Christmas!

Jackson and his new nutcracker for his growing collection

Uncle Chris and Jordyn with her new cell phone

Mom got a new computer

When we told our family that we are expecting

A mandolin from Grant...now I can make perfectly cut veggies

Jordyn in her new car

Jackson got DJ Hero

Jordyn with the nerf gun that is about as big as her

Katie and Jordyn

Don and Chris got knives

Barb...excited new grandmother to be..this might be an understatement...her reaction was pretty funny

Chris and Chelsey

Me

It was definitely a Christmas to remember and of course the best present of all being the news that we are expecting. We had a great time spending Christmas Eve with Don, Barb, Chelsey and Grandma and then Christmas Day with my family. I got so many neat baking things including a bunch of extra silpats, a beater blade, new measuring spoons and cups, a silicone rolling pin and commercial grade icing gel colors. I think everyone knows now how much I love baking and as you can tell from my blog that I tend to blog about it a lot.

Because this gift was rather humorous...I had to put a video in. Here is Jordyn in her little mini cooper. Her face is so funny.

And here is a video of Jordyn dancing to DJ hero


The highlight of Jackson's Christmas was the 4 remote control helicopters he got. They were actually really hard to fly, but he got better with practice.

We're having a baby!

We were blessed this week with the best Christmas present ever!!! We are expecting our 1st baby. To tell my family I made these cute little onesie cookies. It came as a big surprise considering we thought the fertility drugs I was on did not work and were being referred to see a specialist on January 4th. I was so happy to cancel that appointment. It truly is a wonderful Christmas gift. I can't wait for our first doctor's appointment and to find out our official due date...right now I am guessing around September 2nd, 2010.

Poor Chris

Last night Chris got elbowed in the face at soccer and ended up with a broken nose, 2 broken walls of his left sinus and injury to his infraorbital nerve making the left side of his face below his eye and his left front upper teeth numb. Poor thing. He will have a consult with a plastic surgeon to determine if he needs surgery or not. It makes me so mad that some people have such bad sportsmanship and that the refs let someone like this play. He didn't even get a red card for this.

Gingerbread House 2009

It's finally done! So I ended up doing the same house as last year but with a few nice additions. Santa peeping down the chimney, the sleigh and reindeer. I was pleased with how it turned out.
I have entered a few competitions online..and there is one that you can help vote for me. Here is the link:

http://yourviews.contracostatimes.com/mycapture/photos/Album.aspx?EventID=890061&CategoryID=26655

Update on the gingerbread contests...I won a $25 gift card to Amazon.com from the RecipeZaar contest. Woo hoo!!!! 1st gingerbread house contest winning. Maybe I will get lucky and win one of the other contests I entered.

Babysitting

I got the pleasure of babysitting Jordyn on Friday night and she was so precious. And as you can see from the picture. She was into everything including Uncle Chris's Cocoa Pebbles which she dumped all over the floor. Good thing I think she is too cute so I wasn't upset. She also really liked the Christmas tree and kept wanting to put a vice grip on the glass ornaments. She is such a sweetie and so much fun to play with. It will be fun to watch her open her gifts on Christmas morning. She seemed to be quite interested in the presents under our tree and did attempt to tear open the paper on 2 of them.

Thanksgiving in Disneyland

We went to Disneyland with Don, Barb and Chelsey for Thanksgiving and had a blast. It is so pretty all decorated for the holidays. I highly recommend going this time of year especially since it is not too hot. It was 80 deg 2 of the days we were there but got cold at night. We enjoyed it so much last year and this year that we plan on making a tradition of it.

Halloween

Fierce Beaver Pumpkin

Me with our pumpkin

It was a good day for both the Beavers and the Ducks yesterday so fitting I made my team's pumpkin for halloween. I thought it turned out well and was actually not too difficult to do. I got the pattern from http://jasonprotheroblog.blogspot.com/2005/10/beavers-pumpkin-stencil-for-halloween.html. My neighbors did a UCLA pumpkin and now I wish I would have gotten a picture of our pumpkins together since OSU and UCLA played against each other yesterday.

