More Christmas

Santa was just thrilled to receive 5 cookies loaded with candy and frosting,
as seen below.

I think we can all see what the girls were elated about!

I was thrilled as a peach with these new kicks.

I consider good shoes my most important piece of equipment for work
(lesson learned post fracture).


And because Cody gets up at the B.C.D. (his abbreviation not mine) to work out before work,
new shoes were a great gift for him too!

THANK YOU to all who made our Christmas so merry!


Have you figured out what B.C.D. stands for???

It WAS Merry

 

The girls ran around the house screaming   

"this was the best Christmas ever!"

 

 

Thank you Santa!

G.B.H.

Every year we make gingerbread houses out of graham crackers.

Here are this years creations.

We begin with Aspen's art deco masterpiece complete with a modern chic flat roof top.

Unfortunately our budding artist was far from amused with being fastened 

in her high chair while the rest of the family spent time finishing their houses.

Restraints are, at times, necessary when candy is in our wee ones midst.

 

The matriarch of the family went with a pink, yellow and green themed house.

She added snow-like texture to her roof using coconut shavings.

Here we have Miss Brinley's "A" line cottage. 

A combination of linear and circular exterior elements blend together
quite beautifully to create this one of a kind cracker creation!

Next up is Avery's lovely landscaping layout.

Upon observation you will notice that careful preparation was required to 

execute this exquisite front yard.

Apparently our young artista is under the impression that when the icing hardens we 

are going to be eating our houses. 

This detail provides further insight as to why this is such a 

well accessorized structure.

The one and only male in da house was the last to have 

a chance to sit down and create his house after assisting the younger builders. 

Utilizing the remaining accessories he created this love shack complete with a 

balcony for two and an extremely tall chimney for long lasting winter fires.

All in all it was a great time!

Moving on to the real gift of Christmas HERE.

They Gave Up Their Christmas.

Fire

First fire of the year = great!

Fire alarms spontaniously sounding throughout 

the night = NOT so great!

When I finally called the fire department they said that old fire alarms tend to do that, so if yours are old I would recommend changing them before you have the pleasure of reassuring your 7 year old daughter that there is really no fire in the house after she slithered across the floor in terror and touched her bedroom doorknob to make sure it was cool enough to escape.

Chocolate, Santa & Reindeer

Last Tuesday night was the Annual Fondue Party at mi casa.

Friends, food and plenty of melted chocolate...now tell me what could be better?

Check out last years party HERE.

It was loads of fun to spend the night with all of these wonderful women in my life!
 Angie don't cry, the picture we took of ourselves turned out blurry, but see above,
you still made it into the post! Hey, how is sunny California this week?
Can't wait to hear about how the plane ride went with your 4 wee ones.

Moving on.

This is one of two little Reindeer which sit on either side of the mirror in our dinning room,

the are my new favorite Christmas decorations...

that is until Mom sends the baby Jesus and manger from my childhoood.

Did you find them Mom?

Last Monday night we attended a Winter Festival at Avery's preschool.

Aspen was freaked out by Santa.

Aspen also insists on calling all Christmas decorations "Halloween."

It's rather darling when she belts out "H A L L O W E E N" every time 

she sees anything Christmas-like.

The girls are both wishing for an American Girl doll for Christmas.

Brinley's grandest ongoing desire is to get a puppy,

unfortunately she will have to keep wishing for that until she has the pleasure 

of maintaining a home of her own.

Lovely little pre-school friends! 

As I type Avery is making Christmas cards at the stamping table right beside me 

and singing "Santa Baby" with quite the saucy vocals,

wish I could pipe it into the post.

Full Disclosure

 In the spirit of full disclosure and with a desire to be transparent  

 in my blogging life

I must confess that the very same night I composed 

the previous post I ate these!

When Cody called to tell me he was on his way home from work at 10pm 

I insisted he stop at the golden arches on my behalf.

The fries were actually pretty yucky, certainly not fresh, and I paid for it with a stomach ache 

that night

which lasted until I taught my class the following morning. 

So there you go. 

When I really want to eat something I do...even if it's terrible for me, 

and then I don't punish myself for it.

The key being that my "good food cravings" far surpass the "bad" ones.

The end

For a much more inspiring message than what I just wrote go HERE.

K.I.S.S.

I participated in a phenomenal class at Santa Monica College in 2001.

The instructor was Vivian Rosenberg, the course was Media Communications.

Lame course description, far from a lame class.

During the course of this class I came to utterly respect and admire Mrs. Rosenberg.

She lead us through a journey of discovery which forever changed the way I experience advertisement, television programing, news reporting, politics and education systems.

In that class 10 years ago she made specific predictions about how these already corrupt institutions and corporations would continue to deteriorate as money,
power and lack for the greater good

took precedence over morality and integrity.

As these predictions have become realities my mind rewinds back to that class in 2001.
This is exactly what happened dear friends when I uploaded these pictures to post!

One media motto is K.I.S.S. standing for Keep It Super Simple OR Keep It Simple Stupid. 

Often times media content is catered to the lowest common denominator, intellectually speaking.

However, if we simply apply that acronym to food consumption, suddenly it 

becomes a 

beacon of much need common sense! 

Just Keep It Super Simple. 

Pictured above is my girls lunch. Brinley's was packed with her at school.

A very typical looking lunch in our home 

minus green or orange colors, which I like to include most days.

Below is dinner cooking later in the day,

vegetable stir-fry served atop long grain brown rice and pomegranate seeds as a side.

A Simple and Smart Switch to make is to use this:

instead of white sugar, when you can. It's a delicious organic nectar from an Agave plant. 

It has a low glycemic index and is gluten free.

My Mom actually started using it several years ago. 

I'd have to admit that at the time I thought she was a wee bit overboard with her health ambitions, 

but now Mom I applaud you and we follow in your foot steps!

Instead of having to order it from some random carrier online like Mom had to in the dark ages of Agave, 

you can buy it at virtually any grocery store!

Go HERE to see why you may want to make the switch...

compliments of Duane's online research.

We are impressed by your LESS SUGAR movement Duane!

My cutie pie who delights in her 2 big bowls of oatmeal sweetened with 

Agave every morning...and who is also screaming in her her crib right now 

due to the death of her binki days.

Target $1 Spot

For $8 I gifted 8 teachers and office staff with these.

 

Inside the  boxes are chocolate covered caramels.

I simply covered each box with textured paper and created an embossed

snowflake embellishment to add some sparkle.

Fast, elegant and easy!

The Real Story

Brinley before "the accident."

Me, trying not to stress out that Cody has still

not made it out of work to our family picture session....which had already been
re-scheduled 
a number of times due to work conflicts.

Aspen was running away and starting to refuse to participate in any picture by this time.

Girls running about, Cody still not present, Char snaps a few of me.

Natural light diminishing quickly.

Aspen decides to cooperate for one more shot.

The man of the hour arrive and does a quick change in the van.

Aspen screams her little head off as we attempt the first family picture.

No luck. We head to the next location.

Little did we know that things were about to turn even more south. 

Thank goodness Mrs. Talent had already snapped some great individuals.

We then walked to this beautiful train track bridge which overlooks the city, location #2.

Char took this final shot of Aspen with her most beloved binki, 

all of which had the nipples snipped off this morning and were discovered  

"broken" just five minutes ago!

I was totting all of our Buckeye attire to change into after the traditional pictures

were taken for a Buckeye spirit photo.

It was when Avery, Daddy and Aspen were still making their way up the hill that

IT HAPPENED.

Brinley was balancing down the train track, which tracks were positioned 

atop thick slatted wooden beams.

She lost her footing and one leg fell all the way through the bottom of the bridge in between 

two jagged wooden beams.

 I ran and pulled her up. She was shocked and screaming. 

Her entire leg was scrapped up and down with blood trickling down in some spots.

Well, as you can imagine, that was the end of our family picture session.

The kicker was that only 2 hours later was her long awaited big school performace 

at the local high school.

We went home and Cody scrubbed the dirt out of the wounds and she bravely did her best to preform with a smile on her face.