National Pancake Day

{image via Martha Stewart}

Today is National Pancake day, which means we'll be having breakfast for dinner tonight. Aaron hates doesn't like breakfast for dinner so we don't do it very often. If you're feeling adventurous I recommend trying Martha's Blueberry-Cornmeal Pancakes. They are soooo good. Of course, if you make them the Orange-Maple Butter is a must.

If you'd rather stick with good ol' pancakes here's a quick easy recipe that's sure to be a hit with everyone in the family.

2 1/2 cups flour

2 tablespoons baking powder

2 tablespoons sugar

1 teaspoon salt

2 eggs

2 cups milk

4 tablespoons oil*

chocolate chips**

*we like to substitute applesauce for the oil.

** the recipe really doesn't need chocolate chips, but at our house it's a requirement.

By the way, I do cut the recipe in half for our little family of 3, especially if we serve them with eggs and bacon.

We love to top off our pancakes with peanut butter, bananas, strawberries, maple syurp and whip cream. They're so rich when you fix them like this that you can only eat a couple.

What's your favorite way to eat a pancake?

Christmas Day 09

We had a wonderful Christmas day this year. I was sure that Jaxson and Olivia would be up at 5am wanting to open presents, so I was surprised when we got to "sleep in" until after 7:30. We started off the morning with a Christmas message that Aaron put together, then it was upstairs to see what Santa brought.

The reaction on Bear's face was pretty priceless. He was holding his transformers that he'd gotten the night before and when he saw his batcave he immediately dropped his blanket and his "guys" and ran over to start checking things out.

I think the thing Aaron looks most forward to every Christmas is his Mom's homemade eggnog, and once again it did not disappoint. So delicious.

Moose was still pretty sick, so I called our pediatrician in Utah to see if we needed to take him to instacare. Our awesome dr. said he'd call us in a little bit and meet us at his office. Who does that on Christmas? Needless to say we were very grateful. As soon as we started talking to my brother serving a mission in Greece, Dr. Freestone called and told us he was headed to the office. We said a quick hi and goodbye to Eric, then took Moose to the dr. He had a terrible Ear Infection. Poor guy. After telling Dr. Freestone thank you about a hundred times we headed to Walgreens to get his meds. I used to complain about Aaron having to work on the holidays, but I was so grateful for the people that were working that day.

We ended the night at my dad's parents house visiting with his family. Bear, Nixon and Grandpa kept themselves entertained by having Woody slide down the banister, just like in the movie Toy Story.

We were glad to be able to spend Christmas with family this year and definitely missed those that weren't able to make it back "home" for Christmas.

Christmas Eve

For as long as I can remember I've spent Christmas Eve at my moms parent's house; this year was no exception. We arrived at Grandma's house exhausted from the drive, but so happy to be with family again.

I told Aaron I knew exactly what we'd be eating for dinner that night and was glad to see that I was right. little has changed about Christmas Eve from the time I was little. We do a program (although we are short on characters for the Christmas Nativity play, so we just read it now) and then the chaos begins as presents are opened.

It was such a fun night spent with family we hadn't seen since August. Bear loved his new "guys" and asked if he could keep them. Moose just liked to chew on the wrapping paper, although he does like his new blocks now that all the wrapping paper is long gone.

I do have to add that poor little Moose was sick on Christmas Eve and was running a fever as well as throwing up. My cute cousin was holding him and told me he threw up, I just figured it was spit up and she didn't know any better. Ya, about 15 minutes later when I was holding him, I found out she did know the difference and he was definitely throwing up. Other than the fever and throwing up you'd never know he didn't feel good, he was being such happy smily guy all night.

We are so grateful that my grandparents still let us invade their home with mass chaos every year and we truly wouldn't have it any other way. We did miss all our family that couldn't be with us this year and can't wait until we can celebrate with everyone again.

Christmas Eve Day

We left for Utah on Wednesday night and drove to St. George. Thanks to my brother-in-law who works for the Marriott we get an awesome rate and were grateful to be able to get a good nights sleep before driving the rest of the way to Salt Lake.

We drove straight to Robintino's to meet Aaron's family for pizza (and the best ranch to dip your pizza in) and then headed to the bowling alley for the annual bowling party. We were short in numbers this year, but still had a great time with all our family that was there.

After telling Bear several times that he couldn't be on the floor when anyone was bowling, he decided that he could be the only one when it was his turn too, so our helping him bowl came to an abrupt halt. He's such an independent little kid and sometimes it cracks me up how he wants to do everything by himself.

I was all set to bowl and after doing one round and having my score being a whopping 1 I decided to let our nephew Sorun take over for. I guess the wii really doesn't count as practice when it come to bowling in real life....

Thanks for the yummy pizza and an afternoon of bowling Nana & Grandpa!

Advent Calendar Day 16

We've been sick around here for a couple weeks now and I hate to admit that I've totally dropped the ball on the majority of our advent calendar activities. I did however manage to get a new Christmas book wrapped for the boys to open one day.

