It's Pajama Time...

New pajamas... at least for Lauren... we had a silly night!

A little blurry, but cute!

Is this wrong... a cute little 7 year old, in her monkey pajamas, hangin' by the Christmas tree..... holding a gun?  But man do we have fun with them!

Where do I start with this madness???

Well I have come to the admission that I am just not a good house keeper.... there I said it.  My house is a disaster and I can't seem to figure out where it all goes wrong on any given day.  I have been told by Eric numerous times that I can't seem to finish one single task..... I start a million things but yet nothing is done.  My reply is that I am a GREAT multi-tasker.... which really isn't true because I don't seem to be able to finish any of those tasks.  My biggest problem is that I start a project whether it is cleaning a room, going through closets/toys/drawers etc and then I leave that room to get something and while I am away, I always see something ELSE that I didn't get done, so I head over to finish it... and it leads to the next task... by the end of the day, I get back to the original task and am totally annoyed with myself because I have made more work for myself because I am TIRED by this time.

I have never been a fan of New Years resolutions because I think they just set us up for failure... however, I am going to try to come up with a schedule to tackle each room in the house, go through all of the crap, get rid of it or store it in a more useful way... that is the goal.  I get the Better Homes and Gardens emails and they had an idea to de-clutter your home.  So I am taking their advice and picking one BIG room a month and tackle it from head to toe.  I am going to start with my kitchen pantry and junk drawers... they seem to be over flowing with crap... and WHY do I need so many stinkin' canned goods in my pantry... I could feed an army with all of the stuff in there... I don't really know what is in there. 

So this is my goal to myself.... have my house presentable at ALL times that if someone were to drop in, I wouldn't be totally humiliated by what they see.  Don't get me wrong, the house is CLEAN it's just so dang cluttered.  I will be getting the kids involved as well, they are old enough to get the stuff picked up!  Wish me luck.... I am going to show you my pantry now.... and when I get it where I want it...I will show you the finished product.... not that any of you care what my pantry looks like, it will just be a proud moment for me!

Seriously.... who has this much crap in their pantry... there are only 4 people in this household for goodness sake.  I am going to start making meal plans based on what is in here, and get rid of it.  There is a TON of storage in there going to waste on canned goods that I hardly ever use!!  This will feel SOOO good when I am done...  happy organizing to me!

Christmas Day

The girls waiting for Dad, they were very patient.... but bursting with excitement for presents!

Elise finally got her Nintendo DS!

Lauren got one too... that way, no fighting!

A tad bit excited for the nerf gun from Grandma and Grandpa Hubbard

Elise and all of her goods, she quickly packed it all up and took it to her room... just like her Dad.

Lauren's stash

Ahhh, the joy of video games, they are in their own world.  After today, I will be limiting time on the DS.

This is so funny watching Lauren and Eric duke it out on the nerf guns.  I think Eric has had just as much fun as the girls with the guns!

Christmas Dinner

I had the table all set for Christmas dinner!  I used my china for the first time in YEARS!!  It's the set that was my mothers.  I love it!  It's so fun to get out the good place settings, something I should do more often!

I made Shirley Temples for the girls... they loved it!

We brined our first turkey this year.  It's quite a process but it was so good!  We used Roger and Sharon Hubbard's recipe. (see below)   I had to watch a video on how to truss a turkey, 'cuz I had no idea...

http://www.foodnetwork.com/how-to-truss-a-turkey/video/index.html

The final product... so yummy!  It was picture perfect too! 

Brined Roasted Turkey (serves 10-12)

3 cups Morton Kosher Salt

2 cups sugar
Turkey (12-14) lbs., rinsed thoroughly, giblets, neck and tailpiece removed.
1 medium onion, chopped coarse
1 carrot, chopped coarse
1 celery rib, chopped coarse
2 sprigs fresh thyme
1 tablespoon unsalted butter, melted
More butter for basting

 1.  Dissolve salt and sugar in 2 gallons of cold water in stock pot or large bucket.  (I used my cooler and lined it with a garbage bag, I had to use a little bit more water to cover it). Add turkey and refrigerate or set in very cool spot (about 40 degrees-we sat ours outside) for 4-6 hours. *Turkey must be completely covered with water. We had to put a weight on the turkey to keep it from floating.  You can use a brining bag as well.

