Candy Friday

I make Christmas candy every year. This year I decided to invite some helpers! I invited all of my Aunts and cousins on the Feyen side. I was amazed when most of them could come! In the morning we had 9 kids (5 and under!), and 7 adults. After lunch a lot of the Moms with kids went home, but we still had 3 kids and 6 Moms. It was such a fun day! We had good conversation and YUMMY candy to snack on ....all day!

Before the candy making started, the kids needed to let out some steam. Here they are playing duck-duck-goose with Aunt Charity...



Having a snack break...

My Grandma and Aunt Judy, dipping away! I put them right to work!!

Sophia, my baker, loves to do whatever Mommy is doing! Here's my little helper dipping candy.

Tim and Sophia played so nicely together in the afternoon!

This is my Mom and her youngest sister, Judy! Good looks runs in the family!! (They need to thank me for not putting in the other pictures that I was threatening to publish!) You're welcome, ladies!

It was a great day! Hopefully we'll make this an annual event.

Oh Christmas Tree, Oh Christmas Tree!

2 days after Thanksgiving (this post is a little late!), we went to KC Trees with most of my family (We missed you Hayden family!) to cut down a Christmas tree. It's such a fun day. Normally there's atleast a foot of snow to stomp thru to try and choose a tree, but this year it was a beautiful, sunny day! A littl dissapointing for pictures, but great for trying to get 3 kids walking in 1 direction! We all started off by getting on the wagon and being driven to the part of the farm that we chose to get a tree from.


When we got off the wagon, the men grabbed saws and we all started our search for the perfect Christmas tree. We've learned from the past to carry tape measures with us! Sometimes our eyes are bigger than our ceilings.....TODD!!

After searching for 10 minutes or so, our family found our tree. It wasn't as big as some of our trees in the past, but it's still between 8-9 feet!

Out came the saw and this year Todd passed down the honor of tree cutting to Madelyn.....for a minute or two anyway!!

It's such a fun thing to do and I'm so glad that I get to share it with 2 of my sisters!

Every so often there would be a giant candy cane...that's where you had to drag your freshly cut tree so that when the wagon came back, they could pick them up all in 1 spot. Luckily no one tried licking the sweet treat!

Once we were done cutting the tree, they took us to the building where we got hot cider and donuts while they shook out our tree to get the dead needles off, drilled a hole in the trunk for our stand and wrapped it in twine for the ride home. This place is full service! This year they also offered a horse-drawn wagon ride thru the woods. The kids, moms, Grandpa and Grandma went for a ride while the Dad's "supervised" the trees.

When we got home, we got right to decorating! Madelyn handed the ornaments to the little kids while Sophia and Eli threw them at the tree to see if they would stick! They didn't We did suffer 3 ornament catasrophies, but all in all they did great! And we had a lot of fun....

Now we just have to make sure that the ornaments STAY on the tree!!

Greg's Birthday

Today is my brother-in-law Greg's birthday. His and his twin brother Scott's! Greg is married to my sister, Lisa and they are expecting baby #4!! I met Greg when I was 14 and very impressionabl. He's taught me sooo many things over the years including how to do Algebra when I was in High School! But more importantly, he introduced me to the very useful saying, "no copa, no stopa!" Thanks, Greg! But seriously, he takes great care of my sister, loves his kids so much and has always been an amazing big brother! I love you, bro! Have a great birthday!



Here's a picture of Greg and I sharing a dance at my wedding..