The New Nativity

Every night, Isaac delays going to bed by insisting that we discuss the plan for the next day's activities. One night last week, he informed me that we needed to make a real nativity scene outside. Since the weather didn't cooperate, he was able to make one in his room instead. Snow White got to be Mary, Pookie got to be Jesus resting in a santa hat baby bed, Mommy's old cabbage patch kid got to be Joseph. Buzz, Woody & Panda got to be wisemen, the snowmen were shepherds, and of course, Superman got to be the Angel because he could fly around and tell everyone that baby Jesus was born!


Not your typical nativity, but maybe one that would be quite accurate for the year 2012. In any case, I'm just thrilled that he understands the true story behind Christmas.

More Christmas Fun

We've been very busy over the last few weeks getting ready for and enjoying the Christmas season. The boys are very diligent about opening the windows on their online advent calendar that Aunt RaRa and Aunt Cindy sent them. In fact, I'm fairly certain that they would open every window, all day, every day if I were to let them. They have really enjoyed making snowmen, wreaths, trains, and much more together. Great buy RaRa & Cindy!!

We've also tried our hand this year at the baking part of Christmas. We've made peanut butter balls, haystacks, cowboy cookies, 3-color cookies and are saving the Lebkuchen project for when daddy gets off work this week. They've enjoyed making a mess of the kitchen with mommy, taste testing, and devouring the final products!

Last night while fixing dinner, I laughed as I heard Isaac singing Jingle Bells in the back yard. When I looked out the window, this is the sight I saw. According to Isaac, he is the reindeer pulling Santa (Lucas) in his sleigh! (There is a long rope tied between the two in this picture.)

It has warmed my heart to see these two boys enjoy the Christmas season together. There isn't a gift in the world that could make me happier than that.

Camera Thief

I love when I go to download pictures off my camera and find that Isaac has found the time to take some pictures of his own. He takes pictures of some of the most random things...toys, doorknobs, the floor, the inside of his mouth, etc. This week, he seems to have been perfecting pictures of himself!

 

  

 

 

Here are some others from his portfolio.

Like mother:

Like Son:

 

 His chickens...Wonder Woman looks pleased right?

  

We All Fall Down

November was a rough month for injuries, and Lucas didn't want to be left out. He got a little too excited about going out to see the Christmas lights in the front yard and fell off the front steps and into the bushes. He learned the hard way that there is no handrail on that side. Poor little guy!

 

Dino Isaac

Isaac's new favorite tv show is Dino Dan. On one of this week's episodes, Dino Dan had a dinosaur made out of a box so that he could get close to and interact with dinosaurs. Isaac was all about this! So on Wednesday, we made a special trip to Aldi in search of the perfect box. Isaac talked with one of the store clerks, Tracy, and the two of them managed to find the perfect boxes to make a dinosaur. A special thanks to Tracy for taking time out of her day to help my little boy!

It didn't take long to turn those few boxes into the perfect dinosaur.



Isaac has spent the rest of the week searching the house for dinosaurs!

Decorating Time

Now that we've shifted gears into Christmas mode, it's time to drag all those decorations out of the attic and get the house in the Christmas spirit.

On Saturday while the boys cooked and the kids took naps, Anna and I tackled the front yard. We found that it takes less time when the two of us just do what we want instead of asking the boys for help. It's just a sister thing that you automatically know what the other is thinking or when the other is going to fall off of the ladder (nice catch Anna...I still appreciate that!) or how we will next try to solve a problem. It's fun, and efficient, to have a person like that around. The front yard turned out pretty good too!



After all the family left on Sunday, the boys helped put up the Christmas tree in the living room.

Isaac was adamant that he would be putting the star on top of the tree.


He meticulously decorated and fell right into the routine putting ornaments where he remembered them being last year! 

 

Lucas was a little less help. All of the round ornaments that look like balls were put out of my little baseball players reach!

He sure is excited about having a pretty tree in the living room!!

 

My favorite part of the tree are the name ornaments that we have from Bronner's Christmas Store.

Our tree growing up always had our name ornaments and it was a tradition that I have continued with our Christmas tree. Some of you will laugh at this, but if you watch Days of Our Lives (yes, I've watched this soap opera religiously for as long as I can remember...one of my few girly traits!) they have a  name ornament tree that they decorate on Christmas Eve every year. It's funny, but I kind of feel like they copied our tradition!

In any case, our decorations are complete and we are ready to celebrate what I hope will be a magical Christmas Season!

Respect the Turkey

The city of Raleigh drives me nuts in that they always have their big Christmas Parade the weekend before Thanksgiving. We've already established that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, so you can see why this might annoy me a little. So while this blog is out of order in sequence of true event dates, it's in the right place in my book!

