Snowball Fight!

The boys decided to wear their new headlamps outside for a dark snowball fight.

It was quite the funny sight.

Puppy Love

Lately, we have been giving our youngest lab, Casey, more

freedom than ever... and she's behaved herself quite well!

She has such a loving and tender personality to her.

Rosie doesn't seem to mind the company.

Yummy

What's a holiday without food?

Besides the candy pictured here we also made muddy buddies.

Some friends of ours even brought Connor safe ingredients to make them.

How awesome is that?

This is our new cast iron griddle.

It never made it under the tree :)

Yes, I know there's a spill spot that didn't get wiped up.

It's driving me nuts!

We've fit 10 pieces of bacon at one time!...

but we didn't get a picture.

Can you smell it?  Yummmm.

I tried making peanut butter cups with Sunbutter.

They are really yummy, not to mention super easy to make!

We decided to call them Sunbutter frogs.

Aren't they cute?

Merry Christmas

The ornament says, "We have seen His star".

Apparently Captain America is protecting it.

The boys each taking a turn reading the Christmas story from the book Luke.

Headlamp and safety glasses...

The headlamps seemed to be a huge hit.

Later in the evening we went to grandma & grandpa's house.

Let's Take a Christmas Picture...

Every year we take a picture of the boys to put on a Christmas ornament.

And every year it seems like we take dozens of pictures to get that "one".

Thank goodness for digital cameras!

Let's get the silly ones out of the way first.

As always, the boys are cooperative.

As is the camera... er the operator of the camera.

Not sure what happened to the flash.

"Is this a good smile mom?"

"I'm done."

I think this is the "one" we chose for the ornament.

Mmmm Cookies

Now that Connor is eating dairy, it has

opened up a whole new world of foods for him to try.

I have quite a mental list of recipes I want to make.

One of the first ones was peanut butter sunbutter cookies.

These two products are essential in our house.

The Sunbutter is an awesome peanut butter-like spread made from sunflower kernels.

It tastes very close to peanut butter.

The egg replacer is a powder you mix with water and

it will mimic the action of an egg.  It works well in most recipes.

I say most because I've had a few baking disasters.  We're talking catastrophes.

Let's just say our oldest and much loved lab eats a well!

Connor helped smash the cookies down... thus the extra sugar.

One of the "perks", if you will, of being allergic to eggs is being able to eat the cookie dough.

No raw eggs with Sam & Ella to worry about!

These cookies were so good!

Needless to say they didn't last very long.

Frozen Pizza

Frozen pizza.

Most of us take this simple pleasure for granted.

For families dealing with food allergies, it's something not every member in the family can enjoy.

Many times we won't get a pizza just because we don't want to leave Connor out... or since we have to make food for him, we might as well feed everyone the same thing.

Not today.

Today, Dwayne found not one, but two frozen pizzas that, according to the label, Connor should be able to eat.  They are both made by Home Run Inn.  Truth be told, I had given up looking for a frozen pizza Connor could eat.  Thankfully Dwayne had not.

 

Connor could hardly wait the 5 minutes we made him wait after the initial bite.

Wait five looong minutes.

Wait to see if he would react.

This is what we do when he eats something new.

He looked and sounded fine after his wait.

So he proceeded to DEVOUR his piece of pizza, making all sorts of "yummy" noises in the process! 

Simple pleasures.

Pizza sauce stuck to the sides of the face.

Peeling the stuck pepperoni off the pan.

Why?

Because he CAN!

Bionicle Warfare

The boys spent a considerable amount of time building some bionicles and then displaying them in battle. If you are not familiar with bionicles, let me do a short explanation.  They are warrior type "people" made by  Lego.  Each have their own armor and weapon. They have ball and socket joints which make them very flexible.  They worked so hard building their guys I had to take some pictures.

The big one is built from instructions and the two

smaller ones from the imaginations of two boys.

Two more from the boys' minds.

These two are from instructions.

18th Anniversary

This year's anniversary picture.

Random Random

This post is so random it needs it's own category.

I found this picture on my camera...

Yes, that's a chicken.

Yes, that chicken is in a sweatshirt.

Don't ask anything else!

Connor loves boxes.

Enough said.

I like reflections...

so much is seen here...

the empty dish drainer,

Nolan sitting at the island, the calendar, etc.

Nolan pointed out how cool

it was to see the handle reflection.

I'm not sure if I'll make a comment on this...

Two of our three kittens.

They have figured out how to climb to the handrail

and startle me while I'm in the kitchen.

A very tired ten year old.

Say Cheese!

We have some great news!

Connor has been eating dairy off and on for about a week now.

We're taking it very slow.  So far so good.

Normally, we make two pizzas, but not today.

Today we got out the large pizza pan... 18 1/2" large.

This thing is so big it almost doesn't fit in our oven.

We put cheese on the entire pizza.

Connor eating his first piece.

He thinks cheese is "awesome".

Evidence of Children #1

Because I am the person I am, I will take a picture of almost anything.

I was in the middle of making supper when I discovered the boots.

Then I saw the screen door open.

(I'm amazed that neither the kitty nor the dog let themselves in!)

And the piles of weapons.

I'm not sure how the kitten and the baby gate entered the battle.

By the way, the kitten's name is Garfield.  He's Nolan's new cat.