A Very Godsey Christmas

Christmas Eve... The kids were away so James and I enjoyed Christmas Eve together. We did some last minute shopping, went to American Fork to visit James' mom and got stuck in the snow trying to get to Cabela's. We got Panda Express and had dinner at home before getting the kids. When the kids got home they had a surprise from Snoozy. A box with pajamas, hot cocoa, popcorn, candycanes, christmas mugs and A Christmas Story. We watched the movie, the kids opened presents from Grandma Jill and from each other and then it was finally time for bed.

 

I started on the food and James was in charge of presents and stockings. I was making a crock pot casserole from this recipe.  I also made orange rolls and hot chocolate in the crock pot.

 

 

 

Here is the begining of my hot chocolate. It was soooooo yummy. Recipe here

 

 Santa scarfed down the cookies before I took a picture, but we had iced sugar cookies the night before and they each picked one to donate to the Santa plate.

I got: this beautiful Ninja pictures above. And..... a laptop! Thats right! I am posting this from my bed while watching Vampire Diaries and eating an insane amount of Christmas Candy! We haven't even had internet at home for probably 7 months so I am super excited about being able to blog,  edit photos, and pinterest from the comfort of my bed :-) Thanks baby! I also got a book, a new purse, $25 gift card to Olive Garden, and a Zumba game for the XBox. I got James an Xbox 360, 2 games, battery packs for the chargers, a Bulls jacket, a Lincoln movie, and lots of cuddling! Oh and a gun. Josh and Jordan both got big lego sets and Carter and Ava got Leap Pad 2's.

For Christmas Dinner I made: Turkey, Mashed potatoes and gravy, Jello Salad and Rolls. I thought I did pretty good. We relaxed at home, Josh, jordan and Ava went back to their mom, Carter went with their grandma for a while. It was really nice.

Later I wanted to use my ninja but didnt have anything to blend so we set out to find something. First we went to Walgreens hoping to find frozen fruit but no luck. The only other thing open was Rancho Market but they didn't have any frozen fruit either. But we got some orange juice concentrate and a good laugh out of the experience then went home and made Orange Julius.

After being up until 4am on Christmas Eve I was asleep by 8:30!

Watching People

I work at the airport which is a busy, crazy place with lots of interesting people and things going on around me. My job is very busy and I don't really have time to notice such things. But yesterday I was having a new hire fill out some paperwork outside of security so for about 10 mins I had nothing to do except people watch. I was sitting in terminal one right by the security check point. So there is a line of people to go in and also where people come out. Often you see groups with signs, cameras waiting, anxiously awaiting their loved ones to arrive. Anyway I observed two specific sscenarios that made an impression on me enough so that I wanted to write about it.

First, a family in line for security... a mom, dad and 4 kids. The youngest looked about 6. I was sitting about 25 feet away from them and the mom and dad were both yelling (screaming) at the yougest boy. Apparently he had left the bag that was supposed to be a carry on with the checked bags at the ticket counter. The boy was sobbing and the parents were both screaming at him. It made me so sad. Now, I don't want to seem like I am judging because I was absolutely not. I yell at Carter. I make him cry. And the times I have traveled with Carter have been very stressful especially those moments when you are trying to get to your flight on time, Traveling with 4 children must be quite a challenge. But as I was watching this I decided I don't want to yell. I mean I cry when i get yelled at! I am not one to make "resolutions" but I am going to this year, I want to be more patient and yell less.

It reminded me of this quote:

Now the second moment is happier. I saw a mom with 3 kids all decked out in Camo clothing obviously waiting for a soldier and I noticed that the kids were so adorable. Then I watched at that moment as he (the husband) walked out and saw his wife and the look on his face was completely priceless. And he ran to her and they held each other and it was so so sweet. I have seen a lot of soldiers coming home, but for some reason this one really touched me. I thought of how thankful they must be to be together for Christmas, and how much people take for granted being able to see their spouse, their children, their loved ones, every single day.

