gingerbread dreams...

I'm so happy to be back to blogging! I've found that there are many reasons why I blog and some posts are for others to read and some are....well, honestly...for my sake and you all get to read my rants about life and my bragging about my little boy:) All that to say that I've missed my blogging routine over Christmas and I've especially missed interacting with all of you!

This Christmas season has been one of the best ever in a very long time! We spread out our celebrating with family over the entire month and we are so thankful for that decision. We had very little stress regarding the holiday and truly enjoyed spending time with all of our family members. For the first time, Joel and I (and Parker, of course) spent most of Christmas day as a family. We opened gifts, read books, ate, took naps and watched Christmas movies. Later in the evening we enjoyed a lovely dinner with some of Joel's extended family. No rushing around at all and the only stress I felt was when I realized that I needed to find homes for all of Parker's new toys...oh my, were people generous! Parker is in heaven with all of his new treasures:)

On Christmas Eve, Kelsey and I decided to construct gingerbread houses out of graham crackers, frosting, and candy. We've never done it before but I think we may have started a tradition! We had grand plans and I really thought that the project would be quite simple. I must preface this to say that Kelsey is a perfectionist and is really very good at most things that she tries. She also will follow a project through until she has everything perfect, pretty, and lovely. I am really not like this and, quite often, it really doesn't work out in my favor--including this occasion! Maybe this is why Kelsey was valedictorian in high school and I.....was not even close:) I also want to say that we may use different materials next year because we had some trouble--even Kelsey!

As Kelsey was constructing a roof for her rancher and landscaping her beautiful yard, I was throwing together my single-wide trailer. I started out with plans to make a cabin but I then realized how hard it was to put a roof together and thought a single-wide would be quite adequate. Here is Kelsey in action and a picture of her cute gingerbread rancher:

I thought she did a nice job. Keep in mind that we couldn't quite keep the walls from falling down because the frosting never dried. I feel like my humble abode was never really given a good chance to survive because I was laughing through most of the process...mostly because this is such a picture of how I operate:) My mom tells me that I should call my insurance company because it appears as though my home has weathered a storm!

Oh, how different siblings can be!