Evergreen

Its Christmas Eve. We had a later start and made our way to Evergreen, a small town in the mountains (a town we thought of moving to once). We took the Radomskys on a tour of Millionaire's Row where the houses are big and stunning.

Lunch was at pizza at Beau Jo's and opted for the pizza buffet which is good because there is usually a selection of the different kinds of pizza. My favorite is the Alfredo chicken pizza but they didn't have any at the buffet this time. We ate our fill and then made our way to the lake. The boys were antsy because they wanted to get out and run on it.

Evergreen Lake, as with each winter, was frozen. Many people come to skate, play ice hockey and to ice-fish on the lake. We had to walk on the outskirts of the makeshift rinks that had been created for the skaters. It was funny to watch Charlie & Aaron as they navigated the ice. They were nervous it was going to crack and they were going to fall through.

This is how Campbell started out. His gloves and coat came off within a few minutes of being on the ice. That child has a furnace burning inside of him!

There were many yelps and little screams coming from Charlie.

There were many yelps and mini screams coming from Aaron too!

Charlie watched with a careful eye as her boys went crazy on the ice, throwing rocks and jumping up and down to make cracks. It was funny to watch their reactions.

Naturally, the tummy had to experience the ice at some point too! Warren took the gap and sat on the boys as they lay on the ice just to make sure they really felt it. After all, what are uncles for?

Garden of the Gods

Breakfast at Rosie's Diner in Monument was the first stop for the day. The boys sat at their own table, much to their delight. Of course they caused a raucous but then what do you expect when you have 4 boys under the age of 13 on their own?

They were happy to order pancakes with warm syrup and chocolate chips on top. I swear they would have ordered coffee and maybe even a whiskey if we hadn't monitored them - they thought they were big stuff. (Not sure if Rosie's serves whiskey but you know what I mean!)

As per our usual tour route, we went to The Garden of the Gods in Colorado Springs. It was a lovely day and most of us were overdressed but thankfully we had worn layers so we disrobed as the day wore on.

There's that shirt again - coveting!

The 2 lover boys.

This kid wouldn't stop posing with his new hat.

The 3 blondies.

Jordan is Charlie's boy after all. He was born on her 30th and even looked like her when he came out.

The 2 eldest got along and fought well together. Most of the time they got along.

Obviously it was a long day for the boys.

Agent Puffy Eye dropped off to sleep in no time, complete with Mafia hat.

This is what Mom's are best for. Boob Pillows!

(My kids lost out so they bring their own pillows!)

Agent Puffy Eye

Cullen woke up yesterday morning saying that his eye was itchy and scratchy. After an agonizing attempt at an eye exam by Dr. Mom (which took all of 10 minutes to do because he panicked and didn't want me to touch his eye), I saw the culprit.

Poking out from under the eyelid was a little head, the head of what looked like a pimple. "What causes a stye?" you ask. A stye "develops from an eyelash follicle or an eyelid oil gland that becomes clogged from excess oil, debris or bacteria."

Cullen was so worried that he would go blind and of course Jordan ran with this information which didn't help matters.

After attempting the 'warm gold ring on the stye' trick (which was a mission to accomplish), he felt better that an intervention had taken place and he wouldn't go blind anymore.

PS: the 'warm gold ring on the stye' trick means exactly that: take a gold ring, rub it on your clothing until its warm, apply to the stye. Do this a few times. It doesn't cure the problem but it helps with the irritation and 'apparently' speeds up the healing process. It worked for my styes when I was a child and so I'm sticking with it.

He looked like a victim of a good punch to the eye and although it was red and swollen, it didn't hurt after the 2nd day. Puff became his name for the day (from the movie "Puff the Magic Dragon") and then he was known as Agent Puffy Eye. I think he was sad when his eye recovered because the nicknames went away after that.

Gingerbread Houses

The Radomskys arrived and the next morning I set the boys to work on their Gingerbread Houses. Siblings had to share and so they started by assembling the houses. The icing was taking too long to dry and they soon lost interest and went outside to play. It was then that I knew that this would be more than a 1-day process.

Once the houses were 'glued' together it was time to decorate so more icing was made and put into tubey things.

Charlie helped her boys while I coveted her t-shirt.

By this time Cullen had lost interest altogether so Jordan set about decorating and finishing their house. Unfortunately for my youngest, he is so much like me in that if something takes too long to accomplish, he loses interest! Patience isn't something he and I have much of.

Hudson saw the gap and stepped in to help his cousin. Warren couldn't resist showing off his grouting skills so he plastered the roof for Jordan while Jordan started decorating.

The end result: This is the Radomsky's house and they forgot to taste it before they left so Cullen begrudgingly said he'd do it for them. Note the begrudging look on his face!

Jordan was proud of his house!

Christmas Cookies

Christmas Cookies are always a MUST at Christmas time. I have several Christmas shapes for this exact purpose but in the end we usually stick with the 3 favorites: the Candy Cane, the Christmas Tree and the Star. These 3 shapes are made from sugar cookie dough. The Gingerbread Men are made from gingerbread dough.

I always buy the pre-made cookie dough since its easier and when the kids say "lets make cookies" I can roll out the dough and whip up a baking sheet of shapes in no time. I've had too many sighs and "aw mom" when I tell them I have to make the dough from scratch, so lesson learned!

The stars always come out fat and out of shape - kind of like how I am between Thanksgiving and New Years!

The Candy Cane shapes behave themselves in the oven and they usually turn out well.

The trees usually get soft around the edges while baking so they look like triangles when they are finished. Maybe I need to start making my own cookie dough again - the store bought type doesn't seem to like me.

I always burn the bottoms of the Gingerbread Men and I think its because of the molasses that is in the cookie dough recipe - or maybe its because I'm too busy doing other things instead of watching for when these guys need to come out!

Being the artists that my boys are, they tend to prefer paintbrushes to decorate with so I make sure they are set up with all the colors and goodies they need to get the job done. I'm less pedantic. I'll just use a teaspoon and a shaker to decorate mine!

These were meant for Santa but they were all eaten before the end of the day. Sorry Santa!