Holidays

We've had good days here... busy of course, but full of family time. My parents have been here for a week and a half and will be here until Monday--we are loving every minute. We had a nice Christmas Day here at our house with Jim's dad, Jim's grandma and our neighbors. Then on the weekend we went out to Jim's dad's to be with all of his family. Now we are recuperating! Auntie Marilyn came for the night last night and we are expecting company on Thursday night through Saturday night... Some of us have colds, Reese had serious dental work done, and we have a crazy busy week next week (so, what am I doing on the computer???).

What happens when we leave the kids alone with Opa and Oma!

Carsten posing and requesting a picture--he then runs over the camera to see the picture.

Opa and Reese building...

We had to have a superhero for lunch!

Grandma Erma

Papa and Reese

Jim and JoAnn at lunch on Christmas Day.

Our gluten-free gingerbread house--good thing too because Reese kept gnawing on the corners of the roof!

Oma, Carsten, and the resident knight.

Some Catching Up...

We have snow! The boys wanted to go out immediately following breakfast this morning...

Papa came over on Saturday and the boys (mostly Reese) made some gifts with Papa's help. Reese helped cut out the wood and then sand it... Carsten mainly made faces at the dust blowing in his face and he was not pleased with all the noise...

We went to eat at a restaurant and the kids got meals with toys. I love this restaurant's toys because they are actually useful and pretty neat. This day's toy was locally made play dough with a cookie cutter. In the car on the way home Reese asked me if it had wheat in it... whoops. We came home and googled gluten free play dough--voila! We'd be lost without the internet folks...

Gingerbread... 'tis the season

Gingerbread sounded really good today so I googled gluten free gingerbread men... I found one that we had the ingredients for (and had Jim stop at the store on the way home for more ingredients). They turned out really great! Reese enjoyed helping make, mix, roll, cut-out, and decorate the men and Carsten helped daddy decorate a few. The recipe is here. We didn't have corn syrup so we substituted molasses and agave nectar instead (idea I stole from another recipe--I'm not that smart).
We aren't suffering without wheat over here, oh, and you must decorate gingerbread men in your underwear for them to be just right!

Odds and Ends...

Our two boys have this thing of jumping to the table as soon as it is set. We can not set it a minute early or they sit there for the half hour, hour, whatever... Thanksgiving was no different--they sat there for 20 minutes or so... These are from Thanksgiving at Opa and Oma's house.

Oma lets her two grandsons do just about anything they desire. This night's desire was to fill the sink to the brim and then play in it. She allowed all the soap they wanted and water seriously to the top of the sink... pure joy!