Day 13

Day 13 was delivering teacher gifts!  The boys loved helping to put them all together and were even more excited to hand them out!

Have I mentioned how much I love the boys' teachers this year?? They are fabulous, and they deserve a thousand goodies as far as I am concerned!!

Day 12

Well, I have two sick boys at home now.  Luke is on the quick mend, and Logan came down with a cold (we already had him checked for possible pneumonia). So, we used the excuse today to do our Gingerbread House! This was the perfect indoor distraction to lift their spirits and keep us all from going crazy!

Maybe next year I will try actually designing and baking my own house pieces.  This year, we will stick with the pre-made! Again, not fair that The Cake Boss does the one for the box!  I think they should take the final picture of what my kids produce and put that on the box.  It is a bit more realistic!

This one was a bit easier than the Halloween house we did!

The boys are really determined to use every piece of candy!  Waste not, want not!

Delirious from drugs and icing!

Ta-da! 

Happy Gingerbread House making!!

 

Day 11

Today was delivery of goodies to our neighbors!! Luke is doing much better after much rest and some super potent antibiotics!  I would not let him help in the food making process,  but he was happy to be able to help deliver! 

Day 10

Day 10 was all about Santa!! 

I am pleased to announce that after 6 years, we finally have reached a point where Lyndon nor I have to be in the picture with Santa!!

The boys got to put their names on the "Good" list!  We still have a couple of weeks to go, so we will see if it remains there!

Day 9

Christmas goodies for the neighbors was the activity for the day!! We started with peppermint bark.

Luke really wanted to help, but seeing that he is still sickly, I would not allow him to touch the food.  I found another very important job for him.  He was pretty happy to be able to hit something!

We made some milk chocolate and white chocolate this year!!

We also made some sweet sugar cookies!

I bought this cookie roller last year, and I have been so excited to try it out!  Easiest way yet to cut out cookies!

AND, Zelk the Elf has been full of surprises...

...I guess they don't have swimming pools in the North Pole!  Our tub worked just fine for him!

Day 8

Day 8 did not go as planned!  I had intended to work on cookies for our neighbors, but Luke had a really rough day that ended in the ER.  So, we scrapped our cookie plans and opted for yet another round of doctors, x-rays and IV's.  I included this in our 25 days because it is another reminder to be grateful for the medical community especially this time of the year when little coughs become big complications.  This experience could have been so much worse, so I am happy that a case of pneumonia is all we are dealing with.  I am by no means minimizing pneumonia, but this is the third time this year that we have had one of our two boys in a hospital of some kind.  I have seen many children in those facilities that are facing some very serious injuries or illnesses, and I am reminded every time that we are blessed.  Granted we are there for a reason, nothing my kids have faced touches what some other children are facing.  So, for day 8 we are simply grateful for health, insurance, doctors and nurses, child life specialists and my fabulous husband who is always right there with me! 

Day 7

Tonight I dressed up the boys to take some pics for Christmas cards!  I am very happy with the pics, and I have chosen one to go on our cards!  The pics below were some I played around with on my computer.  I have a great program that changes the pics to black and white and allows me to play with saturation and such.  I love the end product.  I decided to use a color pic for our card, but I may have to frame these for the house!