Hanks Winter Party 2011

Last weekend we were all supposed to head to Duck Creek for our annual night at the lodge with the Hanks family, but the day before we were supposed to leave the place got snowed out and we had to cancel those plans. :(  It was decided that everyone who could, we would all get together at EskDale instead and still have a dinner together.

So we hung out, ate some awesomely cooked beef, had an ugly sweater contest, decorated a gingerbread house, sang some carols, and ate some more dessert.

Some of us got together the next morning for a brunch too, but I didn't get any pictures of that.

The dessert table

Sharon had to save Amber from Isaac. ;)

Ugly sweater contest!

Winners of the ugly sweaters

Cutest little boy on the planet.

Grandpa John and Amber

Aidan posing for the camera....

Badabadaboom!

Man, I was doing well with updating the blog and everything and then BAM! The internet went down Wednesday night and it wasn't restored until Monday at noon. because Beehive is awesome.
Yep, five days without the internet, there was much wailing and nashing of teeth. Nothing like finding out how dependent you are on something, like say when you need a recipe for a family party and it's online. Oh darn. I hate to say that I did get somewhat used to it and Cary and I were much more productive those five days! Even though we had stuff scheduled over the weekend, we managed to get the coat hooks up in the back-entry.

 In protest of all my white, Cary wanted to leave these the natural wood color...

 Ah...I won. ☺ Just kidding, he saw the light.

 We aren't done with this room yet, we've been waiting for an item at IKEA that has been out of stock for like a month now! *Shaking my little fist* We need that before we can finish the rest, but I'm thrilled to now have a place to hang coats. I'm debating painting the white knobs on the bottom there some fun colors...what do you think? Yay or Nay?

 I had a birthday over the weekend. I'm 31. That's so weird.
Things wrong with this picture.
-I look pregnant (I'm not!)
-I still haven't hemmed the curtains
-I still haven't cleaned the mirror
-Showers are good
-Ella's room is a disaster, but that just means that the kids have fun in there, right? ☺

Football -- in the dark.

Christian convinced some of the girls to go outside in the cold and play football with the last remainder of light this evening and my kids wanted to join them, Brad stopped by and played too.

 We've been having some very pretty nights/ days.

 I didn't notice until I was going through pictures later how much Ella and Aidan were hugging each other and then tackle each other to the ground. LOL.

 I took these yesterday when the kids and I were riding around with Kenneth in his car.

Wagon Ride

It was a nice day, but on the chilly side, but around 3:30 after Ella and Britton were done with naps, it was time to get out of the house so we went on a walk. They ALL wanted to ride in the wagon so I'm needing something more like a train than a wagon to be able to fit them all. ☺

This picture is so cute, so I was really bummed that it's totally over exposed.

 In our house I just have organizational projects that need to be done, and the one really bugging me was under the kitchen sink. I like to save grocery bags to reuse as garbage liners and to bag up stinky diapers, but they were out of control. This morning I started on it while Cary occupied the kids since Britton and Ella REALLY wanted to help. I didn't get a good before picture because I had already emptied out one side before I remembered to take a picture.

Cary actually ended up being the one to hang the wire shelves on the door because I was making him nervous while using his drill. LOL. Obviously, the biggest difference is that I got a holder to corral the bags.
I feel better.

P.S. Pictures from game night over on The Haps!

Hanging Out (Post Thanksgiving Laziness)

 I forgot that I had been playing around with my white balance so the first few pictures are funky colored, but we'll go ahead and pretend that I did that on purpose.
Can I just say that it's been so nice to just be able to hang out at home and be lazy in the mornings. That's something we didn't get to do much of while remodeling the house so we're sure to enjoy now when the occasion does arise. Jordy came over and played with the kids and we just all hung out.

Earlier that morning when our alarms clocks went off, (our alarm clocks being Aidan and Ella coming in our room and asking for breakfast) Britton was already in our bed and Cary said somewhat sarcastically, "Children are a blessing." and Aidan said, "Dad, we're not blessings, we're kids." Cary responds, "Ain't that the truth."  I think I laughed for like 10 minutes about that.