Happy Hippie Day

Benny had his first "Hippie Day" on Friday. He has no idea what a "hippie" is. That is why I was able to get away with having him wear this crazy wig with a blue head band. Some how it all kind of worked.

Happy Hippie Day!

Our Gingerbread Temple

Every year on Christmas Eve we make a gingerbread house from a kit. This year while we were hanging out at Costco (one of our family's favorite past times) we saw this ENORMOUS gingerbread house that you could buy at the typical Costco price of about $100. I said to my family, "I bet we could make that ourselves at home". This then started the talk of all the different cool gingerbread houses we could make. Which then lead us to the idea of building a gingerbread temple.

As soon as that was said, I could see Ray's eyes light up with ideas.

Once we got home plans were drawn (Ray's plans are in the middle, Benny's are in red, and Hannah's is on the left),

and the model was built.

Avril was hopped up on sugar before we even started!

We found a great recipe online for gingerbread dough, then cut it out according to Ray's model.

Then we got to the fun part of decorating!

We all had our own areas to decorate.

Benny and Hannah's side




Hannah's goldfish pond

Benny's Missionaries

Aww, Ray made a gingerbread family in a garden. haha

The front was mainly decorated by Ray and I with Will and Avril squirting/eating the icing

Ok, so we we took more pictures of this thing than some of our children at birth!

Our gingerbread temple just before we ate it!

My Lovey...

A few months ago as Ray was leaving for work, instead of the normal "I love you" we say everyday he said, "Ok Sara, Lovey" in a very Thurston Howell the third sort of way. We both cracked up for a minute before he was on his way.

Then later that day I got a text from Ray ending with, "Bye, Lovey" I laughed again at how silly that was.

Over the next few days, we kept saying it with a laugh.

Then we just started saying it.

And that is how we somehow replaced "I love you" with "Lovey".

I will post later on how we ended up looking like we were on "Little House on the Prairie"

ST. Patricks Day

ST. Patrick's Day is taken very seriously around here.

It's a day where wearing over sized hats, and pins claiming to be Irish is normal.

Benny and Will planned this surprise under their hats for days.

But the one thing that matters most is the Leprechaun trap.

(photo of the Leprechaun trap for 2009)

Each year the process for the perfect Leprechaun trap starts weeks in advance. Plans are drawn, talked about over dinner, changes are made to the plans and so on. Each year the Leprechauns make it into our house, turn the milk green, knock over a few things, and knocks the Leprechaun's trap over. Last year Benny vowed that enough was enough and the year 2010 would be the year he actually caught those sneaky Leprechauns!

Did he succeed?

Well, let's just say that there is a Leprechaun running around in only his underwear!

The trap caught the Leprechaun by the clothes and the only way for him to free himself was to crawl out of them. hee hee

After seeing the Leprechaun clothes Hannah said, "I thought that they were a lot smaller than that!"