Life Lately

Here is a peak into a little life lately....

Zane has been practicing his letters, numbers and faces on the white board. He is learning so much at school and it is fun to see him put these things into practice! 

Boys and their muscles. They just love showing off!

Every morning this one comes in my office to give me 'morning hugs'. It may be my favorite part of the day!

And then he scares me with this mask...!

Zane has taken an interest in helping in the kitchen. We are having to find different ways he can help us cook - but he really is doing a good job!

Zane loves playing football, even by himself! His favorite is to practice punting.

Of course, he still loves playing with the big boys too!

I love nice "winter" days when all the kiddos from the neighborhood can come out and play!

Zane spends lots of time in my office, playing while I'm working.

 

Sometimes we talk during school drop off and other times, we make funny faces :)



 

Zane has been scared a lot here lately (he saw something scary on a show). We are working through it and it is finally getting better - but for a few nights in a row I had to sit with him while he cried himself to sleep. Hurts my heart.

 

Since I am working from home for awhile, I am getting office supplies delivered to my house. Zane has enjoyed building forts for his super heroes and dinosaurs!

 

Zane's last day of school was yesterday and they had a PJ Christmas Party! Here he is, all ready to go!

 

Jaxen's last day is today - he is also having a PJ Christmas Party! I barely got this picture of him...

 

And then I was sent this pic! Jaxen and Graham were dressed alike today!

 

My current view this morning....


That's a little of life lately. I am looking forward to the next few weeks. There will be lots of down time, hopefully some reading, game playing, fires, crafting, baking, movies...and hopefully a new naps or lazy mornings!

Christmas Lights

The Community Center, which is close to where we live, has a wonderful light display every year. 

One evening last week (before we got another cold front) we headed there to check it out!

Nik and Zane were good sports about taking pictures - Jaxen was not...but I did manage a few.

Christmas Home Tour

Welcome to our home - all decked out for Christmas!

Living Room:

This view (minus "Masked Singer") makes me really happy and cozy (especially at night)!

We finally purchased an oversized fire grate for our fireplace and we are enjoying fires most evenings!

I absolutely love my Nativity Set. 

I have more pieces, but they do not fit in this space. I'm hoping next year I can display all of them in my dining room on the buffet (I've had to keep it high up, away from little hands).

The 3 snowmen are a purchase from early on in our marriage - I love them!

See the 3 pictures below the nativity? They are actually leaning against the frames (ha!) and I still need to add 1 more. These are pictures of the boys in their Christmas pajamas each year. I love these. They are good memories of Christmas' past.

The Mr. and Mrs. Santa are new-to-me (given to me by a friend - they were her mom's) and I love them and hope to have them for many years!

One of my favorites is this tile of Zane:

Downstairs Living Room:

The mantle and tree are decorated very simply with red, gold, silver and green balls.

That's it for downstairs. Simple and easy.

 Kitchen:

I don't like my kitchen, which honestly makes it hard to decorate for some reason.

I did put out a candle, my Santa plate, and small Christmas plates (4 different kinds) - which I use all the time! I am hoping to snag big Christmas plates on sale after Christmas this year.

Dining Room:

I cannot wait for our wall to be filled with cards!

My new addition this year is the ceramic green Christmas Tree. I remember both of my grandmothers having this kind of tree and I have always loved it!

Boys Room:


The boys colored ornaments this year to put on their tree.

It's little - but cute!

That's it!

I would LOVE to see everyone's home this Christmas Season.

It's fun to get to know people through their decorations and favorite things during the holidays.

Christmas Cookies

The boys and I made Christmas Cookies this past Sunday!

I had Jaxen help me measure all the ingredients, then Zane added them and stirred. 

We make a good team!

WHITE CHOCOLATE CRANBERRY COOKIES

We made these for the kids teachers and to pass out to our neighbors.

However, after we bagged them up for all the teachers - I didn't have enough left for our neighbors! Jaxen wanted to give them to everyone....I thought we would give them to a few....nope - he has a big heart and wanted all the teachers/nurses/cafeteria ladies/principal/librarian/coaches, etc. that he interacts with, to have a card and cookies. That's fine by me - we will make more!

These are the best pics of us as I could get :)




And the final product:

SUGAR COOKIES!

Zane was a pro at rolling and cutting out the cookies!

Jaxen did a great job too! I was glad I let them do this separately - They were hard to keep up with!
 

 

Here is the (almost) final product. 

I froze all the cookies so we can decorate them with icing at a later time.

 CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES

I made these especially for Nik. He does not like the first 2 kinds of cookies we made. I had all the ingredients, most of them out already, the oven on and my kitchen was already a mess - so why not?

I did save a few to share with our Hope Group this week. We have one last gathering before the Holidays and I signed up to bring a dessert. 

I had a lot of fun baking this weekend!