Z Good Life

Christmas 2011

First of all, do you know anyone who wants a purebred yellow lab? My sister's dog had 4 blonde and 4 ginger puppies. They're about 5 weeks old. Summer had so much fun loving on them! They're mischievous, cuddly, cute, and chubby. If you want more photos or details, use the "email me" link.

We spent Christmas Eve at my mom's house with my sister and her family. Grandma gave Jay some new clothes and shoes for Christmas, and he didn't waste any time changing into them!

One of our fun traditions is opening new pajamas before bed on Christmas Eve. The kids love it!

On Christmas morning, we always spend the morning together at home. Mom comes over to share Christmas with us, then she heads home to finish up the turkey for our big extended family Christmas dinner. This year Mom hosted. (It rotates from year to year between my 2 aunts and my mom.) We love spending the afternoon and evening with aunties, uncles, great-grandma, and cousins!

(Summer snapped this picture using my phone.)

What's cuter than a little girl in her Christmas finery?! Lily was so excited to wear her Christmas outfit. Plaid taffeta bubble skirt? Yes, please!

I hope you all had a memorable and beautiful Christmas. May God richly bless you and your families in 2012!

decorating treats with grandma

My mom makes graham cracker houses each year for the cousins to decorate. She melts sugar in a skillet, dips the edges of the graham cracker in the molten sugar, and it's like cement when it hardens! The kids can load 'em up with icing and candy without worrying about structural failure. :o)

Left to right: Summer (14), Madie (15), Chase (12), Jay (11), Lily (8), Grammie (45?), and Drew (10)

The most popular decoration is probably Fruit Stripe gum. It makes for a colorful roof! Grandma made extra houses, so Lily spent the entire afternoon decorating two!

Summer came armed with her very own piping bag and tips. No surprise there!

I love the idea of small graham cracker houses. They're the perfect size for decorating -- and eating.

On Christmas Eve, we spent the entire afternoon with my sister's family and my mom. To start out our celebration, we decorated Christmas cookies! Aren't they pretty?

The boys "run out of gas" fairy quickly. They'd rather EAT cookies than DECORATE cookies, after all. We girls decorated to our hearts' content! It's great fun to be creative in using a variety of fun candies and holiday decorations we've collected all year long in anticipation of the annual cookie decorating gala at Grammie's.

december activities

We had a busy month of December, and I snapped a lot of photos with my phone. (Sorry for the poor quality. The shutter speed is agonizingly slow on my Blackberry Torch!)

I attended a ladies only Christmas party. My contribution to the array of appetizers was a holiday cranberry brie en croute. It's basically a brie, cranberries, pecans, and rosemary all wrapped up in puff pastry and baked until golden brown. YUMMY!

Our neighbors hosted a caroling and cookies party. It was great fun to go caroling with many of our neighbors and friends!

Our family went to an ugly sweater Christmas party. Lily won 3rd prize!

Jay learned how to do a back flip 360 on a friend's trampoline. (Yikes!)

 

gingerbread house competition

We like to go see the gingerbread houses at our city's annual competition. There are categories for children of all ages, adults, business and non-profit organizations, and professional baker/caterer. It's so much fun to see the creativity and variety!

This "Gnome Home" was one of my very favorites:

I also liked the lighthouse on this table:



They were all very well done. Summer's favorite was the shoebox and high-heeled strappy sandal made completely of gingerbread and candies! Super cute.

It's a wonderful holiday celebration, but it has gotten to be insanely crowded over the years. I was so pleased to see that they moved the gingerbread tables to another part of the ferry terminal. True, it was still crowded, but it wasn't nearly as bad. Also, we made a point to get there as soon as it opened on Saturday morning. It was less crowded then.

I love the Holiday Port Festival! Way to go, POB!

Z Thanksgiving

Erich's brother and his family hosted Thanksgiving this year. David wanted to deep fry the turkey, so that's what he did! In peanut oil, to be exact!

It was really delicious! The skin gets quite dark brown, but we don't eat the skin so that doesn't matter. It's the inside that counts -- the juiciest turkey I've ever eaten. YUM!

When we have Thanksgiving with Erich's side of the family, we celebrate Lily's, Dana's (niece), and Michele's (sister-in-law) birthdays. Check out the beautiful birthday packages brought over from the island!

