It's Over!

Good Bye 2012!
We choose to usher out the year in complete Gluttony!
We have a potluck dinner on New Years Eve.  Everyone brings what ever they want.  No limits on sugar or transfat.  Tonight we had: Nachos, cherry 7-up, fish sticks, cheese straws, chorizo, candy salad, snicker bar (and apple) salad, homemade mac&cheese, caramel popcorn, and a vege-plate.
Kenneth's sister Emma and her family came to visit.  (I'm sorry they aren't in the picture.  They were taking care of a sick baby.  We took the pictures while waiting for them!)  We did enjoy their company, and game playing fun.

I also thought you would like to see the Hazel Pouting picture and the Nate looking smug (because he made Hazel pout) picture.  Kids are so fun sometimes...

Scary Pet Hotel

On Thursday, the girls were trying to play littlest pet shops, but they had nothing to make the pet shops do, so they made a hotel out of cardboard they found in our recycling bin, and took pictures of the pets doing things.

 The manager (panda) waits alone.

His first visitor of the day is a cat.

 A dog comes next,

 followed by a pink chinchilla.

 A purple bird,

 a white cow,

 a little yellow fish, 

and a yellow bird are all visitors of the Scary pet hotel. 

 But those aren't all! Following them are a rabbit,

a little green lizard,

a pink bird,

a tall gray sheep, all follow.

Then the manager waits alone.

Buts he's not alone for long! A large visitor then appears.

The manager runs away,

And you can see what the monster did to that!

Today's Weather: SNOW!!

We drove up near Payson, AZ so that the kids (and Kenneth) could play in the snow.  We had a great time!

Hazel and Ladson tried to make a Snowman, inexperience and dry snow caused them to give up. But they still had fun.  Ladson told Kenneth that it was a dream he had had since he was young. 

 The best snow angels I have ever seen!

 Truman licks the snow.

 Hazel Screaming while she sleds with Syd.

Ceretta Chocolate Factory Tour

We only let our kids have a "friend" birthday party every other year.  This year is not Abby's year, but she asked if we could go take a tour of the chocolate factory.  She did invite Stephany, but she is nearly family.  We took the tour a few years ago, and it was interesting.  This time, it was really cool.  The guide was so cute and she talked fast.  She told us lots of interesting history.  We got to walk around and see a lot of the equipment and the candy being made. 

This is caramels cooling on the refrigerated tables.

These men are making the cream centers.

This is Mr. Ceretta, working on the "white line".  The machine is a replica of the machine in the I love Lucy episode, where she works at the candy factory.

The chocolate dipped pretzels that they were making on the "white line".

One 500 lb. Santa.  He is 5 feet tall and only costs $11/lb.

The chocolate is a special recipe called JC Special, made by Guitard and shipped in 10 lb bars.

The Day After

The kids bought Kenneth Frisbee Golf disks for Christmas.  So we all went to the park to play.  The park has three holes.  It was fun to play together.  The actual Golf disks worked much better than the plain frisbees.

 After a while the little-er kids wandered off to play on the playground. Christian and Truman stayed and played for a long time together.