!

Ethan is #15 and he often plays defence but the coach has been putting him into forward a lot recently.

Ethan is one of the Assistant Captains. That is a huge compliment especially for an 8th grader on a high school team. He shows lots of really strong leadership skills and I am sure that is why the coach made him Assistant.

And here is what the girls have been up to the last few times at the rink.

Mia got a makeup set for her birthday and loves- and I mean loves- to put makeup on anyone who will sit there for her. Well, her sister being the sweet sister she is, will sit there and let Mia do whatever she wants to her.

After doing up Finley's face, she, in this picture, has moved onto her nails.

Love the way Mia is looking at Finley-- too cute!!!

Oh the joys of Hockey life!!!!