Christmas!

Rhett works a 24 hour shift on Christmas, so Santa came a day early at our house.

The last few days, I'd ask RJ if he'd been a good boy.  He'd say: "No. I bad boy."  So I guess he didn't expect his Thomas train from Santa, but I guess Santa felt he was good enough, and he got the train.

We got the stockings stuffed.

The Crapo's get huge nylons stuffed with a fancy drink, orange, then treats and toys--usually adults get a thigh high and kids get a knee-high.

This year Rhett and I shared one big pair, a leg each. 

RJ had a hard time opening his other gifts because he was so enthralled with the train.

But he did like the Leap Frog alphabet magnets for a second. 

I made him a stuffed Bullseye toy for Woody to ride, and Bullseye can stand on his own.

He held it long enough to get this fake smile and back to the train he went.  Pretty funny.

I also made him a little cow print vest to match Woody.  It had a star that says: "SHERIFF RJ".  He wore it a half second, I wasn't sure how it would go, good thing it was easy to make.

Grandma's spoiled him with lots of fun toys. 

But he kept coming back to the train.  He got Toy Story 3, but brought the train tracks down in front of the TV while he watched it. 

We had a great little Christmas, and have been really blessed this year!

Thanks for all the gifts grandma's and grandpa's!

I Want The BIG One!

Lately RJ likes everything BIG!

Mainly his utensils.  Rhett was helping him get his cereal, and started with a regular spoon. 

RJ wanted the big one, so he got the large spoon.

RJ wasn't sold, so he went over to the drawer to pick one out himself and chose a huge serving spoon.

You can see he could barely stretch his mouth wide enough to get anything in.

But at least it was big.  At least he's not eating cereal out of a punch bowl or anything.

Here's one of his fake smiles for Grandpa Kelly.

MoTab Christmas

You may remember how much I look forward to the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra Christmas Concert.

Like last year when it didn't work out to go last minute and I bawled about it like a baby, then the next day Rhett totally redeemed himself and it was a great night.

This year I tried to get tickets, but out of the 1.5 million entries, none of mine were lucky to draw out tickets.

But luckily, my best friend Molly got some and was kind enough to let us use them.  We went to a great restaurant before, had great seats, loved the show like always, and it was a great night.

Here's Molly and her fiance, Glenn who got engaged just the night prior.

Here's the baby gut at 26 weeks.

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Rhett's program has a Christmas Party each year for the kids.  RJ didn't have a good experience seeing Santa at our ward party, so all day I tried to prep him, telling him to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas.

So we got there and he decorated a cookie, only to lick all the frosting off.

Then refused to let them paint his face, but instead wanted a jingle bell on his hand. 

Then Santa came.  The kids lined up, and when it was RJ's turn he didn't want to go.  We pointed out kids were getting candy, but he didn't care.  Finally Rhett told him he had to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas, or he wouldn't get it. 

We'd been practicing all day saying:
"I want a Thomas train please."

But I guess Santa is scary.

So he hesitantly sat on Santa's lap.

He told Santa all about Thomas train.

But I guess RJ misunderstood, because he thought if he sat on Santa's lap then he'd get the train right then.

He felt the Hershey kiss candy cane was a total riff off.

He kept asking: "where's the train?"

So we explained Santa would come to our house, but I think he still felt Santa was a cheap skate.

Bread Bowls

We like bread bowls for creamy soups in the winter.  You cut the top off, gut out the bread for dipping, and enjoy!

Bread Bowls

2 1/2 c. warm water

2 T yeast

2 T sugar

stir or plop in mixer and let froth until doubles

Add:

1 T salt

1 T shortening (I don't measure, just guess with a cereal spoon)

7 c. flour  ***Add about 5 cups, then add 1/2 c. at a time until 7 cups, or until dough cleans side of bowl

Knead until smooth and satiny, not as sticky as your roll dough would be.

Put in greased bowl and cover. Let rise until doubled, punch down. Shape into cylinder globs,  4 globs to a greased cookie sheet, and let rise until double or so.  *Can brush with beaten egg whites just before baking.

Makes 8 large bakery bread bowls.

Bake at 375 for 20 min.

Here are my dough cylinders.  I split one bowl into 2 baby bowls.

Here they are raised right before I baked them.

When it was just me and Rhett, I would halve this recipe and make 4 big bread bowls. This full recipe makes 8 bakery-sized bread bowls.  Or tonight I made 3 large bread bowls, 2 baby bowls, then the other half of the dough I made a big loaf of french bread.

You can also freeze the bread bowls for future meals.

Polar Express

We've been reading the Polar Express quite a bit this month.  RJ likes the train in the book.

We got the DVD from Netflix today and after dinner we watched the movie.  (the computerized Tom Hanks movie--not the best in my opinion) but RJ was kind of just laying on his side in the beginning, but when the train stopped in front of the kid's house, he got really excited and jumped up on his feet with wide eyes and whispered: "mom the polar express..." in awe.  It was really cute and it's fun to see the kid magic of Christmas.  After the show we were laying under the Christmas tree looking at the lights, while RJ was telling me he lost his bell too and would Santa bring it to him, and he eventually fell asleep on the rug. 

We're loving the Christmas season!