I'm glad to know Moose was more excited about the wrapping paper Bear was more excited about the piece of candy in the advent calendar. Christmas day is going to be awesome.

Candy Making

Every year at Christmas my Grandma makes the best candy. Last year she came down to our house and taught me how to make it. Of course I had to carry on the tradition and the rainy saturday we had yesterday made for the perfect candy making day.

We let the carmels set up overnight and dipped them after church today. Notice the front door is open, ya it has to be cold for the chocolate to harden. We froze ourselves out, but it's definitely worth it.

Now we just need to find people to share all this yummy goodness with-the picture doesn't even include the toffee we made yesterday. I think I'm getting a sugar high just looking at all of it.

A Rodeo and a campout

Thursday night Aaron was giving Bear a few rodeo rides, it started getting a little intense, so he asked for a belt to give Bear something to hold onto.

After their wild night of rodeo, the two of them had their monthly "campout" in the living room. Of course Bear still had to line up all of his cars to sleep by him.

I love watching the relationship of the boys develop with Aaron. We truly are lucky to have such an awesome guy as a dad and husband!

*If you want to see some live footage of the rodeo click here. It may be inappropriate for small children....)

Gingerbread House

For our advent activity on Thursday night we decorated a gingerbread house. I bought a kit at Costco again this year and when all was said and done Aaron said next year we're making our own from scratch. Yea, we'll see how that goes....

Santa Claus

Day 3 of our advent calendar was heading to see Santa at Bass Pro Shops. As we got closer to Santa, Bear started to get a little nervous.

We were really impressed that Bear didn't cry, although he definitely wasn't about to smile for us. Of course once we were done visiting Santa we had to check out the cool toys on display right now.

My favorite part of the day was when we got home and Bear had to run and show Red his picture of him sitting on Santa's lap. I don't know if you can see in the picture, but there is a little elf on the picture frame named Red. If you've got kids I highly recommend picking yourself up your own elf.

Last year we started the tradition of doing an advent calendar with daily activities. Day 1 was opening up new jammers to wear all month long. I searched all over for some cute matching Christmas pajamas but couldn't find any that were cute and reasonably priced, but when I stumbled upon these cute bear & moose pajamas I knew I'd found what I was looking for. I mean, how could I pass up matching pj's that had both a bear and a moose.

Look at the cute moose slippers Nana picked up for Moose while she was visiting. I'm so excited that it's finally getting cold enough that he can wear them.

Family Bowling Party

Every year Aaron's family gets together and go bowling before Christmas. I thought bowling on the wii might help improve my score this year, but I was wrong-very wrong. I even bowled in the lane with the bumpers and still did horrible!

Bear loved picking a ball and then watching it roll down to knock over the pins.

Even Nana got her bowl on this year!

Not everyone was into bowling-so they sat on the sidelines and watched.

By the end of the night Bear was done bowling and was having more fun rolling around on the floor.

After bowling we went back to Nana & Grandpa's for dinner and a surprise visitor....

The other pictures will follow, but I had to post this picture Brittany took. I have totally popped in the past 2 weeks and there is no denying the baby bump.

Advent Calendar Week 2

We didn't do so well with the advent calendar this week. Bear has been sick, so we've kept things simple and stayed home.  

It's not Christmas without my Grandma Bradshaw's candy. I've been wanting to learn how to make it for quite some time now, and I figured if I didn't do it this year who knows when I'd have the chance to learn.   Grandma offered to come down and teach me instead of me bringing Bear up to her house---Grandma's really do know best. 

It was fun to spend some time visiting with my Grandma while Aaron and Grandpa watched Transformers. We did call my mom on Skype and had her visit with us for a little bit. We didn't want her to miss out on the all the fun.

Unfortunately I was trying to keep B out of the kitchen most of the time and forgot to take any pictures of me and Grandma together. I did manage to take some pictures of some candy. It really is the best candy and I can't stop eating it. If you come to the house don't be surprised if I offer you some. 

The only other thing we did for the advent this week was have B open a present which was coloring books. Hopefully this week we'll be able to stick our planned schedule

Advent Calendar Day 5

Friday night Aaron was off work and we were able to read Christmas stories and make s'mores by the fire. 

Unfortunately the fire was a lot hotter than we're used to when roasting marshmallows and we lost quite a few to the same fate...

I know this last picture is blurry but I don't care. Right as the shutter snapped Aaron flung a marshmallow and it splattered all over the inside of the fireplace. I have to say I'm impressed that we didn't burn the house down! (and that Aaron let us do this--he's a little paranoid about kids and fire) 

Bear didn't like the s'mores. He just wanted to eat the cookies and drink the sparkling grape juice--oh how that boy loved the grape juice. 

On the 6th we ate a candlelight dinner with Christmas music playing in the background and tonight Bear opened a Christmas Book (How the Grinch Stole Christmas).