Gross things I love

Magic Shell

Who knows what is even in this stuff.  Somehow it magically hardens and I love it.  I know it tastes like wax.  Dave thinks it's disgusting...he is wrong :)
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That reminded me of the time I used to occasionally eat easy cheese.  Should I even admit that?  Did you know that they still sell this stuff in some locations?  Crazy.  I haven't had this in like 20 years and can't believe I ever tried it.  

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Tang, Ummm...I miss tang.  We consumed large amounts (mostly my brother, Jamie) of tang as kids.  Mmmmmmm.

New Years Eve

We went to the Clark's house to celebrate Mary's birthday and ring in the new year.  It was a blast.  The decorations were classy, the games fun and the people wonderful. (my camera is slowly dying so we used Dave's phone for these lovely grainy pictures)

Birthday fun

We had dinner and cake to celebrate Nick and Zack's 

bday in December! 

Christmas with family

Christmas 2012

We love spending time with family especially around the holidays.  Dave's family came for Christmas and we had a great time with them.  Here are some highlights...

Singing Christmas carols around the piano

Acting out the Nativity

Reading Twas the night before Christmas right 

before the kids went to bed.

Opening presents

 Feeding the birds

 Face Mask, nail polish and braiding hair nights.  Christa taught us all how to do the waterfall braid. (hopefully my in-laws will not kill me for putting this on here!! :)  I think it is funny!!)  That mask burned my face.

After face mask shot...look at our radiant skin! :) haha

Christa braiding Ashlyn's hair

We curled each others hair with Christa's new 

super sweet curling iron. (I look like a dork in this picture, but who cares)  I do love the wavy curls.

Sledding

 Roasting marshmallows and drinking hot chocolate and apple cider

 Building a Fort

  
Over 500 nativities at the Kirtland Historic site

Ashlyn dressing up as Mary/wise man :)

 More pictures at the nativities

The Cleveland Art Museum--Gallery One.  Such a COOL exhibit.  Here, the kids would draw a picture on the screen and then the screen would pull up a piece of art that had the same image in it:

 This is all new as well.  It is a huge screen that pulls up pictures of every piece of art in the museum.  You can click on the picture, upload it to your IPad and then it gives you more information about it and where to locate it in the museum.

Bamboo shoots at the Cleveland Art Museum
 
Going to see the movie Les Miserables with the girls.

Cue the ugly cry (seriously)  I'm so glad the theater stayed dark for 5 minutes after the movie ended.  I cried throughout the entire movie. 

Funny story--in the middle of one of the tragic parts of the movie, a guy sitting a couple rows behind me started busting up laughing.  All the women in the room turned to look at him in shock (how could he possibly be so cruel as to laugh at that part?!).  It turns out he was laughing at his wife, who was also bawling her eyes out.  

Dinner at Dewey's pizza

 Making the famous apple strudel.  I have been wanting to do this for SO LONG.  Dave's dad has a secret recipe from his mom who grew up in Austria.  It was really good and fun to make.  

 

 Stretching the dough

 layering the dough with apple slices and cinnamon and sugar

 Trimming the edges

 Rolling it

 Wala!

 Tasty goodness

Leprechauns abound

Corbin constantly misplaces his socks.  Always.  And everywhere we go.  He takes his socks off as soon as he gets home and never in the same place so when it is time to leave again he can never find his original pair.  

CUE LEPRECHAUNS

Corbin came to me yesterday and said, "Mom, I know what keeps happening to my socks.  The leprechauns keep taking them (deadly serious).  Yeah, I'm sure it's them because they are tricky and they like to hide.  So they come in and take my socks and then they hide.  Besides, I know it is them because they need socks and we are the same size."  

Handsome

Dave goes to a lot of Oral Surgery conferences.  He works long hours during the week and sometimes the weekend.  I never post what he does, but when he is not busy with work, he hangs out with us. :)  And I think he is handsome, hence the subject title.  So, here is a shout out to Dave.

 That is totally an IBC rootbeer his friend is holding.

When Dave is at conferences out of state he usually sends the kids pictures of what he sees and will also bring a treat home for them.  No, Dave doesn't hang out at the American Girl doll store, but he knows Ashlyn loves it so he sent her a picture while he was in Chicago.

These are a few of the really fun people Dave gets to work with (I'm glad Jose never checks my blog so he won't care...or know...I posted this picture of him at the hospital:)).  He has loved working with these guys. 

Date out

We love to take our kids on date outs (Corbin officially coined that phrase).  This is an oldie...maybe from December...but a goodie.  We took Trevor out to Yogurt vi while Ashlyn and Corbin were at a birthday party. 

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