Days Off

We've been loving the Christmas season at our house.  Since December, we've been doing this advent tree.  I made these little envelopes, one for each day and I put 3 chocolates in each night and RJ finds the stuffed pocket.  My mom sent him this little stuffed elf and we told him the elf brings us treats every day and he's of course loving it.  I love it too, a quick family time each night in the dark.

Rhett's been on a busy rotation and working a lot.  Mainly long days, usually 12+ hours, but the biggest thing is he only has 3 days off in the month.  He had Sunday off after 8:30 am church, he somehow fell asleep in this chair curled upside down all afternoon. 

 I couldn't figure out how he could sleep like that, kind of little kids that are totally exhausted and just crash.

This little kid wasn't tired, but loves to have pictures taken of himself acting sad.  After I'd take the picture he'd run over to look at and laugh at his sad self.  Don't ask me.

Monster Hat

It's been fun with RJ's developing imagination lately.

For example, the other day he told me: "Elves have red poop mom."

He earned a gummi worm, and never ate it, but carried it around all day telling me it wasn't candy, it was a dead worm.  He'd let me pet the dead worm, but that's all.  Oh and the dead worm lives in an old baseball cap he found in the DI bag.

Or he's been giving Woody time-outs.  But Woody gets put in the fridge while RJ stands and counts.  Many tiems he forgets Woody is in time out and I try to put something away, and there's Woody hogging all the fridge space.

Yesterday morning he saw a Gap add as I was checking my email and they had these kid hats that were animals.  There was a monster and he got excited, loving the monster hat.

So I made him one, and it was really fun.  He picked out the orange fur, which surprised me because I thought he'd want the red fleece I'd grabbed.  Everything has to be red lately, from his cup, shirts, pants, and even things he likes like elves, have red poop.

But he found the fur, I had kind of forgot I had it.

RJ actually picked/ planned most of it. I asked how many eyes his monster had, "just 2".

For the eyes, I told him to pick out a scrap and he chose the green.

He was really specific on having sharp teeth too.

He stood by me the majority of the time I was sewing, watching the monster come to life.

I finished, and he told me he wanted "monster tails" too, the hanging pom pom things.

So we added them, and it was good enough. He loves this hat.

We finished the hat and he wore it while he and Rhett played some video games.

Then it was bed time and at the last minute he crawled out of bed to get the hat so he could sleep in it.

 This morning he was still wearing it for breakfast.

And while he did his chores.

He thought it was funny when Woody wore it.

Then we took out the trash and he actually got to use the snow hat for what it was made for.

of course Woody came too.

Thanksgiving

Rhett had to work all week and on Thanksgiving, so RJ and I went down to Utah to be with family.  RJ was glad to see Grandma and Grandpa.  My dad has this ring from my Grandpa.  RJ's always liked it and put it on...it's a little big. 

My brother-in-law Drew (Lynette's husband) cut my dad's hair which was a big deal because Scott is very particular. 

I didn't take very many photos, it was a fun weekend, and RJ was excited to be able to watch Nightmare Before Christmas.  Lynette was carrying him on her back and he was holding the DVD.  Drew told RJ not to drop the movie, and RJ said: "I got it Drew." 

The way he's sitting in this one really makes him look like he has a thick neck.

This is an old post, but a fun memory.

I think I've mentioned my mom's a big gardener.

Some of the gardening is fun--like eating fresh corn on the cob, and other parts stink.  Like a childhood of picking 2 buckets of rocks every day all summer.

But RJ and I happened to be visiting this year on the big harvest day when a lot of produce has already come and gone.

Harvest day is mainly the orchard and pumpkins, and grapes.  It's a lot of fun actually.

I opted to start off in the raspberry patch.  My absolute favorite.  I think it's genetic and got passed to the next generation. 

This year my mom grew butternut squash that I was excited about. 

Apparently this was a bad year for the orchard.

My mom didn't get any peaches, the plums stunk, and not much else was as great as years past.

There's a tree with golden delicious apples that had nothing, but the gala apple were good.

Then we had all the pumpkins.  My mom always grows a huge pumpkin patch with different varieties.  Some for canning, some for carving, some just for looks.

Lynette was nice to give RJ rides after dropping off a load of pumpkins--he looks pretty comfy lazy kid!

As kids we would sell pumpkins off our porch.  But I guess my mom just gives them to friends and family now.  

She also grows concord grapes.  She saw a youtube video on pruning them specifically for juice, and she said it made a difference, along with harvesting a lot later. 

It took 2 days to juice them all.

Once on a girl trip a few years ago, we were eating our fancy complimentary breakfast in the hotel and Jayne said how grape juice was such a luxury.  That seemed so weird to me.  Grape juice for me was like peasant juice for poor people since my mom made it and we had it a lot.  For me, orange juice is a big splurge and delight.   Grape juice is good too, but not special.

I did have a little garden this year and it didn't do too well--a total disgrace to my farmer ancestors.

I'm blaming it on planting late since we didn't move until July, having to leave from the end of Aug to Oct to Boise for Rhett's work, and it being my first try.

Maybe one day my harvest will be as plentiful as my mom's.  For now I can only help eat it and cart it out of the field.  She really grew it all.