Niagara trip part 2!

After leaving Stacey and Rob's house, we drove to Niagara Falls since the girls have never been there. Thanks to our friend Rob we got to stay in a beautiful suite at the Seneca Niagara Casino for one night. We spent the afternoon exploring the American side of the falls, then swimming at the hotel and relaxing in the hotel room.

Niagara Falls park:
Seneca Niagara Casino ... we stayed in a corner room on the 14th floor!
H writing notes in her diary:
The girls were especially impressed with the HUGE tub in the middle of our hotel room ... after the pool they had fun having a bubble bath in the huge tub!
Pool area at Seneca:
H at the Falls:
J:
DH and H on the sky bridge ... right before DH said he felt sick from being up so high!
Me and J:
Beautiful!!
Later that night we crossed the border to Canada and met two of my cousins for dinner. It was great to see them and catch up after almost 6 years! Here are the girls and I with Karen and David:

Buffalo - Niagara trip!

We went on an awesome trip last weekend to Buffalo to visit our good friends Stacey and Rob and their family. It was great to see their new home (we haven't been there since they moved there about a year and a half ago). And they have a beautiful new baby girl Abby who we were very happy to meet! The kids have been friends with Hannah and Nick since birth and it was neat to see them start playing right away as if no time had passed at all!
Here is Hannah and H:
Hannah, H, J and Nick:
H and Hannah again:
Stacey and Rob have a beautiful home ... Stacey had it all decorated for Christmas already and it was just gorgeous!

Here is beautiful little Abby!!
Playing outside:
Our kids and a few neighbors that stopped over to play:Rob took us to the Bills - Patriot's game which was AWESOME! We got to watch the game from the Bills suite so we didn't have to sit out in the freezing cold! The big kids got to stay home and have fun with a babysitter but Stacey brought Abby to the game and she stayed cozy and warm in the suite:
DH and I overlooking the field prior to the start of the game:
Stacey and I:Rob, Abby, Joel and DH:
Rob and StaceyIsn't she adorable??? H holding Abby on our last morning there:
J and Abby:
We had so much fun with our friends! They extended wonderful hospitality and lots of fun to us. It was great to go visit! I will post the second part of our trip in the next blog ... stay tuned!

Happy Thanksgiving!

....more to come ... but for now I have to go prep my turkey! But I hope that everyone enjoys a blessed day of giving thanks for all the Lord has done!

Lime green!

Sorry about the lime green blog color! I'm trying to find something a little more Christmasy but in the meantime all I could find was this green. So bear with me, I hope it won't be too long before I can change it!

Yummy Breakfast - serves a crowd!

I'm not sure what Sarah even calls this. It's a yummy baked oatmeal breakfast dish that I had at her house a couple years ago. I had to have the recipe because it was so yummy, and easy to make. It can feed a crowd if you have people staying with you around the holidays ... or when it's just us, I eat a little every day, or even freeze some of it to use at another time. You can reheat it easily in the micro. I have also halved the recipe using an 8x8 pan and it worked out just fine.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees
Lightly spray a 13x9 pan with cooking spray
Beat together:
6 eggs
1/2 cup butter or marg
1/2 cup sugar

Then add 2 cups milk to the above and mix.

In a separate bowl combine the dry ingredients:
6 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
5 cups Quaker Oats

Mix the wet and cry together and put mixture into pan.
Make the topping with:
2/3 cup brown sugar
4 tsp cinnamon
4 TBSP butter or marg

Mix together, then spoon over the top of dish.
Bake for 30 minutes.
It can be a little dry, so I like to pour a little bit of milk over it before eating. (You can let people do their own.)

Christmas Conversations

Today while eating lunch the girls began to ask me how many more days there were until Christmas. I explained that next month was December and that was the month that Christmas was in.

J's eyes lit up and she said, ", maybe we should start talking about our presents that we want to get!"

Me, "WHAT??? J, is that what Christmas is all about?"

J, "YES!!"

H, "J, Christmas is about Jesus birth, NOT about the presents!!"
H, "J, what do you care most about Christmas?"

J, "the presents!"

H, "J, you're out of the line!!!"

Me, "what? what's that mean?"

H, "you know, she's out of the line, she thinks Christmas is all about presents and it's not, it's about Jesus birth!"

Well, I guess we're halfway there ... one kid who's 'in the line' and one kid who can't seem to pull her focus off those PRESENTS!!!

Red Sox Charity Event

This week we've been really busy at work doing 120 flower arrangements for a Red Sox charity event. They came out so cute that I had to post them! The shop was filled with all the arrangements!

I spent hours packing peanuts between the two vases!
This is the completed product:
The view from the top:

Before and After

Bob recently replaced our bathroom sink. The bathroom is really narrow so the new sink style really helps with space. Here are the before and after photos.

Before:
Before:
After:
After:
After:
I love the darker wood color too, it looks so pretty!

The cooking show ...

An afternoon of fun and laughter! Today I was making some pumpkin bread and I've been trying really hard to let the girls help me with stuff like that. Sometimes it's really hard for me to give up control when I see them playing with ladybugs, then coming over to handle food, or getting flour and sugar all over the floor!! But I'm trying. They really do love to help me and I love that they are learning valuable skills.

Anyway, in between mixing and adding ingredients I hear them both start playing "the cooking show". They began to act as if they were the hosts of a television cooking show, and I heard them introducing themselves to the 'audience'. "Hi, I'm H, this is my sister J, and that's our Mom Kathy over there ... " "Today we're making pumpkin bread .... "

It was SO cute and funny. I couldn't stop giggling. I guess you can tell these sweet little girls have sat and watched Rachel Ray a few times, huh??

Happy Halloween!!

We had a wonderful time Trick or Treating last night with several of our friends. We started out with dinner at our friend's house, then headed out to what seemed like a hundred houses! The girls were SO tired by the end of the night. J fell asleep on the way home in the car and H didn't get into bed until almost 10pm! They ended up with WAY too much candy ... I couldn't believe how many houses gave out FULL size candy bars! What happened to "fun size"????

Their costumes came out really well. They decided back in September that they both wanted to be Pink Poodles so we had fun taking a trip to the fabric store to buy some pink fur. All in all, it only cost me about $15 for all the materials to make both costumes!

Here is J:
And H:
H showing off her tail and her little Webkin poodle:

The end of the night with all the loot ... can you tell how tired J is??
The girls with friends:
Two smiling poodles:
The group of 11 kids!!
J: