Welcome to our World

What do you do the first day of winter break?  We baked and decorated sugar cookies this year.  Between the sugar cookies and the gingerbread men I had baked on Wednesday we had dozens of cookies to eat but the last of them barely made it to Christmas.  Funny story about the frosting this year.  All these cookies were gluten free and dairy free and they are great thanks to King Arthur Flour's recipes but I was lacking in the frosting department.  So when the B family brought over sugar cookies and my family informed me that their cookies were better but their frosting was better, I eventually broke down and texted J (the mom) to please share her frosting recipe with me.  At first she texted back that it was a family secret and then she told me it was just Philsbury vanilla out of a can.  lol.  So away I went to buy that stuff (which is GF/DF) and it was so much easier + turned out better.  The B family really has been saving my hide lately. W...

Kate saved the day by being able to drive Danny to his first home basketball game warm ups while I was at work and then driving Michelle to her babysitting gig and watching Natalie for us so that both Hubby and I could be at Danny's first home basketball game.  I am glad we got there early enough to cheer on the C team because it is mostly freshmen boys that we know and it was so fun to watch them play and be in the stands with their parents.  We got to see the rosters for the first time and there are 21 9th graders in the basketball program this year!  That's almost half of all the players!  With a varsity team full of seniors literally all of the juniors and sophomores could be on varsity next year and this year's freshman could make up all of JV and C team.  Pretty amazing. I’m not going to lie, it is pretty darn difficult to get our high schoolers out the door on time in the morning but when you can see a sunrise like this from Danny’s room, it makes the day...

We were so very grateful to get some images from our photo shoot the first Saturday of August.  After waiting over three months we were just thrilled to see something.  We are still waiting for edited versions that are high resolution but at least I was able to order Christmas cards this way and still hope to get them in the mail on time for December 25.  We sure have changed since the first holiday season in our house.  Flashback to 10 years ago for reference: Now Kate is driving, Danny is playing high school basketball, Michelle is in her last year of middle school and Natalie is in her last year of elementary school.  Somehow all these things happening in the fall made time seem so strange.  I can still remember them being tiny and it doesn’t seem like that long ago but they are closer to being adults than my mind can grasp at times. What am I grateful for in 2023 and what do I wish for you in 2024?  I am so happy that I got to take my three younges...

Luckily the teenagers that were interested in Black Friday shopping slept in so that Natalie and I could take down the Thanksgiving decorations and begin setting up for Christmas.  A little before 11am Danny came down the stairs all ready for basketball practice, saw what we were doing, and asked to stay home that one day instead.  How could I say no to that when I knew some boys were missing the entire week due to travel?  It looks a bit like there is too much stuff everywhere but like a meme I saw said, “Christmas decorations should look like joy threw up in your house.”  Ha! Those Jellyfish lights sure do come in handy and look so beautiful with the snow and moon. I just had to put this here.  I love how these neighborhood girls have fun all over the place together. Michelle and I got to go to our neighbor, J’s, college concert.  It was fun to see who will show up to a free concert at a university.  We wended up sitting behind this woman who had to ...