Thanks for hosting, David and Michele. It's our turn next year! :o)

halloween

This year, Erich's parents came to our house for Halloween. They alternate between our house and Erich's brother's house every year. We were happy it was our turn. :o) It's our tradition to have pizza, hand out candy, and rave at the costumes of the little children. (Um, and swipe candy from the kids when they get home from trick-or-treating with Erich.) Summer dressed up and helped us hand out candy, but she spent much of the evening working on her biology poster.

Earlier in the week, we carved pumpkins. Jay carved his from an actual photo taken of him doing a trick on his skateboard! Very creative!

A few days before Halloween, Summer baked Halloween cookies. Then she invited the neighbor girls over to decorate them! Lily made a "candy corn" ghost. Cute idea!

 

 

surgery recovery update and pumpkin patch

(Better late than never? Over the next week, I'll be posting some more pictures from October as well as pictures from Lily's birthday party. While I'm typing this little aside, let me update you on what I learned from the surgeon on Friday. It turns out he could not remove my gallbladder with the laparoscope because the organ was inflamed and full of very large stones. He had to make an incision in my abdominal wall, make the incision in my skin larger, then remove the organ that way. Talk about an "Aha!" moment. I didn't know he had to do that! Apparently, an incision to the abdominal muscle makes for a longer, more painful recovery than if I'd had the gallbladder "sucked out" through a tube. The whole idea behind laparoscopic surgery is to AVOID cutting through muscle, but in my case it turned out to be an absolutely necessary evil. I am relieved that it no longer feels like a hot poker stabbing me in the abdomen when I cough, sneeze, laugh, or even breathe. And I am ever so thankful to the friends and family who helped me take care of my family while I was recovering!)

Because of weather issues and scheduling, we didn't get out to the pumpkin patch until the Saturday before Halloween. No worries! There were still literally TONS of pumpkins left, and we practically had the place to ourselves.

The kids got to ride on the tractor train a couple of times. See the puddle in the background? That's actually a pretty deep mud pit. They dug it specially for the tractor to pull the train through! The kids thought it was a scream, and loved it when the driver drove over the top of pumpkins or "circled the wagons" around an unsuspecting observer. Every year, the same guy drives the tractor, and every year, I get a huge kick out of how much he enjoys doing it. He laughs and smiles just as much as the kids do!

(Mommy's little sugar pumpkin)

Unfortunately, the insurance company put the ki-bosh on the pumpkin trebuchet. To quote the tractor driver: "They don't see the humor in pumpkin cannons, pumpkin slingshots, or pumpkin trebuchets." I can understand, but it would have been fun.

Not the greatest self-portrait, but it's hard to do with a Blackberry. I love my mother-in-law. She's one of my best friends! We had a fantastic Halloween weekend together!

 

independence day celebrations

We started our day decorating bikes and wagons for our annual 4th of July neighborhood parade. It's so fun to follow a brass band through the 'hood! Here's a picture of Lily with our new neighbor girls at the park before the parade.

Summer decorated my gardening wagon. Our neighbor, Wiley, pulled 2 wagons and a skateboard behind his cute little miniature Model A car.

When we got back to the park, we had picnics, face painting, old-fashioned games, and live music!

After the party was over, we came home to kick off our annual block party. This year we had a bouncy house, a taco truck, fireworks, AND a live band! It's getting better every year! We finished off our evening by going to another new neighbor's house to watch the Blast Over the Bay. Their backyard overlooks the bay, so we had an incredible view! We are grateful for fun, family, friends (new and old), lovely weather, and fireworks -- but most of all for the *FREEDOM* we enjoy on a daily basis.

happy 4th of july!

A neighbor sent me this picture from 2 years ago. Love it!

We hope you are having a WONDERFUL celebration! Once again, we've blocked off our street and parked a bouncy castle in the middle of it. We also invited the taco truck to come back this year!

Happy Independence Day!!!

mother's day

We went out to my mom's for a barbecue on Mother's Day. It was a great day of visiting, resting, and feeling loved and appreciated!

Thank you for the beautiful flowers, Mom. I know exactly where I'm going to plant them in our yard!

Lily and Elizabeth wore matching dresses and matching hairstyles to Grandma's house. So cute!