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 :)