Last year we attended the parade with the Chesney's as Charlotte's first major event. We decided it should be an annual tradition, so we met them at the parade route again this year! I am just crazy enough to get up at the crack of dawn and go down hours ahead of the others to save the best parade seats available. I mean if you're going to go to do something you might as well do it right!

Aunt RaRa and Aunt Cindy changed their plans at the last minute and were able to join us as well. Here's the whole crowd in our awesome parade seats!


Isaac enjoyed eating all the candy while his brother wasn't looking!

Lucas spent a lot of the parade either yelling "1,2,3,4" at the bands or "merry christmas" at the people and the floats.

Charlotte was content with her sock mittens and really just wanted to join right in on the walk down the street!

I really do love our new tradition despite the fact that it's before Thanksgiving. It's a great way to kick off the holiday season with some of our friends!

3rd Annual Iron Turkey

On the Friday and Saturday following Thanksgiving, my kitchen is turned into the setting of the Slivensky/Raynor/Blevins version of Iron Chef America...what we call Iron Turkey. It's boys versus girls in the quest to make the most impressive and great tasting dinner. This year, in addition to the must have gong, we now have an official Iron Turkey trophy!



The rules to Iron Turkey are simple:
1) Three must use ingredients are drawn by the kids weeks in advance of the competition. A meat, a side, and a dessert item.
2) Those three ingredients must be used in recipes that the team has never made before.
3) The team not cooking takes care of the kids for the day.

Going into the 2012 competition, the score was tied 1-1 from previous years.
You can recap those competitions here:

2010- Girls’ Night  (click HERE); Boys’ Night (click HERE)

2011- Girls Night (click HERE); Boys Night (clickHERE))

The ladies' team:

Our must use ingredients were chicken & potatoes (main course & appetizer), and fruit (dessert)

The resulting menu:  

Appetizers: Chicken and Potato Florentine Soup, Bleu Cheese Stuffed Dates, and Potato Parsnip Pancakes 

Main Course: Pistachio Crusted Chicken, Scalloped Sweet Potato Stacks, and Green Bean Bundles.

Dessert: Chocolate Orbit Cake with Mixed Berry-Cassis Sauce.

Yes people, this is an actual picture that I took of our dessert. Nothing like a good fire to spice up dessert! It's amazing what you can come up with on Pinterest!
 

The boys' team: 

They beat us out in presentation that is for certain.

They even brought out their own chef Charles, complete with some crazy accent! (And people wonder why my sister and I act completely nuts?)


Their must use ingredient were beef & broccoli (main course/appetizer) and ice cream (dessert) 
The resulting menu:
Appetizer: bleu cheese salad and meatballs with a homemade marinara. (recipe HERE) 
Main course: broccoli topped Portobello mushrooms, stuffed peppers, and broccoli cheddar cornbread (recipe HERE).
Dessert: a salted caramel custard ice cream with homemade cookies

The girls were crowned 
2012 Iron Turkey Champions!

 

We have officially decided that between the boys presentation and serving techniques and the girls menu selections, we would make an entertaining catering team! 

A special thanks to Patti Stamp for being this year's Iron Turkey judge.

Got suggestions on how to improve our competition? Comment or send us an email. We're already planning for next year!!

Thanksgiving 2012

I LOVE Thanksgiving. To me, it is absolutely the best holiday of the entire year. The crisp fall air, the amazing food, and then add in that I get to spend it with my amazing family...it all makes for something I look forward to every year!

With Oma out of commission due to her thumb injury, Aunta and I got the opportunity to show off all the cooking skills that she's taught us over the years!



Opa completing his annual task of carving up the turkey!
 

Our special project for the kids, although I think the adults enjoyed it too. Aunta liked it so much that she ate the chocolate chip eyes that I had superglued on. Nothing like a little superglue to round out a Thanksgiving Day meal!

 

The boys kept Uncle Mark busy fishing for penguins.


The tryptophan kicked in quickly on the little man!


Black Friday shopping is always entertaining. We usually go out just to see what people are doing and how crazy they act. This year, midnight at Walmart, we purchased chicken breasts for the next day's meal!



The Thanksgiving fun poured over into the weekend. We took the little ones to decorate tiles for Oma's kitchen that would match the ones the big ones did 2010. Lucas was a good little artist!

 

There was time for cruising around the backyard. When I see the kids in this Jeep, I swear it's like a flash forward to when they're 16. I'm sure Audrey will be hanging out the front of the Jeep then too!

Nothing like sliding into a giant pile of leaves!

There's always time for a special donut breakfast. I'm pretty sure he enjoyed his!

Our annual t-shirt craft...which is also Isaac's annual meltdown to start the Christmas holiday season. You would have thought I'd told him to take his feet off and use them to stamp his shirt! But they turned out great any way!

 

The four best kids on the planet....the best of friends and the best of times.

 I couldn't be more thankful for my family and friends. I am so blessed to be surrounded by the most amazing people in the world....and that's every day, not just on Thanksgiving!