A Christmas Treat

I thought I'd try out cakeballs this season. I have never made them before but I've been wanting to try for a long time. I had a couple of events I needed to take a treat to and decided this was the time. I found the idea for little Christmas trees online and gave it a shot. I think mine turned out pretty cute. However, I dont love working with candy coating and it was super thick on my little trees. After rolling out so many tree shapes, I did the other half of cake into regular balls which I dipped in regular milk chocolate. Those were so delicious. . .I didnt even get a picture. mmmm. So, cute factor-trees win, taste factor-regular chocolate balls. mmm In fact, my girls loved these so much they asked if I could just make cake balls for their future birthdays. We'll see. :)

Family Night

We all love a good game. Here we are playing a fairy tale "go fish". Very fun :)





And no family night can be complete without a good tickle torture/dog pile with dad.




What a great night!! What a great family!!

A Girl and her Boots

This is my sweet Mabel Jane. She loves pink. You can find her sporting her pink cowgirl boots pretty much All the time!! Gee I love this girl!!

Just Some Cute Picketts

Happy Birthday Emmeline and our stay at Great Wolf Lodge

My Baby turned 5 on December 6. I cant believe how fast these last 5 years have flown by. It seems like just yesterday I was heading to the hospital, all nervous and excited to have my first baby. Brett and I went out for a pancake brunch that morning. In the afternoon I took a long luxurious bubble bath. Then we headed off to the hospital. And now 5 years have passed. It has been so much fun (fun might not be the right word. . .wonderful, incredible, . . .) to watch Emmeline grow. She is becoming so independent and smart. She is kind to others. She works hard at projects. She loves to dance, sing, laugh and enjoy life. What a special girl.

Brett and I planned to take the kids and stay at Great Wolf Lodge for Emmelines birthday. The lodge has an indoor waterpark and we'd heard that it was a super fun place to take the family. We were all so excited for the trip. We would be staying at the hotel Monday-Wednesday (we got a super sweet deal but it didn't include the weekend). Since the hotel is only 20 minutes from our apartment we were still planning on taking Emmeline to school in the morning and Brett was going to go to work each day.

It turned out we didnt need to worry about taking Emmeline to school. On Sunday she started throwing up and she continued to throw up through the night. On monday (her actual birthday) she laid around all morning and watched movies. . .when she wasnt throwing up. Brett and I debated whether or not to even go to the hotel. But we had all been so excited and our reservations were non transferable. We decided to go. After Brett got home we settled the girls in the car. . .Emmeline with an emergency "spit up" bucket in her lap.

We were so glad that we just decided to go. We had so much fun. We brought Em's cake with us and sang to her in our room. She didnt want to eat any that night so we saved it for the next day. She opened two presents and then decided to save the rest for the next day as well. (just goes to show you how crappy she was feeling to not open all of her presents!!) Then Emmeline camped out on the bathroom floor for the rest of the night. Mabel and I went to the lobby and enjoyed the indoor snowstorm and the storytime. We also looked around a bit.



The next day Emmeline was feeling much better!! We hung out at the waterpark for awhile and then had lunch at the hotel restaurant. The girls each got a pair of wolf ears with their lunch and they were pretty adorable if I do say so myself. After lunch, we were so tired that we all slept during Maddies nap. Brett woke us up when he got back from work and we took him to the waterpark. He was able to take Emmeline on some of the BIG waterslides. She felt like such a grownup going on the BIG waterslides.






While we were there, the lodge was doing a fun Christmas activity for the kids. They called it the North Pole Academy and if the kids accomplished certain tasks (attending the storytime with Roundy the Reindeer, coloring a picture in the Kid area, going on the wolf walk, etc) they got a prize. The prize included some hot chocolate and 10 free tokens in the arcade. The girls were so thrilled about this. They had wanted to go play some of the games before but I had said no. With the free tokens, however, we got to go in and win some prizes. :) The lodge also had a show three or four times a day with music and "snow" falling throughout the lobby. My girls LOVED this. Especially considering the fact that snow is just about nonexistent here in Dallas.







We had a wonderful time. And despite the sick beginning, Emmeline had a wonderful birthday.

A Series of Unfortunate Events. . .sprinkled with several fortunate miracles

This past weekend was a doozy. The week started off slow. I knew the weekend would be busy so we just sort of enjoyed the quiet. On Thursday night things started to pick up. Thursday was the RS Christmas dinner. It was a nice event and I'm glad I went.There were some musical numbers and then a short lesson on freezer cooking. As a Christmas present, the RS presidency prepared a yummy chicken-white bean soup for us and we also each got to take a big gallon bag home to put in our freezers. Very nice.

On Friday morning, it was my turn to drive downtown to Dallas and pick up the produce from the farmers market for the produce co op that I'm currently a part of. The drive was fine and picking out the produce was actually kinda fun.(but that is a subject for another post!) I was on my way home with what I thought would be plenty of time to get the produce up to my apartment and sorted before I had to go pick up Emmeline from preschool. Everything was going quite smoothly when all of the sudden I realized that I could not turn my steering wheel and my fix engine light was on. This happened while I was still on the freeway. I got a little concerned, however, I was luckily just passing an exit which only required a "veer" to get off. I was able to veer off the exit onto a frontage road with no other traffic. It was pretty miraculous that there wasn't any other traffic since this particular road led into a large mall. Due to the lack of traffic I was able to make a three point (or 5 point) turn into the mall parking lot. . .which again, miraculously, was pretty empty. Okay, closer to the mall was full of cars, but on my side of the parking lot was a big space that primarily served two big restaurants which were closed because it was still morning. (Coincidence?? Is there such a thing?) Anyhow, I called Brett, who miraculously didn't have any meetings that day and he left work to come and get me. I also called Triple A Roadside assistance and they sent someone to come tow the car. Brett and the tow truck arrived at about the same time. We moved all the carseats and the produce over to the little car. Then Brett went with the tow truck while Mabel, Maddie and I left to pick up Emmeline from preschool. We got to the school, miraculously, just in the nick of time to pick her up on time.

