Christmas Cookies and Breaking Bones

A few days before Christmas we had some Jacobs cousins over to decorate Christmas cookies for Santa.  My mom always made gingerbread cookies and sugar cookies, so that's what my kids and I made.  When the other Jacobs family came over, we mixed up a few different colors of icing, gathered up whatever sprinkles we had, and let the kids go to work.  

All five Jacobs kids decorating

More decorating

Hunter in his undies. . . per usual

Tralee working on a cookie

Jovie. . . before she broke her arm (story below)

Oakley

Anson

Hunter was more excited to eat the sprinkles than to decorate with them

A BEAUTIFUL creation.  I think this one was either Hunter's, Tralee's, or Oakley's.  

Hunter slurping up the icing.  That boy.  There are no words to describe the crazy things he does, gets into, or messes up.  Well, there are words I could use, but most of them aren't appropriate to say around children.  I love him all the more for it.

After dinner, eating our weight in sugar, and visiting a bit, something quite eventful happened.  I was wiping up sprinkles and visiting with Audie, Jim just got home from work, and was about to eat his  reheated dinner, and the kids were running around.  Whilst said kids were running around, Jovie's foot got stuck in the handle part of Hunter's hippity hop, and she tripped.  The arm she used to catch her fall snapped.  I mean it LITERALLY snapped.  We all heard the bone break.  Poor Joves shouted in pain, and Jim ran to the rescue saying, "Don't worry, I know what to do."  Can I just say how glad I am that Jim is EMT trained!  He never took the test to get certified, but he took the course, and all the info he learned through the program stuck, THANKFULLY, because I'm not so sure Audie and I would have known what to do.  Jim remained calm, took care of Jovie, wrapped and harnessed her arm the best he could with one of my scarves (I tried to help by running to grab things for Jim), while Audie got the rest of her kids ready for a trip to the ER.

To sum up the rest of the story, our night of fun and games came to an abrupt end after the bone-breakage.  Jim and Tralee followed Audie and and her kids to the hospital where they met Jared (he was working that night as well).  Tralee helped out by pushing Jovie in the wheelchair at the hospital, and once Jim made sure Jovie was all checked in, and her family was settled (as settled as can be at the hospital) he and Tralee came home.

We've hung out with the other Jacobs family since this incident, and Jovie has a nice green cast on her arm.  Also, while hanging out, everyone managed to keep their bones together, and injuries were at a minimum.  There probably won't be a Christmas cookie decorating night as eventful as this one.  At least, I hope there won't be.  

Even with the bone breakage, the cookies were delicious -- the gingerbread ones especially.  Santa definitely approved, and probably sent an extra lil' something Jovie's way for breaking an arm while decorating his cookies.  I mean, who would have thought doing such an easy and festive activity would result in such an injury?  The night was memorable for sure.

Sunshine Printables

So, a while back I made a set of three sunshine printables.  I removed them from my Etsy shop a few months ago, and meant to update them.  There were some parts of them that always bothered me a bit.  Well, as life kept getting in the way, I never got around to updating them, until now.  I've finally given them a color change - to make them a bit more gender neutral -- changed the design a bit, and added one more printable to round the whole set out.  

What do you think?

Want them for your very own?  Go here.

Here is each one a little closer.  My "Leslie Love Prints" watermark won't appear on the copies I email.   You can also choose what size(s) you want.

For more cute printables check out my Etsy shop here.

For **FREE** printables click here.

Have a great day!

iPhone Photo Plop: Pre-Christmas

In an effort to catch up on the blog, I'm getting a bit sloppy with my posts.  Instead of eloquently writing anecdotes of our pre-Christmas festivities, I'm just going to plop some pictures from my phone of our days leading up to Christmas.

Enjoy! 

The day after we put up the tree, I came out in the wee morning hours to find our son sitting under it.  It was magical.  This wasn't the first time I found Hunter in this position admiring the tree.  Melted my heart every time.

Teddy Kidbid Cool made his appearance again this year.

Teddy Kidbid Cool being discovered by Hunter

The next few pictures are from our Church's Christmas Party.  No offense to the guy playing Santa (I'm sure he was a lovely man), but my kids saw right through the costume.  He just didn't have the "shake his belly like a bowlful of jelly" qualities that a Santa needs.  Tralee was like, "I KNOW that Santa was a fake, but I still told him what I wanted, because he's probably friends with the real Santa."

Hunter wasn't quite so sure he wanted to go sit on this strangers lap.

As his mother, I can tell from this picture, and Hunter's stance in it, that he can't wait to jump down from "Santa's" lap.

Tralee and the fake Santa

Hunter singing at our church's Christmas party. . . with his hands down his pants.  Lovely.

Teddy Kidbid and Sparks getting to know each other.

Hunter making a mess right after I cleaned. . . typical.

The next few pics are from Tralee's Christmas Party at school.  Hunter and I tagged along, and helped decorate gingerbread houses.  It was fun.

So, the night before Christmas Eve, I tried my hand at making my Great-Grandma Labiszak's Christmas Krantz.  I was nervous, as whenever I work with yeast, the dough bakes completely flat and hard.  Or it tastes WAY too flour-y.  Well guess what?  Not this time!  It turned out perfectly!  I DID have to make a phone call or two to Nana, to be sure I was doing everything right.  I'm so glad she was just a phone call away to help.

I was so proud of myself, I took this picture to send to my Nana.

This one too.

Lastly, the picture below is of Hunter sleeping on Christmas Eve.  He was the first one to have dreams of sugar plums dance in his head.  The rest of us were up for quite a while. . . too excited to sleep.

Next up, Christmas Cookies!  I'm doing it!  I'm getting caught up!  Yippee!

