My girls...

A lazy Friday night...after the chaos of running parts to Mankato for the shop! :)

Stella before we went to Mankato

Stella with her Build-a-Bear

Hanging out with my girls after the big kids were in bed.

Snow day!

Amelia had a snow day today because we got another 6-8 inches dumped on us. So Paul enjoyed having her home and they had a great time playing outside in all the snow in the backyard! It's getting mighty deep back there!

Stella is 3 months old

Stella Kate turned 3 months old last week, so it was time for a three month photo shoot. I took these pictures myself. I'm still learning how to use my new camera, and some of the pictures turned out better than others, so here are a few of my favorites. I just love her chubby cheeks and am happy that I captured them in some of the pictures!

Hazel's Baptism

My niece was baptized this past weekend, so we traveled to my mom's for one night and my grandparents for the other night and got snowed in, so ended up there for two nights. The Baptism was very nice and the church was gorgeous. I'm feel very honored to be Hazel's Godmother. Thank you Amber and Zane for asking me.

The Church---St John's Catholic Church in Wahpeton, ND

Pauly looking serious holding the book for the Priest

Hazel Rae with her parents Amber and Zane and Godparents Angela and Jason (Zane's brother)

Amelia Jayne

Addie running---which she did during the entire Baptism

Making Gingerbread Cookies

Sunday when we were at my Grandparents house, my grandma had made dough for gingerbread cookies and had the kids help her roll it out and make the cookies, I think they all had a good time! They cookies were mighty tasty, they skipped the icing to make it less of a mess, but used mini M&M's, red hots and sprinkles instead to decorate them. My Grandma's cookie recipe is at the bottom of the pictures.

Courtney rolling out the dough

Britta and Stella taking it all in

Cutting out Gingerbread Men

Addie really loves flour!

Add caption

Goofy girl!

Granny's Gingerbread Cut-outs
1 c butter
1 c sugar
1 egg
1 c dark molasses
2 T vinegar
5 c sifted flour
1-½ tsp soda
½ tsp salt
2 tsp ginger
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp cloves

Cream butter, add sugar gradually.  Beat in egg, molasses and vinegar. Blend in sifted dry ingredients. Chill. Roll 1/8 to ¼ inch thick on floured canvas and cut into desired shapes.  Place on greased cookie sheets; decorate before baking or frost when cool.   Bake at 375 degrees 5 to 15 minutes depending on size and thickness of cookie.

DIY Christmas Ornaments

I had three drop-in's yesterday for daycare during the day, and I thought since it's December it'd be a good time to make these for a project. The two littlest ones didn't make them because they are under 1, but all of the other kids made them with assistance from me. I squirted all of the paint in the ornaments because I'm a control freak like that. Actually I was trying to eliminate a mess on little fingers and clothing! They had a great time making them and after the paint was swirled inside, I wrote their names and the year on them with a paint pen. It was a super easy craft and fun to make. Just have to be careful because the ornaments break easily if dropped.

The supplies---clear glass ornaments and acrylic paint

• Remove ornament top
• squirt paint in ornament
• replace top
• turn ornament to swirl paint and cover the inside

Finished product.

Ornaments the kids made---except for Stella---I made hers. Amelia didn't get her name on hers before I took the picture.

Paul has two ornaments because he insisted when the big kids got home from school that he needed to make another one and he wanted to write his own name on it. He did a pretty good job despite the "u" being upside down.

Oh, Christmas Tree...

We got our Christmas tree up and decorated on Monday evening. The kids were all very excited to get in on the action and help out. They even put ornaments on the tree and we only ended up with one broken one, so not too shabby! We also took some pictures of them for our Christmas card, that was a challenge. Addie was throwing a fit when Stella was wide awake and once we got Addie calmed down, Stella was out. But we did manage to rouse her for a few and Addie insisted on having her cup with her and I figured it wasn't worth the battle! Our house is mostly decorated. I still have to put up my Snow Village and find a good place for my nativity set. 

Time for ornaments in our pj's.

Add caption

Even baby Stella got in on the action!

All lit up!

One of our attempts at a Christmas card picture!