By the end of the day we got the produce delivered and everyone was safe and sound. The car would need some fairly extensive repairs. . but it was the weekend so we really didnt need two cars.

Saturday was the ward christmas party. Sunday Emmeline got sick. The kind of sick where she was throwing up all day. Miraculously, no one else in the family got sick. Monday: Emmeline was still sick. It was also her 5th birthday. (more details in another post).

It was certainly one of those weekends.

It's Beginning to Look A Lot Like Christmas

Brett agreed to let us set up and decorate the Christmas tree the day after Thanksgiving this year. What a good sport. The time couldn't come soon enough for me. Of course the girls loved helping. They sorted out the decorations while Brett and I got the lights on. Even Maddie "helped." She certainly loved being with us anyhow. We have been collecting an ornament to represent each year since Brett and I have been married. It was fun to pull those out and talk about the different memories and stories that go with them. What a fun day. And a great way to start off this Christmas season.






P.S. The funniest part is that the tree was decorated numerous times throughout the season. I'm not sure a day passed with the decorations in the same place. Apparently decorating the tree is so fun that one time is not enough. The girls continued to undecorate and redecorate throughout december. I thought it was very cute.

Happy Thanksgiving 2010

This was the first year in a long time that our family did not go to Atlanta and have Thanksgiving with my aunt and uncle, Sara and George Parker. It is always hard to give up a much beloved tradition. Despite our initial melancholy, we ended up having a very nice holiday. In the morning I enjoyed my drugstore shopping, scoring all sorts of free stuff at CVS and Walgreens. The girls enjoyed watching the Macy's parade with Brett. We spent the afternoon preparing food to take to dinner. A kind family in our ward invited us over to share their Thanksgiving meal. They had a delicious turkey and heavenly rolls. (I tried to make some rolls and they were a flop. I'm going to have to practice.) We brought the green bean casserole, orange yams, and a banana cream pie. We had a nice dinner and the girls were reasonably well behaved. After all the food was served Mabel asked us to go around the table and say what we were thankful for. It was very sweet of her and of course nice to talk about what we were thankful for. After dinner our hosts; Cameron, Rachael and Olivia Tiede, had a fun activity planned. We decorated gingerbread houses. The girls loved it!! I'm thinking that decorating a gingerbread house may become a new Thanksgiving tradition for our family. :)

Fire Fighters??? TBD

After Halloween, I love shopping for discounted costumes. That is how the girls have gotten most of their dress up clothes. Generally I focus on the "princess" selection. This year, however, in an effort to let my girls be exposed to more then just the world of "princesses" I bought these super cute fire man costumes. I thought perhaps the girls could have a lot of fun playing firefighters. Well my idea was a grand success. . . .

For a day. They put their costumes on and played firemen. The next time I caught a glimpse of the fireman costume, it was of the hat which Mabel was using for a bowl. She was playing kitchen. . .not fireman. Oh well, I tried. :)

Professor Pickett

Last month Brett was going through the mail and he came across a flyer for NCTC (North Central Texas College). They are opening a new satellite campus in Parker Square. . .which is about an 8 minute walk from our apartment. Had I been the one checking the mail I'm sure I would have thrown this away with the junk mail. No one in our family is currently looking to attend community college. However, Brett noticed a small notation at the bottom of the flyer announcing that the school was also looking for a few adjunct professors and to check out the website for more info. Being the on top of things, proactive man that he is, he jumped right on it and checked out the website. They happened to have an opening for a biology professor. Brett immediately fixed up and sent in his resume. The following week he got a call inviting him over for an interview. The next day, they offered him a position teaching a biology class and an accompanying lab starting in January. I am really proud of Brett for doing this. He has talked about possibly wanting to teach and now he can see if he really likes it or not. And if he does like it. . he is getting the experience that future employers are looking for. I also thank my Father in Heaven for guiding my husband and our family everyday and providing opportunities like this one.



Good Luck Brett (or should I say Professor)!!!!

WINNER

Over the summer, Sobe Lifewater was having a fun sweepstakes. You could enter everyday and win various prizes. I really only played because you would always win a B1G1 coupon. For some reason CVS was having a lot of Sobe B1G1 deals. . so when I paired the two together, I got a TON of free Sobe. The girls really like it, and I like it and I couldnt not get it for free. Anyway, I entered the sweeps everyday to get all my coupons. One day I played and the screen looked different then usual. I didnt see my "print coupon" button. At first I was irritated. . .where was my free coupon?? Then I actually read what was on the screen and it said "Winner. You have won an Ipod Nano." What? Seriously?!! I decided not to believe it until it came in the mail. . .because I do not win sweeps like this. Well, guess what arrived in the mail the other day. Thats right. My new Ipod nano. Yeah for Sobe. and Yeah for winning. :)