Then it was back to my busy, crazy day. But I was happy to have had a few minutes of reflection and think of these things I want to work on, treating my family with more kindness, and not taking for granted their daily presence in my life.

Snoozy

Make Snow Globes

Activity Advent Calender: Make Snow Globes.

You need: Glitter (snow)

 jars

 Something to put in side

Hot glue

water

Glue your whatever to the inside of the lid. Add Glitter and water, you can add glycerin to make the glitter float down more slowly but i wasn't going to go out to buy some of that, so we just used water.

I let the kids put as much glitter as they wanted and they used A LOT. And for some reason Josh's turned the water purple (he was thrilled so that was fine)

Some tutorials said to hot glue the lid but that actually caused more problems for me so I did not.

Final products 

Christy's

 James'

Josh's 

 Jordan's

There were some Christmas cartoons on so we watched those too. First Rudolf. James and I ate our Panda Express and watched Rudolf in our room while the boys watched it in the living room. Then the Elf of the Shelf cartoon came on and we watched it together, it made the kids excited to see Snoozy's friends! :)

My moment of the day.... hearing "This is fun, can we do it again next year?"

Success.

The Elf on the Shelf cartoon. One of my new favorites.

I had gotten these Abominable Snowman Succor\lips at Target and decided this was the moment to whip them out, While the boys watched Rudolf.



update: Santa Letters

James and I wrote personal letters to the kids from Santa. Then we put them each in an envelope with each of their names and our address. And a stamp. Then put that envelope in a  bigger envelope and addressed it to:

North Pole Christmas Cancellation, Postmaster, 5400 Mail Trail, Fairbanks, Alaska 99709-9999

(and another stamp)

Sure enough yesterday 4 letters from Santa arrived. Postmarked from the North Pole. Yay.

 

Salt Dough Ornaments

Activity Advent Calender: Make Salt Dough Ornaments

2 Cups Flour

1 Cup Salt

1 Cup warm water

Roll out dough, cut with cookie cutters. Poke a hole with a toothpick for the hook. I baked mine, 200 degrees turning every 30 mins for 2 hours.

Paint.

Spray with clear enamel

Put in hooks and hang!

Jordan's 

Carter's

All 

 Christy's

Josh's

** James made some but they are.... um, not pictured.**

Movie Night: The Grinch

Advent Activity Calender: movie night

We watched the Grinch, made Grinch cookies, and Grinch punch.

Grinch Cookies

• 6 Tablespoons Butter
• 1 cup Powdered Sugar
• 1 teaspoon Cornstarch
• 18-¼ ounces, weight Box French Vanilla Cake Mix
• 2 Eggs
• Green gel food coloring, until desired color is reached

Preheat the oven to 375°F.  Melt the butter and set aside to cool.  In a shallow dish, mix together the powdered sugar and cornstarch with a fork.   In a large bowl, mix together the cooled butter, cake mix and eggs. This will be a little hard to stir together. Add the green food coloring and make sure it is all mixed in. Take two spoons and drop a blob of dough in the powdered sugar mixture. Move it around with spoon until it is mostly covered in powdered sugar. Then, once it is covered, roll it into a ball and place it on a parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Each oven is different, but I bake these for 9 minutes. (They won’t look done but they are.) Take them out of the oven and cool on the pan for one minute. Then move onto a cooling rack.  Makes 36 cookies.

I found this on Pinterest which linked me to A Home For Dinner (I am going to try to start including recipes and instructions and links in my blog posts. Its just hard when I post from my phone)

Then the Grinch Punch... I pinned a recipe that used sprite, vanilla ice cream and green food coloring and was more like a float. I decided to use lime sherbet and Sprite Zero and just keep adding and blending until I got a thick liquid consistency. I wanted more of a drink than a dessert. I even rimmed the glasses with green sprinkles. Aw.

The cookies, they were yummy! 

The Drinks 

 Josh helped me rolling the cookies in powdered sugar, he likes baking with me.

 Oh Jordan....

 My James, cleaning, before the movie XOXOXO 

 We borrowed the Grinch from the library because we wanted the cartoon one.

Fun times!