Christmas Eve

I love Christmas Eve! Its a day full of tradition and anticipation. We skipped lunch and had a big early Christmas eve dinner so the festivities could start! We had a talent show full of singing, saxophone and trumpet playing, and even a little baby dancing!

We had the kids act out the Nativity story while Bryce narrated. We even had William starring as the baby Jesus! We watched "Joy to the World" and had a nice testimony meeting. Next up: PRESENTS! We opened our new jammies and the sibling gifts. It was such a wonderful night!

Peppermint Bark Popcorn

Um, ok, I just made this popcorn for the first time today (and first time I've tasted it) and it is a Christmastime MUST HAVE! Oh me oh my! It was forwarded to me from Latacha who got it from my friend Jackie Daley (I have to give them some credit)! Here is the recipe:


Peppermint Bark Popcorn
Recipe by Our Best Bites

16-20 C popped popcorn (fresh, or about 2 bags microwave popcorn)
1 lb Almond Bark
1 6oz box candy canes, crushed. (About 1-1 1/2 C total and Bob's are the best!)
2 tea. peppermint extract
3/4 C semi-sweet chocolate chips

*one bag microwave popcorn has about 10 cups in it, so if you're air-popping, do about 20 cups.

Place popcorn in a very large mixing bowl.
Crush the candy canes and pour over popcorn. I pulsed them in my blender. Here is the note from the recipe giver:

Unwrapping the candy canes to crush them is the most labor intensive step of this easy treat, so you can do that ahead of time if you want too. I put my candy canes in a large zip-lock bag and have a whack with a heavy marble rolling pin.
One they're crushed, dump them into the bowl with the popcorn.

To melt the almond bark, follow the instructions on the package. When your almond bark is melted, add the peppermint extract. It will seize a little bit (get kind of lumpy) but it's totally fine. Pour over popcorn and candy canes.

Stir it up really well until the candy is evenly distributed. Pour the popcorn out onto a piece of waxed paper, parchment, or foil. Spread it out into an even layer and leave it alone! While the popcorn is setting, place chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl and microwave in 30 second intervals until melted and smooth.

Drizzle the melted chocolate over the popcorn. You can use a fork, or put it in a zip-lock bag with the corner cut off.Leave it until the almond bark and the chocolate is hardened. If you need to hurry it up, do this whole process on lined cookie sheets you can pop in the fridge. When chocolate is hardened, use your hands to break up popcorn into chunks. Toss in a bowl, a jar, a cute package, or in your mouth :)

There you have it! Yum! Enjoy!

My Big Boy!

William is 2 months old! He is a whopping 12 pounds! He is growing so fast :( He is FINALLY getting into a better night-time routine (at least for the last 4 nights - lets cross our fingers!), sleeping 6 hours at a time sometimes! He is so smiley when he is awake, its hard to get anything done because I just want to talk to him. He is so yummy. I had Caleb try to steal a few pictures of him smiling while I was holding him, and he got a few cute ones!

check out these baby chunkies!

Gingerbread Traditions

Ok, so they aren't real gingerbread houses, but graham crackers are the tradition here, so we stuck with that! We even invited some friends over to create with us - we have to try to make it as chaotic and crazy as we can :)

Snow in Winterville?

I know, with a name like Winterville, you would expect snow year round, right? Not in Eastern North Carolina though! We were told when we moved here that it rarely snowed and hardly ever actually stuck to the ground. Well yesterday, snow flurries were spotted in the afternoon and by evening, James managed to make a (slightly pathetic) snowball! Lucy even caught a few flakes on her tongue! It was beautiful. It felt like Christmas time. (oh, and don't worry, we aren't finished putting all the lights up on the house yet!)

More Friends, More Friends!

A day after the Raymond's left, we had the Parkinsons arrive (very late after a forever long drive in holiday traffic)! When you live so far from family, it is so nice to know we have such good friends to share the holidays with! We are so grateful they made the drive from Pennsylvania to be with us!


We loved eating good food, playing games, eating food, taking the kids for tractor rides, eating pie, laughing together, eating leftovers, and watching Christmas movies! It was so much fun. Thanksgiving dinner couldn't have been better (well the turkey was a little dry, but hey! it was my first time, and who really cares about turkey when there's all that other yummy food to eat?!)



(the weather got rather chilly by Saturday, can you tell?)

We even experienced a minor miracle while they were here - all of the Parkinsons enjoyed their very own motorcycle ride by Bryce! Well, except for Heidi who still claims motorcycles to be "donor-cycles," but Bryce sure enjoyed being able to FINALLY (after 6 years) take them for a ride!

Raymond's Visit

Our wonderful friends, the Raymonds came all the way up from Florida to visit us the week before Thanksgiving! We had a great time playing around the house, playing at parks, and touring ECU campus. The kids played so well together - it was fun to see that even though its been about a year since they saw each other, they could just pick up right where they left off. We love the Raymond's and feel so priveledged that they made the effort to come see us.

Happy 5th Birthday James!

Its been a busy week! We didnt' want to forget James' special day last Sunday! He has been talking about going to McDonalds since we moved here (probably had something to do with the ever enticing hamburger playground outside), so Saturday we splurged at McD's allowing all the kids to have their own Happy Meal - followed by an hour of hamburger playground heaven! They were wild and crazy and had so much fun!




Sunday we had our friends, the Raymonds in town, so they helped us celebrate the day with bday pancakes in the morning and dinosaur bday cake in the afternoon. James enjoyed being king for the day and you can tell by Caleb's comment to me ("my worst day of the year is James' bday!") that James took full advantage! We love our James LeRoy (the king!) :)

Pumpkin Time

Happy Halloween everyone! It is sad to think that one of my favorite holidays totally snuck up on us this year! Good thing Grandma and Grandpa were here to make pumpkin donuts, reese's spiders, and a fire-eyed ghost cake with the kids this year or we would have had nothing! I did manage to arrange for a pumpkin carving night and we attended our ward Trunk-or-Treat (with a bumble bee William sleeping in his car seat the whole night!) We even met a lot of our new neighbors on Sunday night for even more tricks and treats. What a fun time of year! My kids even managed to find some fallen autumn leaves who knows where (our neighborhood does NOT have trees) with some neighbor kids - just enough to make a pile and to take pictures in. Still waiting for our leaves to change colors, but the weather can stay warm as long as it wants to.


Caleb is Anakin Skywalker, Lucy a cheerleader, James (obviously) Batman, Annabelle is a Princess and I don't know who that guy is that got in the picture with my kids - looks kinda piratey.