Hippity Hoppity Easter's on its Way!

Yup, Easter is around the corner and the kids (me) are really having fun prepping for the holiday. To date there are 2 batches of sugar cookies mixed, rolled and frosted and put onto plates ready for brunch. For the record, frosting butterflies is pretty dumb. Jeff will tell you the best part about these two batches of cookies is that he didn't have to do one little thing... not even the dishes... he owes me. I baked the cookies while the kids were napping and when they woke up, they were more than excited to see them laid out on the table. Kale was given a butterfly with no frosting and gobbled it down, I guess he liked it so much he decided to try a bite out of a bunny, tulip and egg. But just a bite mind you.

He's the new cookie monster in town.

She didn't want to miss out on an opportunity to lay on the table and take a picture.

The kids have really been pushing me lately with their sibling rivalry and Haley has been especially fantastic with the behavior. You might notice in a few of the upcoming pictures of Kale he has a great big scratch across his left cheek. That would be his sister's revenge for him not sharing a block. After she did this I made a phone call to the Easter Bunny (who works surprisingly like Santa). It went something like this: "Hello Easter Bunny? This is Mommy. How are you? Are you getting ready for your big night? Oh great! Well I just wanted to let you know that you don't need to bring Haley her pretty dress, any candy or presents. Yeah, she hasn't been nice to her brother lately so you can just bring Kale's stuff and that would be fine. Thanks. Yup, you have a good Easter too. Bye!" She freaked, but has been a little nicer to her brother. She'll still get her basket, but desperate times call for desperate measures and when you have a three year old and an almost two year old, it's survival mode.

Then there's the main event of Easter (besides church on Sunday I guess). Dying eggs. This is Haley's 2nd year and Kale's first year. You can tell that the extra year of experience has really paid off for Haley.

I feel like I need to preface this whole situation by taking you back about 15 years to the first year I ever dyed eggs with Jeff's family. Jeff's mom was so wonderful to make me my own dozen of eggs and I really love my eggs to be beautiful and bright and just colors. Don't draw on my eggs, don't try to get all creative, they should just look like perfect one color Easter eggs. So I have my own eggs and I make a quick run to the ladies room, while I was in there Jeff took out one of my eggs and colored on it - I don't even remember what he wrote, but he ruined my entire dozen eggs with that one little coloring and I cried. I will never, ever, ever live this down.

So I told you that, to tell you this: I'm kind of particular when it comes to dying eggs in my own home and in trying to be a good mom, I'm trying not to pass this neurosis down to my kids. I really had to let go and let them be messy and put one egg into many different colors and just let them turn out as strange as they want them to be. This was no easy task for me, but I think it turned out fine and the kids had a great time.

The before picture with the white eggs that Kale is happily grabbing from any carton and throwing primarily into orange and yellow. We decided to do this on the kitchen floor and just threw an old sheet down (I couldn't find any newspaper and honestly, the thought of sitting on the newspaper was yucky to me).

See? Orange and Yellow. You can't see them all but there are three eggs in orange and five, yes FIVE eggs in the yellow. Three quarters of his eggs in those two colors (just let it go Mommy, let it go).

Haley didn't mind reaching in with her hands to pull the eggs out. This proved easier with the hands than with spoons, the spoons made the mugs too tippy.

Kale showing me his hand, not quite as yucky, but getting there.

Pulling one of three out of the orange, and still marinating the yellow.

This is the aftermath. Messy, and will probably be stained forever but it's pretty much just used for a dog sheet on our bed, or a picnic blanket in the backyard. Also, at one point when Kale was rough handling the eggs he picked one up and threw it at Haley, the sound of it cracking as it bounced off her head was a sound we couldn't help but laugh at (as we told Kale not to throw eggs at his sister).

More aftermath, and a painted leg.

Haley showing off her eggs. Now, after that whole story above, Haley's eggs are gorgeous. For the work of a three year old, I'll definitely take it. I can't help but look forward to years ahead when she wants to get creative to make beautiful eggs with rubber bands and marble paint, and glitter and who knows what else "they" and she will come up with.

Kale showing off his eggs. He's pretty proud. I don't think any of them came out with less than a few cracks, some were completely trashed and chunked up.

