CC's Coming to town!

I'm stuck in 2011, at least on here I am (and still haven't mailed out all my Christmas cards)---oh the 'cloud over my head'. This was back in December just before Joss' birthday. 

Emit has been doing more and more 'school' with Joss and me lately. When things were a little slower Dallas was good to work on his letters and stuff with him while I worked with Joss. Now that we are on a little more of a routine of him doing school work with us... I don't think there's any going back :) Which is going to be a lot easier in the long run.

Joss and his butterfly he found while waiting for CC's plane to land. I love how gentle he is holding it. He kept 'hugging' it and loving on it, and always with such gentleness.

There is something about this photo of his hands with dirt under his fingernails that I just adore. That's us in a nutshell. We like to get our hands dirty around here :)

I was so proud of the boys. They gave Chris some big hugs before he flew out.

They really enjoy having company around too. Just to recap, we started with Elliott & Erin shortly after Thanksgiving. The day they flew out, Annie & Cory flew in, about 4 days after Annie flew out, Chris flew in here and then the day Chris left, my mom flew in. It was a bit crazy for a bit. On top of the company, we had lots of work pouring in, so it really all just started flowing at once it seemed.

I'm always on the lookout for photos for the praise set with the church praise :) I love this one below with all the textures and colors. 

The boys were so excited for CC to come and visit them. Of course, they always are, but they were really into it this day. They had their balloons all ready to go at THE PALM TREE at the airport. 

Of course, they got a little tired waiting (the whole 15 minutes or so we were waiting). 

I'm not going to miss a photo opp if I can help it :)

Happy Boys!!

Our routine at the airport is to go to the Palm Tree until we see the plane land. Then after we see it land, we run to the fence to wave and greet CC (she's always on the lookout for us and waves if she's on that side of the plane). The next game is to see who can spot her waving first on the plane. When we can no longer see the plane from that spot on the fence, we run (literally) down to the 'other part of the fence'.

From there we can see and yell and wave to her as she gets off the plane. She waves and talks to them as they yell and wave back on her way to the immigration and customs. Then we get to wait one more time until she gets cleared through. Depending on all the goodies she has brought with her and how nice the Customs agent is feeling that day, it could be just a few minutes, or it could take a little longer. 

But in the end, it's always a very exciting reunion and happy faces all around!

It seems so strange that it is March and I still haven't posted my Christmas stuff on here, but hey, what can I do now? I don't want to skip it because then I won't have it in my 'book' that I WILL print someday :) 

This was my little driftwood advent calendar this year. I love it, but we'll have to be better at looking at it each day next year. Starting new things and new habits is not a strong suit of mine, but you could probably conclude that pretty easily by now :) 

It's not fancy, but I love how it turned out!

We decided to head out to Fish Fry with CC for dinner the first night. It was pretty exciting for the boys to be out after dark. Notice they took their little horses out to play too (by Emit's feet). 

We thought there was a Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony in the park, but when we got there... the tree was lit (fancy setup here huh?) and the park was empty. If you look closely you'll see the little blur one of the boys left behind in the picture below. 

I love this one of the docks below too. If you look closely again, you can see the stars in the sky and some reflecting on the water :) It was a gorgeous night. We had to outrun the 'Hot Lava' all the way home. And since we couldn't lose the lava in the truck, we finally got away by sneaking into the house from the truck by tip toeing and being really quiet. (Love it when they pretend and have fun like this with me!)

CC brought us a cookie press and helped us make our first batch with it. Yummy!!!!!

The boys were fascinated (and a little scared) of my mixer. 

They had fun helping CC each step of the way. 

And seeing the press make the little Christmas Trees was even more exciting :) 

Of course they had to taste test the sprinkles.

They turned out GREAT and CC's recipe was so good! Maybe next year I'll actually make enough to share :) 

More, more, more, more, more.....