Family Christmas Photo's '09

We had a photo shoot in our living room this year in order to a pic for our Christmas cards! They came out pretty good! This first one is the one we used on the photo cards:

James at age 9.

Looking so grown up too!

Ethan age 7 1/2.

The boys together.

Miss Emmalie age 3 1/2

Mollie age 19 months.
Sisters!Daddy and the girls.

I love this one of Pat and the boy's!

By this point the kids were done with taking pics! This was the only decent one I could get of them all together!

Some silly fun!

Merry Christmas to all!
Love the Kelley's!!

Yummy Christmas Dessert

We made these for the Christmas dinner at our church and they were such a hit we decided to make them again for Christmas Eve! They are even better than they look especially if you like mint and chocolate!!
Here is the link to the recipe from Our Best Bites:

Peppermint Candy Cane Brownies

Have a very Merry Christmas Eve!

Fun in the Snow!

Just some pics of the kids playing in our first major snow storm of the year! It was snowing like crazy so the pics are a little fuzzy (not warm and fuzzy though).
I snapped this one of Emmy as soon as she tossed some snow into her face... the look was one of surprise I think!!!

The boys worked really hard to shovel the driveway... just kidding!
I think they were making roads. Here is Ethan in action.

Go for it James! I love how the snow is piling up on his head! It was really snowing hard!!

Emmy didn't have a shovel so she wasn't much help, but she was happy!

Watch out sis!!

Catching snow flakes???

Eating snow is the kids favorite thing to do while out in the white stuff! They could just sit there forever munching away!

More munching...

James wanted me to take this action photo of him throwing snow!

A cute one of the boys!

Even more munching...

...and more, and more, and more!

Snow goatee or Santa???

LOVE the tongue Em!

Snow Day Breakfast

Just when you think the white stuff is never going to come... you wake up to a winter wonderland! Today was one of those days! This is only our second snow storm of the year and the first was on a Saturday night into Sunday which meant no frolicking in the snow when the kids woke up... we had to get ready for church!

So today we decided to make a fun snow day breakfast! I thought snow flake pancakes would be just right, here is how we made them:

We started with our favorite pancake recipe. Then using a quart size resealable bag opened it up and placed one corner into a tall glass.

Then we filled the baggie with the pancake batter and sealed it up. Next snip a small piece of corner off of the bag, and I repeat small... starting small and then snipping a little more is better than snipping too much and having your batter run out all over the place! This baggie method also works great for chocolate drizzle and frosting!!

Then be creative and make snowflakes!

Dusting them with powdered sugar for the full effect is a must!!!

Snowmen are fun too!

James even made a reindeer! I thought it came out so good!!!

First Snow Camera Fun

We woke up to snow on Sunday morning! I was feeling like I really didn't care if the snow came this year but then seeing it covering everything and making the world look so beautiful and fresh I changed my mind =;) I had to snap a few pics with Bill's camera (my father in law let me borrow his Nikon D50 while taking my camera class!)

I love how the snow clings to all the branches! It won't last long with blue sky like that!

We only got a few inches but it was enough to cover everything!

We learned about how clouds add interest to your pics, I thought these clouds were interesting... how about you???

These are actually out of order, if you can tell by the light in the next two it was earlier in the morning when I snapped these.

Oops... deck furniture in the snow!!!

Homegrown Explorers Thanksgiving '09

This year was our 5th homeschool group Thanksgiving! We had lots of fun making food and crafts and then the best part...eating! Here are some pic's from our day:

We made these super cute paper pumpkins! Thanks Cindy A. for setting this up! You can find the directions online here and see them again here.

Here is Danyelle and James with their pumpkin crafts!

More crafting!
James with his pumpkin!

Emmy and Chandler with their pumpkins, Emmy's is now more like a gourd!!!

I didn't get any pic's of preparing the food =-( but here are some of EATING it!
Can you see what Ethan is reaching for??? His favorite Thanksgiving treat!!

James and Danyelle enjoying their meal! We used the pumpkin craft as their place markers!

Emmy and Hannah! Emmy went back 3 or 4 times for more turkey! Auntie Sarah and Uncle Zack calling her "Turkey" must have rubbed off on her!

Smile girls!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!!!