The finished products side by side. I don't feel like it's necessary to tell you who's dozen is who's.

Kale's name egg.

Not that you can tell, but Haley's name egg.

So I guess that's Easter for now around here. There will definitely be pictures to follow of them in their Easter outfits and likely of our brunch at friend's house Sunday morning.

Our December & Christmas

I told you I would add more about Christmas later, well later is finally upon us. This year Jeff and I made the decision to stay out here in Colorado and enjoy (for the first time in 6 Christmases) waking up in our house, just our family. Let me tell you, it was great! Just as we hoped it would be. The kids (and by kids, I mean all four of us) were allowed to hang out and play with all of our presents, we had no where to go, and nothing to do. In fact, we stayed in our new Christmas Jammies all day long! A really nice, family centered Christmas celebration. In the spirit of just enjoying Christmas morning we didn't take a whole ton of pictures and rather just lived in the moment, so for this post, I decided to tell you all about the month of December in the Roberson house, and not just Christmas Day.

This is Atlas giving you an editorial picture of how drastically his life has changed in the past 6 years (most of the time he doesn't look so much like we need to talk him down off the ledge, this is just a moment for him). Where once he had blankets and beds to cuddle up on (and hump) anytime he wanted, he now must find room on the floor amongst the crayons, sippy cups and kids' blankets.

My "helpful" cookie helpers. We needed to make a batch of cookies for Jeff's Det's Kids Holiday party and they wanted so bad to be my sous chefs (or whatever you call an assistant pastry chef). The looks on their faces will give you exactly an idea of how helpful they were. While the recipe does not call for any nuts, you can see we had plenty on hand.

In case all of the blue stuff, and dinosaur pajamas in this picture weren't enough, Kale proves to us daily that he is made of slugs, snails and puppy dog tails every time he looks out his front window. He is beyond excited to show us all of the bulldozers, front loaders, concrete trucks and other construction equipment that visits our ever growing block. It'll be a sad day (very soon) for him when all of this stops, we only have a couple of houses with exterior finishing left, but hopefully spring and warmer weather comes soon so we can walk around and see what's happening on other blocks.

In the middle of the month our little man had a bout of the sicks and was up at 10:00 one night with bowls. Kids or not, I don't have to tell you what that means. He and Jeff each had their "Ats" and were bonking each other in their makeshift helmets, part delirium, part the fact that he just likes to head butt things, this was great entertainment for our sick little man.

This year I thought I would go cookie crazy and made batches of Chocolate Crinkles (that came out flat... WTF?!), Gingerbread (yeah, when the recipe calls for you to grease the cookie sheet, you should listen, Betty Crocker knows her shit), and a quadruple batch of sugar cookies. These are my ever present cookie helpers and also my dual 30 pound weights. This right here is why I work out - this is what I have to keep up with.

I got about 2 cans of frosting into the batch and said SCREW IT! We ate what we had frosted and I didn't pass a one out and I don't feel a bit guilty about it (except when I look in my dining room and see the 4 gallon size bags of unfrosted cookies... I bought 3 cans of frosting today at the commissary). Anyway, Haley came in to help me sprinkle, this year was a little rough, she had a difficult time keeping the top of the sprinkles off of the frosting, but by next year, she will be good to go and will officially have her position as the 5th generation of sugar cookie makers.

Haley in her Christmas Jammies right before bed in front of the tree. Kale was a lot tired by this time so we didn't get him in front of the tree (where he wasn't melting down).

Here is Kale's picture in front of the tree, no more presents left and you can't really tell that the lights are on, but he is happy and has his "MoMo" (his name for anyone that resides on Sesame Street).

Daddy was helping us make Kale smile for his pictures and decided to jump in the picture with him, which led Atlas to jump in too. My favorite part of this picture is Atlas' tongue about to clean Kale's face in one fail swoop.

Haley was beyond excited to see that Santa had come through with her Strawberry Shortcake Berry Cafe, he also left her a letter in return, ate the cookies, drank the milk, and fed the carrots to the reindeer (BTW, she was VERY perturbed that they were messy reindeer and spit a bunch of their carrots all over the snow in the front yard... I mean really!).

The Dude-a-Man in his Cozy Coupe, a.k.a The Drive In Movie Theatre, and the one thing he doesn't HAVE to share with his sister (which makes her want in it even more). He LOVES it, and lives in it.