Christmas Decor

Christmas is probably my favorite time of year.  My kids are home with me, we bake and eat yummy food, and spend our days playing games, sipping hot coco, and watching Christmas movies.  It's perfect.  Christmas is also the time of year where I make new crafts, busy myself with anticipation (I usually do this while the kids are still in school), and decorate my house.  Since this was technically our first year in this home for Christmas (we were in HI last year), I wanted some new decor to decorate with, and make our little townhouse feel as festive as if Buddy the Elf were our holiday decorator.  Below are some pictures of decorations.  Again, I realize I'm behind and should have posted these in the midst of all the Christmas excitement, but guess what, good news!  My husband told me in Ireland, they celebrate Christmas-time until January 31st!  So. . . if you think about it, there's actually still almost an entire month left to decorate!  So, there you go.

I decorated this shelf in our entry way with some of my printables found here

   

I made a knock-off PB peace sign to put by or front door.  Later on, I made eight more smaller ones to give to some friends, neighbors, and teachers.  I could have made more, but ran out of supplies.

Pictured above are those mason jar lanterns.  Tutorial here.  I also made the Christmas deer printable, and put in a frame Jim and I made together.

New printable.

Another new printable

So, my new favorite Christmas decoration, is the Grinch Tralee made at school.  I LOVE this thing, and it made me giggly every time I glanced at it.  I kept imagining the Grinch sneaking around our house, attempting to take all of our Christmas-y things.

Last pic of the Grinch and some more decor.  I did some new glittery trees to put in the kitchen, but never got around to taking a picture of them.  Oh well. . . next year.

The End

Thanksgiving

So. . . Christmas has come and gone, the New Year is upon us, and I'm blogging about Thanksgiving.  I'm a little behind, can you tell?  That's me.  I'm either totally together and on track, or completely and disastrously behind.  I'm pretty black and white in most aspects of my life.  My house is either sparkling, or call the producers of Hoarders messy.  I either freak out like there's a nuclear bomb headed directly at my house when my kids spill their beverage, or I'm all Glenda the Good Witch giggly about it.  Anywho. . . this last Thanksgiving I was put in charge of bringing jello and a cheese-and-cracker tray to Jim's Aunt's house.  So, in going with the black and white theme of my life, my options (in my head) were to: 

A.  Bring a package of saltines and a loaf of velvet-a to the gathering with a package of generic pre-made Jello to go with it or 

B.  Go overboard and buy seven different kinds of cheese (one made with cranberries), and three cheese-bearing cracker varieties served on an expensive silver plater that I've only used like once or twice, as well as spend the entire day before Thanksgiving prepping rainbow layered gelatin in individual serving cups.

Guess which extreme I was?  Let the pictures below tell you.

Yeah, I might have gone a little overboard.  That's what I do. . . sometimes.  I either get all Martha Stewart-y, or show up to a potluck with a bag of Doritos.  There's really no happy medium in my life.  My poor children and husband never know what to expect from me.  I guess it keeps things pretty exciting around here.

Below are a few more pictures of our Thanksgiving.  As I mentioned, Jim's Aunt hosted all 20-something members of Jim's extended family.  It was a lovely get together, and thanks to my bountiful contributions (as well as all the other lovely people that made delicious food) there was plenty of yumminess to go around. 

Jim's cousins made these cute turkeys to put at everyone's place at the table(s).

Some of the many many many cousins present.

      The End. 

 If I'm feeling totally with it, maybe I can catch up to Christmas before Valentine's Day!

Valentines Day Cards -- Free Template!!!

Last year my kids and I created some fun animal-themed Valentines for them to take to school and give to their friends.  Tralee and I designed the lay-out (it HAD to be pink, according to her), and the kids picked the animals.  They turned out so darn cute, I thought I would share the template for our creation on here, in case anyone else wanted to give it a go.  I also added a new dinosaur themed Valentines printable, that has various more dino-themed colors.

What you'll need:

1. Printables - download from below

2.  Card-stock (you'll need a hefty paper for this)

3.  Twisty ties (you can get them at any grocery-type store, or be ghetto like me and save them over the year from the bagged bread you buy)

4.  Small toy animals (we bought ours at Michaels.  They're in tubes for like $7.00 each, we used our 50% or 40% off Michaels coupons to purchase them which made it much more affordable.  We bought the Zoo themed tube, and the Pets tube.  They also have dinosaur tubes, so I created a dino printable as well (see below).  However, I've also seen cheaper animals in bags at party stores, so check those out too.  I have a blank printable, in case you have an animal or animals that I don't have a sound for.

5. Scissors

6. Nail or something else small and sharp (for poking holes)

How To:

1.  Print off the printables you'll be using onto card-stock (regular printer paper WON'T work, it's too flimsy)

2.  Cut out Valentines

3.  Poke holes in each card where you'll lace the twisty tie through.  A hole punch was too big, so I just used a standard nail to poke holes.  I'm sure there's a much more eloquent way I haven't thought of.  If you think of one, please share in the comments.

4.  Attach animal with twisty ties

5.  Have child sign name to back of card. . . .and DONE!

Here are some pictures of last year's finished Valentines to give you an idea of what they looked like:

So, I ran out of twisty ties, and found some rubber bands.  I just cut them, and tied them in the back.  It worked fine.  You can get creative if you want to.  String might also work.  Twisty ties just seemed like the easiest option.

Here's Tralee's handiwork on the back:

So, below are the printable templates.  Use any or all that will work for you.  Just click on the pictures, and they will take you to the download link.  Again, if you don't have the same animals we did last year, or you aren't a fan of what I have them saying, there's a template with blank spaces for you to fill in.  Get creative, have fun, and have a Valentines Day filled with love!  Templates below:

Have a Happy Valentine's Day!

More FREE Valentine's printables here.