A Very Lego Christmas

Thanks to gifts from Aunt Michelle and family, we had a fun Christmas day putting together our first ever official Lego kits.

Eliza Grace and I put together her horse barn that had all kinds of intricate details. Will helped "supervise" Scott's assembly of the fire house and trucks, which were even more intricate. It was a wonderful way to spend time together in our jammies in our warm, cozy den on Christmas day. Couple that with our traditional Christmas morning sausage and egg casserole and it was a good as it gets!

On the 26th, a big chunk of my extended family came over to share a meal and watch the children open gifts. I took some nice pictures before everyone arrived, however, in the midst of the hustle and bustle and eating and chatting, I forgot to take pictures of the actual people, save one! The tables did look nice, but I would rather have had more pictures of my loved ones! I vow to do better next time.

The kids table

The grown-ups' tables

The one picture with all the ladies we did get!
L to R: me, Martha (Mom), Christina (niece), Kelly (sister), Ashley (niece), Heidi (sister), Dawn (sister). Eliza Grace, my baby, in the front.

Christmas Season Fun!

Well, I know I have not posted about our Disney trip yet but that will have to come next week. In the meantime, I have been capturing some of our favorite Christmas season activities, which mostly revolve around food - no surprise there!

First we made a ginger bread house. We gathered all the ingredients and spent the better part of a day making the cookie batter, cutting out the shapes, baking....and puleeeese. We built it out of a pre-made kit, of course!

Will had been begging me for a couple of weeks to make the house so my little helpers were thrilled when I finally agreed to put it together.

Will mushing the pre-made icing bag really, really hard

"I love this ginger bread house"

Hmm..slide side A into slot B and repeat!

Ok, guys...hold it just like that...I will be back in about 10 minutes :)

And then we skip to the end, which is the best part!

The next project after we finished the Ginger Bread house -which by the way I think tastes gross- we moved on to what I believe to be man's greatest achievement in the perfect combination of salty and sweet. That's right, I am talking about Pretzel Kisses + M-n-Ms. A simple culinary masterpiece that helps make life worth living.

Step 1 - Engage your unpaid child labor chocolate Kiss un-wrappers with bribes related to said chocolate Kisses.

Step 2 - Artfully arrange (read: randomly throw) square pretzels onto a cookie sheet and place one Kiss on top of each pretzel. Place in a 170 degree oven for 4-6 minutes or until the chocolate is soft to the touch. Don't heat them too long or instead of the chocolate being soft, the kisses will dry out and crumble.  Ask me how I know this.  Anyhoo.

Step 3 - Remove the pretzel kisses from the oven and quickly press a single M-n-M into each soft, mushy kiss. Place into the refrigerator to cool. Voila, you are done!

I dare you, nay, I triple DOG DARE you to eat just one. It. Can. Not. Be. Done.

Lastly, I would be remiss if I did not mention the Hughes girls' annual outing to the Nutcracker Ballet. Eliza Grace is becoming such a little lady!

Well, all of the above (plus recuperating from our trip to Walt Disney World) has made up our last 2 weeks. In between there has been work, house work, playing and lots of Christmas music.
Now if you excuse me, I must ensure there are still a couple of pretzel kisses left for me!
Merry Christmas!