Enjoying driving his cozy coupe. For the most part he is a pretty happy driver.

But sometimes he gets cut off, and he gets a little angry. I don't know if an 18 month old could utter the letters W-T-F, but the picture definitely says that.

So that's our past month and closes out our 2009. January and 2010 has already been an adventure (at least for Jeff) and maybe (for once), I'll get him to post some stuff on this blog and tell you about his trip to Tokyo, Japan. A belated Merry Christmas to you and we hope 2010 is good to you!

"Schnow-Man" Cookies!

Lately Haley's taken a real interest in what's going on in the kitchen (perhaps because it's right off the family room, or because we as a family spend so much time in there), so my last trip to the commissary I saw these "Schnow-Man" cookies and knew she would get a kick out of them (they were also my back up plan in case we didn't have real sugar cookies for Santa). We finally got to them this weekend and she LOVED helping mommy make cookies.

Helping me put the cookies onto the cookie sheet.

Getting caught "sampling" the unfinished product. She was quality control.

Are they done yet?

8-10 minutes is a long time to wait when you're almost 2!

Still baking (she had lost interest by now).

Eating the cookies of our labor!

The finished "Schnow-Man!" cookies.

It was a great time, and the perfect project for her attention span. I hope that one day she enjoys being in the kitchen helping me bake bigger projects (like cupcakes for her birthday party this weekend).

It's begining to look a lot like Christmas!

So now that the Roberson's are no longer homeless we are finally in the Christmas spirit (if only it would warm up enough to put up Christmas lights). It's taken me a little while to get the house unpacked and there are still some odds and ends left (like the entire office, but that's not my fault - they still haven't found the parts to assemble our desk). Anyway, we've been busy and here are the pictures of what we've been up to.

This is the Christmas tree. One of the things that I was most excited about with the new house was the size possibilities for a tree. I knew the moment we toured the model exactly where I would put one up and now, here it is, finally in our house. It measures about 12 feet tall and is an Oregonian Noble Fir. This is the finished product, you'll see more of it below.

Here's Kale and Atlas, the reason Atlas is looking at Kale's rear is because he just exploded from that general region. This is the last picture of Kale for the day because he completely soaked his outfit with poo and we needed to take an emergency shower to clean the kid up. I think Atlas is both perturbed and disgusted. He also won't go near the kid anymore (do you blame him?).


Our super happy dude-man on the stairs. He is so willing to smile for anyone, this is one happy little guy!

From a happy little guy to our beautiful princess, there was no staging involved in this picture, just a lucky shot. Isn't she gorgeous?

I asked her to sit pretty with her hands and legs folded. I think this is so the "My mom made me take this" picture.

This is my new favorite picture of Haley, it just shows her tenacious personality perfectly. The reason we had the kids all dressed up was that we were on our way to go see Santa that afternoon. The moment we sat Kale in his lap and I went behind the camera and said "Hi Dude-Man, he just lit up and smiled. Haley on the other hand was going to have nothing to do with the fat man in the red suit and her picture is her in an amazing tantrum mode. Definitely a moment to remember.

What's the holidays with out a bit of alcohol and a whole lot of friends (or is it the other way around)? Anyway, Jeff has found a home brew supply store and is off and running in the new house. He's decided to revisit his first brew of nearly 2 years ago and is re-doing the Beltian White (No, not a Belgian). He also decided that he needed a partner in crime for this batch and invited Norm over to help out. Norm's wife Mandy and their kids came over also and helped us to decorate our HUGE tree, she chased me and a 6 foot ladder around and around the tree with 1000 lights.

Santa brought Kale a present at Jeff's Det Christmas Party. I think he could have cared less about what the present was, but that bow was SOOO cool!

Back to the Christmas tree... this is what it looked like in front of Lowe's as we prepared to take it home with us.

For Jeff's Det's Christmas party we, of course, were signed up for Sugar cookies. We let Haley decorate her own cookies, the left one is a Christmas tree with LOTS of balls on it and the right one is a Snowman (one of her favorite things this holiday season). She will be the 4th generation of sugar cookie bakers, we have a bit more training to instill before she's ready to be an "approved sprinkler".