2.  Remove turkey from water and rinse well under cool running water. Pat dry inside and out with paper towels. Place turkey breast side up on flat wire rack set over rimmed baking sheet and refrigerate, uncovered, 8-24 hours.

3.  Adjust oven rack to lowest position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Toss onion, carrot, celery and thyme and 1 tablespoon butter in medium bowl. Fill cavity with mixture. Tuck wings behind back and truss turkey.

4.  Brush turkey breast with butter, then set turkey breast side down on foil lined V rack sprayed with no stick cooking spray. Brush back of turkey with butter. Pour 1 cup water ing pan. Roast 45 minutes.

5.  Remove roasting pan with turkey from oven, brush back with butter. Using thick wads of paper towels rotate turkey leg/wing side up. If liquid in bottom of roasting pan has evaporated, add ½ cup water. Roast 15 minutes longer.

6.  Remove roasting pan with turkey from oven, brush exposed surfaces with butter. Using thick wads of paper towels rotate turkey second leg/wing side up. If liquid in bottom of roasting pan has evaporated, add ½ cup water. Roast 15 minutes longer.

7.   Remove roasting pan with turkey from oven, brush exposed surfaces with butter. Using thick wads of paper towels rotate turkey breast side up. Roast until thickest part of breast registers 165 degrees and thickest part of thigh registers 170-175 degrees on instant read thermometer 30-45 minutes longer. Move turkey from rack to carving board and let rest about 20-30 minutes. Carve and serve.

(The last time we did this, we did not do the leg/wing rotations. We added the 15 minutes for each of those rotations to the breast side down and breast side up roasting times.)

Christmas Eve~at home

Going to the candle light service at church... my favorite!

The girls worked all day to make these pictures for Santa and his elves.

They worked really hard and when they woke up the Christmas morning, they found candy canes in their rooms with a little bit of Elf dust.  The elves leave dust where ever they go, so they must have been checking on them to make sure they were snug in their bed.

Mmmmm Pecan Pie is ready for tomorrow!  This is my Grandma King's Pecan Pie recipe and it is scrumptious!

Ginger Bread Houses!

Mrs. Moore with Paige, Elise and Ella.  I love this lady!

The first graders all met in the cafeteria to make ginger bread houses.  The kids had a blast and I think they ate at least half of the candy.  I saw so many kids just eating huge dollops of frosting.. and lots of sticky fingers!  It was fun.

My good friend Jescica Freundl and her daughter Natalie.

Caroline and Ella Murphy

Elise's classmate Payton-  such a sweet kiddo.

Dave and Sam Gourley

The finished project.

Horizon had an all-school sing-a-long before they made the ginger bread houses and the teachers surprised the kids with this flash mob dance.  It was great and the kids went WILD as you can hear!  The Principal is Mr. Salmon and he is the one in front on the elf suit.

Christmas in Minnesota~ December 16-18th, 2011

We went up to Minnesota for our family Christmas.  We had our annual Christmas party at my aunt Louise's house in Victoria, MN.

Christmas ornaments from Aunt Mollie... a yearly tradition.

Dad had to try on the Hello Kitty headband!

Lauren is working on her new glow book!

We tried to fancy it up a bit with hot rollers... our first attempt, turned out super cute!

Grandma and Grandpa Divine

Matt, Mollie and Charlie, he had the cutest suspenders on!

It's hard to get a photo with all of the kids... Anthony would have no part of it so we took it without him.

Alexis and Logan Mann, Kaylee Barsness and the Divine kiddos.

Grandma bought all of the kids recorders but Charlie got Moraccas... wish we would've got those.. they are SOOO much quieter!

I had to put these extra photos in because Eric kept trying to hide behind me, we realized that he wore the same shirt last year and it didn't want anyone to really be able to see it in the photo... silly man!

Dave and Louise Barsness, Marcus, Sarah, Kaylee and Anthony Foster, Joe and Melissa Barsness

Kevin, Jenny, Alexis and Logan Mann

This is a great video of Dad and Lauren playing Operation!



You can get a sense of just how "quiet" it is at Louise's house!



I love this video because Charlie would hand Eric a Moracca and Eric would hand it back and then Charlie would hand him another one, and Eric would hand it back... and so on.




Another hand off to Eric! 




This is hilarious- Charlie does this funny walk and it makes me laugh every time.... I love this kid!



Opening gifts.