Christmas Break! (part 1)

I made my first attempt at home made gingerbread houses. With real gingerbread.

It smelled delicious, it tasted delicious, but it was WAY too much work!
(because all the kids want to do is smother ANYthing with frosting and candy!)

The kids had a really good time decorating their own house.
They each had a tube of frosting and more candy than
they've ever seen in one place at the same time!

Then, we went with some friends to the Christmas House!
This place was out of control! I think Santa himself lived here!
Yep, if you tune your radio to 96.9 fm you can see the show - all the lights choreographed to music. What a sight! Then we got to tour the inside and back yard.
A Christmas village, trains and even hot cocoa and cookies. WOW.
it takes him 9 months to prepare for this!

Even a snow machine!

It's the Most Wonderful Time of the YEAR!

I love, love, love Christmas vacation with my kiddos! 3 weeks of NO SCHOOL and being lazy. Baking, watching movies, playing wii, doing puzzles, cooking up our favorite meals, and lately...watching it POUR RAIN for 4 days solid. The house is a mess, and the laundry is not done. But we are going to try and enjoy every day of our break.
Last night we went "caroling" in the rain...well, we DROVE from neighbor to neighbor and delivered our little hot chocolate mix gifts. We ran up two at a time and said Merry Christmas instead of knocking as a family and singing a couple of songs. ( It was probably a preferred method for some).
When we got home we decorated some cookies with MY new favorite (early) Christmas gift...The "Message in a Cookie" Holiday set from Williams Sonoma. It was so fun! Now all I need is the good kind of frosting for writing...not the slimy gel.

Oak Glen

My new favorite place!

We tried for months to find a day to get to these beautiful farms,

but the weeks just kept flying by!

Finally, we found a day we could escape from our urban life.

Ezra showing me his apple treasures

Sooo delicious!!

William, enjoying the deliciousness of

freshly picked apples

Climbing, playing, picking...it was so great!

Emily wanted to fill bag after bag, even our pockets and purse.

A girl after my own heart.

Joel could climb these trees all day!

After attempting to feed the cows by hand, we resorted to feeding them

"by stick". Their tongues were a little too long and rough

for my kids' comfort level.

We even got to make our own freshly pressed cider. 20 lbs. of apples later,

we had a gallon of perfectly delicious cider.

(did I mention the apples were delicious?)

Try It...

Tonight I was curious as to what would happen when I "Googled" some of my friends' names, including myself. It was weird to see different things come up. Most of which was completely irrelevant to the person I was actually thinking of.

Then I typed in "Ryan Southwell". I was expecting to see different "Ryan Southwells" from all over the map, like I did for myself and other names I typed in. However, I was in for a pleasant surprise! How did I not know I was married to a virtual Media Celebrity?! He took up the entire first page of Google, and then more! Just him and his amazing video work! Then I continued to sit here for another hour and weep, giggle and stare in awe as I watched his productions!

He didn't pay me to write this. I sincerely had no idea how many people admire his work and visit his sites. I'm just blown away by the results I found and I have to plug for my incredible husband and say how proud I am of him!