Since we don't get any kids except for one neighbor girl, we went to Don and Barb's this year to watch the UOvs.USC game. That was such an awesome game. I love seeing USC lose huge. I guess USC had never lost by more than 11 points in the past 8 years that Pete Carroll has been the coach. So the ducks did awesome.

Cake Pops

Again, terrible photography on my part...need to take a class. Any how, I made these cake pops pumpkin shaped that turned out alright. First time making them from www.bakerella.com. Oh course hers are way cuter. My candy melts would not get a as smooth as a consistency as I wanted, so next time, I am only using the product sold at the Decorette Shop. Also, I got the Wilton edible fine point pens and those didn't work so great so I would maybe use a different brand of pens for doing the face in the future. Tasty though. I still think the Oreo Truffles were better and will definitely make them again.

Football Oreo Truffles!

My photography skills aren't great so the picture above doesn't really do them service. I made these cute little truffles for Jackson's football team end of season party. I will definitely make these again since they taste so delicious. I made one batch of mint oreo (my favorite) and one of regular oreo.

The recipe was taken from http://www.bakerella.com/super-bowl-funday/

I absolutely love www.bakerella.com and there is really great step by step instructions. I am dying to try making the cake pops that she is so famous for.

I hope Jackson and his team mates enjoy these fun little treats as much as I do.

Pumpkin Patch

Jackson

Jackson and Jordyn

Me and Chris

Uncle Chris and Jordyn

Katie and Jordyn

Mom

Jordyn

Jackson

We went to the pumpkin patch yesterday with Mom and Jackson and Katie and Jordyn. The pictures were so cute I just had to share. Jackson of course picked out a giant one he could hardly pick up..hehe. It was fun watching Jordyn play with the pumpkins. Hopefully we get lucky this month and will have our own little pumpkin on the way. Once Jordyn realized she could just throw the little pumpkins that was kind of funny hence Jackson is holding the pumpkin far away from her.

Well I will have to come up with a neat design to carve this year. I was thinking maybe something related to OSU. Chris will be out of town the week of Halloween so that will give me something fun to do.

Cupcakes!

A week had gone by without baking anything, so I just had to bake something on monday to share with work just because. These are chocolate fudge cake with chocolate italian meringue buttercream icing. They got rave reviews from my coworkers and one of them even asked if I could bake for her next party at her house...hehe. Very easy and very simple design, but delicious.

I am so excited with fall coming and planning of this year's gingerbread house. I haven't found a competition in town yet, but if I do it will be my first. I keep going back and forth whether I should do a building from Disneyland or repeat last year's house with extra's like Santa and reindeer on the roof (that will be a good challenge).

First OSU game of 2009!

Elvis was there! It was kind of funny because people kept coming up to him and getting their picture taken with him.

We went to the first OSU game on Saturday vs. the PSU Vikings. OSU of course killed them it was 40 something to 7 final score. We had a great time and the weather held up well. It made me realize how much I miss that campus and town. It is so cute and quaint and the grounds so pretty. My dad played with the OSU Alumni Band and they sounded great.

belated post on Grant's visit home

The boys are so cute. Jackson all fancy and Grant in his uniform.

This is a very belated post. I meant to post in July..oops! Grant came home from Norfolk, VA to visit July 1st-12th and it was the first time we had seen him since September of last year. It was awesome to him and every time we see him we of course forgot how tall he is. He is like a giant. Katie is tall and he towers over her.

On his last night, we went to a nice dinner to celebrate both Katie and Grant's birthdays since Grant would not be home for his birthday this year.

We all miss Grant a lot, but we are excited because he will now be an a air craft carrier that will soon be stationed in San Diego...just a couple hour plane flight away.

Jackson's 9th Birthday Party

The kids scrambled to get the candy from the pinata

Jackson's friends

Jackson in his cool pinata hat

Jackson taking a swat at the pinata

Today was Jackson's birthday party and these are some of the pictures from the party. We had a good time and it was fun to meet some of Jackson's friends from school and the neighborhood. The pinata was a huge hit. I guess I forgot how much kids like pinatas. I will have to remember that. The cake was as good as I thought it would be. I made a mistake of taking it outside and it started to melt, so I had to rush it inside and put it into the fridge...oops. I guess I learned my cakes are not meant for outside.