Gingerbread House Fun!

This morning we had a playdate with friends to decorate gingerbread houses and had so much fun. This year I decided to bump it up a notch and graduate from graham crackers on little milk cartons to real gingerbread. I have always been fascinated with house these things are put together and thought I’d give it a try. The recipe for the dough is very simple, but the construction of the house was a little more difficult. I printed the recipe, templates and instructions from The Ultimate Gingerbread site.

Aaron with his friends Ian and Isabella. They couldn’t (and didn’t) wait to start eating pieces of their houses.

I glued the gingerbread pieces together with sugar glue, which is just a cup of sugar melted over medium low heat. I’m glad I took the advice I read and had a bowl of ice water nearby in the inevitable case that a beginner gets blazing hot melted sugar on her finger. Ouch! It dries very quickly and made the houses very sturdy.

I passed on making my own icing and just bought cans of white cake frosting from the store. It dries hard and works great!

The gingerbread creator with his creation. So glad we are starting this tradition! I hope it continues each year and we can make our houses more and more elaborate.

Halloween Fun

 

The cutest pumpkin on the block! I took the picture at the end of a yawn, so it looks like he’s smiling. Sweet baby Lance!

A few years ago my mom (Grandma Terri) found a t-shirt that said “Fairy Grandmother”….and it just grew from there. She gets dressed up every year and has magic wand that the kids use to make presents appear. The last time Aaron got to witness Fairy Grandmother in person was when he was one. Since then it’s had to be sent through the mail. But, thanks to Lance’s timely arrival and my mom visiting now, Aaron got to have a visit from the Fairy Grandmother in person and he loved it. And, yes, my mother walked about trick-or-treating like this…

The twins enjoyed their gifts, but didn’t want to get too close to the Fairy Grandmother. They hung back with daddy.

Fairy Grandmother and Pirate Aaron ready to haul some booty!

Notice how neither of them wants to make eye contact! Eric was especially wary.

Aaron trick-or-treating with our friends and neighbors Madeline and James. They were so excited they were sprinting from house to house.

Welcome Baby Lance!

Lance Arthur Geesaman

October 25, 2011 7:11 pm

9 lbs, 11 oz, 22 inches long

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This week in pictures

 

Daddy and the boys practicing their swing on Saturday morning.

Grant out for an evening stroll in his PJs.

Aaron posing with a baby lizard, which lives with his mommy in our front bushes. I don’t think he was trying to eat it, but you never know!

School time at the Geesamans and Aaron doing his favorite subject, math.

He looks sweet and innocent, but he’s just waiting for me to turn my back so he can eat that crayon!

 

On Saturday it rained enough for the first time in months to make the ever popular puddle in the culdesac.

It only took the babies about five minutes before they were face down in it taking a drink. ICK!

I thought I’d better get some belly shots while I still can!

36 weeks!!!

Aaron is SO excited to take this picture…and to get the cookie I bribed him with to sit and take it.

Baby Lance’s Rooset

Doesn’t a rooset sound so much better than my baby’s room is a closet? I felt a little weird about putting the new baby in the closet at first, but soon heard of many others who have done the same thing. Our other choices were to put the crib in our room, but I’m such a light sleeper and frankly I don’t want to be kept out of what little sleep I’ll be getting by every peep and squeak that newborns make. The other choice was to give up the guest room, but with all of our family visiting from Illinois at one time or another, it’s a good thing to have. So, in the closet…I mean rooset he goes. The biggest question was, “Where are we going to put our clothes?” and we finally decided to hang two closet rods (high and low) in the linen closet that is in our bathroom. The other clothes we aren’t wearing now, or don’t wear often went in the guest room closet.

So, once the room was cleared, it was time for the fun to begin! I’ve loved working on each one of my boys’ rooms. I wasn’t quite sure what direction I was going to go until my neighbor, Melissa, threw a baby shower for me last weekend. She hung the “It’s a Boy” banner you see at the shower and gave it to me afterwards and I loved the blue and brown colors. Also, my friend, Deborah gave me a gift in the blue basket you see in the picture and we already had dark brown furniture going in, so it all worked!

Most everything in the room are things we already had. The “changing table” is the Expidit shelving I’m in love with from IKEA. The boxes in the top left corner are diaper boxes that I taped 12x12 scrapbooking paper around for extra storage. But, fyi, the boxes right above the crib are empty just in case there is an earthquake in central Texas, we don’t want heavy things falling on a sleeping baby. I know, a little extreme, but it made me and my safety conscious husband feel better.

The tables are the end tables that go with our bedroom furniture and have only been holding alarm clocks for the past three years. They are much more useful in here for now, but now our alarm clocks are sitting on plastic storage tubs…

My favorite part is the homemade art that the boys and I worked on this week. The bottom right one was done completely by Aaron and says “Lance is 12”. …Okay... I’m looking forward to adding Lances’ little paw print to the picture soon! And, Aaron wanted to make sure that I included that the bear is Eric, the monkey is Grant, Aaron is the dog and the Turtle is Lance.

These boxes are actually filled with diaper graciously given to me by my wonderful mommy and church friends!! And, our other nightstand serving as a dresser for now and cute little baby clothes waiting to be filled by a chubby little boy!

4 weeks or so to go!

This Month in Pictures

Well, it’s not surprising. My “This week in pictures” has turned into “This month in pictures”. What have I been doing all this time!? We’ve kept up with about two hours  (recess included) of pre-K school three to four days a week. Aaron is learning more and more sight words, slowly easing in phonics (actually he hates it), loving math and we read together a lot. Aaron is still very into baseball. He and daddy have been practicing his swing in the backyard most evenings while I get a little rest time. He has recently discovered that there is this other sport that has lots of numbers called…football! He’s currently learning all the teams for that sport as well. Eric and Grant are 19 months old and it shows. They are everywhere, into everything and every toy that one has the other immediately wants. But, they are also starting to play with each other more and I inadvertently trained them to give the other one the milk cup first (I give Eric milk, and he gives it to Grant, vice versa, it’s so cute!). And, oh yeah, we’re going to have another baby in about 6 weeks! Lance Arthur will be joining the family soon and our little routine will be thrown asunder. But, I’m looking forward to snuggling another chunky little baby soon!

And, since it’s officially the hottest summer in Texas history and I look like I swallowed a basketball, we spend a lot of time inside during the day, but as soon as dinner is over the boys head out to tear up the backyard. We can water our lawns on Wednesdays and Saturdays, so that has become our water play evenings. We usually finish them up with me making some frozen strawberry lemonades or as Aaron calls it “the yummy drink!”. We’ve actually had a fairly relaxed and homey summer, looking forward to the next chapter with cooler weather and another member of the family!

Enjoy the pictures of our August 2011!!

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This is the day

Each morning wakes anew, I walk downstairs ready to attack a new day and this is the first thing I see. A big smudged sliding glass window highlighted by the rising sun. I’ll admit that many days my initial reaction is “Blurg…why do I even bother to clean it the every two weeks I do? It just ends up smudged again in about two minutes.” But, today I was overwhelmed with thankfulness for the little boy hands that smudge it over and over. Even the almost 5 year old one that can reach the handle instead of pushing the glass to open the door.

Thank you, Lord, for little hands that make smudges! One day the smudges will be gone, but so will the little hands.

This is the the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it!

Psalm 118:24