Grant's first haircut

Grant has needed a haircut for a while now.  The front was fine, but the back was getting a bit unruly. He was starting to grow a mullet and had a patch of hair right on the top that was growing faster than every where else.  This shot from Christmas shows a good view of the situation.

Danny had taken Claire and Andrew to the movies, so my mom came with me to the salon.  This is a kids barber so they have cars that they sit in and movies to watch to keep them distracted.  Grant liked the car at first, but the moment the clippers came on he freaked out!  There was screaming from every angle...

Then we tried the pacifier and the worked for a bit, but then he realized that he still didn't like what was happening.  This is very similar reaction that Andrew had when he got his first few haircuts.

The finished product.  So cute!  I think he looks older.

And a view of the back.  He was fine when it ended, but I think that haircuts aren't going to be on the top of his favorite things list.

Christmas Day

As usual, Christmas has come and gone this year.  Andrew and Claire were so excited about Santa coming.  I overheard Andrew telling Claire that he wasn't sure that he would get presents this year because he wasn't good all year!  While that is probably true, Santa still came and brought presents for everyone.  Here is a picture from Christmas morning.  Danny loves the faux fireplace on tv!

Andrew left out cookies for Santa and carrots for the reindeer.  He reminded me that I needed to put the milk out before I went to bed so that it wouldn't go bad.

We started opening presents when Andrew and Claire were up, but not Grant.

Claire got a doll house this year.  That is actually why there are so many boxes.  Furniture for each room was in a separate box and Santa being the nice person that he is wrapped every single one.

Andrew's big gift was an i Touch.  We told him it is a big responsibility and he is taking it seriously.  He already knows how to navigate it from using our phones.  He was really excited.

Then Grant woke up - so pleasant!  He had red pajamas on when he went to sleep, but he had an accident, so we didn't get a picture all in Christmas pajamas.  He wasn't sure what to think of the presents and paper.

Grant got a new baby cell phone.  Unfortunately it hasn't stopped his desire to look for a real one in my purse.

The sweetest gift of all was a picture of a Christmas tree that Andrew colored for Claire.  It was actually card that he had written the nicest note to her inside.  It said that even though they fight sometimes he still loves her! 

Grant with a ribbon on his head.

 

Grant and I trying to snuggle.

Then it was time to go to church.  Once again I tried for the perfect shot of the kids in front of the tree in the Christmas clothes.

 

This would have been good except for Claire hunched down next to Grant.

After church we went to my parents house for more presents.

 

Grant finally got into the action.  He got a vacuum cleaner from my parents which he loves.

Claire and Andrew were tyring to help him open his present.

We had a great Christmas and the kids loved all of their gifts.  It was fun visiting with Erik, Lisa, Taylor and Mackenzie.  We ate too much and laughed a lot.  It just comes and goes so fast.  Merry Christmas.

Christmas cookies

My mom decided to make sugar cookies and have the grand kids decorate them.  I like to make and decorate cookies, but it was a whole new ball game with 7 kids under the age of 7.  Well, Grant didn't make it to the decorating because it was his nap time.  We started with lots of cookies.

Lisa was the official froster, Natalie was helping the kids decorate and I was trying to take pictures. 

It turns out the that kids can decorate cookies faster than we could frost them.  My mom and I had to help Lisa frost just to keep up.  Everyone had fun using different colored sugar and sprinkles. 

Claire -

Taylor -

Chris -

Elaina -



The main decorating technique was 1. carefully choose your sprinkles and 2. dump them all out on one cookie as seen below.

I tried to get each of them to pose with their cookies, but they were too interested in decorating.

MacKenzie tried to decorate, but it wasn't really her thing.  She was more interested in sampling the goods.

When all of the cookies were decorated, and it was time to clean up, the kids felt that no sprinkle should be wasted.  They all used the "lick your fingers and eat all of the sprinkles on your plate technique".

They all got to sample a cookie at the end as well.

As you can tell here, Andrew quite enjoyed his extra red sprinkles.

The finished product!!

Snowflakes in San Jose

No, not real snowflakes!  That would be cool though - Andrew and Claire keep reminding me that they have never been to the snow.  I saw this idea on Martha Stewart last year, but I didn't get to it before Christmas.   Essentially you can grow crystal snowflakes overnight.  So this year I bought the stuff early and then almost forgot to do them.  First you cut and bend pipe cleaners to a snowflake shape.  We did them all the same for our first run.    If you use colored pipe cleaners the color will show through the crystals. 

Then you hang your pipe cleaner snowflake from a Popsicle stick, but I couldn't find ours so we used pencils.  I also measured the Borax soap into each container.

Then we poured hot water into each container and stirred until the soap dissolved.  The last step is lowering the snowflakes down into the water.  You have to make sure that the snowflakes don't touch the side of the container.

Then you wait 8-12 hours....

The next morning there were crystals in each container!  So cool!

I thought they turned out pretty cool.  We had every intention of doing more, but time got away from us.  I wanted to try to do a more elaborate design.

The last step was hanging them up! 

Christmas fun

We've been busy with Christmas fun around here, too busy to blog, so here is a little of what we have been up to.  I tried to get a picture of the kids in front of the Christmas tree.  Two kids in the picture was okay, but when we added a third, I couldn't get them to all look at me.

I like this picture of Grant.  He is quite vocal now and was telling how much he didn't want to take a picture.

Next on the agenda was decorating gingerbread houses.  This had to be carefully planned so that it occurred during Grant's nap time.  I helped Claire with the roof - it didn't exactly come out like the beautiful picture on the box.  But she still liked it.

Andrew took some pictures and this was one of his shots of the candy dishes.

Claire was very particular about where she wanted candy.  She wanted to use ALL of the candy - nothing should be spared.

I helped Andrew do the first row of squiggly designs and he did the rest. 

Danny got in on the action by helping both kids put on some finishing touches.

Claire wanted to model both the front and .....

...the back of her house.

Andrew did most of the decorating himself this year.

Both finished products!

Natalie had the idea to go to the temple to see the lights.  We weren't able to go with them, but we bundled up and went last Saturday night.  The kids loved all of the lights and displays.

Claire wasn't cooperative in this picture, so only Andrew was in it.

Yeah - a family picture!  We ended up going into the visitors center for a bit to warm up after walking around outside.  Grant didn't complain at all.  It was a fun trip to the temple.