Feeling Christmasy in a different sort of way -

I want to start off with an apology to all the friends and family who have made or are making and giving us delicious treats and heart felt gifts for Christmas, I just can't seem to get myself to reciprocate.  I have had nothing but good intentions of making yummy Christmas goodies and lovely little trinkets (I have lots of pins to prove it!) but I just can't seem to put the action behind the thoughts.  If it weren't for my amazing Husband we wouldn't even have a Christmas card this year.  Thanks Colin!

I think it is just the perfect combination of stuff that's got me in this
place: re-thinking how we want to do Christmas and life (more on that soon),  reflecting on last week's tragic events, a longing feeling for the next member of our family to be here with us this season combined with a feeling of helplessness that I can't make that happen, and just a really strong need to slow down.  So instead of the normal Christmas to-do's we have been doing a lot of this:

and this:

and this:

 and this:

And even though there has been some very special baking going on, the end result was not goodies to share but

SNACK TIME!

Honestly, how precious are these girls? And how cute is H in his home depot apron?

So, instead of a pretty bags full of goodies, we are sending all of you, our loves, one of these: 

 Can you feel our love? We hope so! 

Merry Christmas!!!!

The Little Drummer Boy...

It's not as peaceful as the song makes it sound.  Christmas came early this year for HB.  He got to open his present from Pa and Lala this weekend since we won't be with them for Christmas.  It was magical, in a hard core rock sort of way.  It was under a blanket in our living room.  Here's the play-by-play:

He sneaks a peak.

 He lifts the sheet

 He drops the sheet. Does a double take. Walks around. "Could it be possible?" "Is that what I think it is?"

 The sheet is pulled and the prize is revealed! It's to good to be true!!!!

Ohh you!

 Love at first sight.

 It works!!

 Hudson is happy.

 You are looking at the debut of the Betzler pajama jammers.  They are good. Maybe even great.

 THANKS PALALA. You are the best. I have been writing some songs. I will post them next time. Coocoo Lala is sure to be a chart topper.

The Christmas Tree and Aunt B!!

Wow! There I go again, weeks passing without posting. Sorry! 'Tis the season I suppose! Just so much to do. I am not complaining though, I love the holiday hustle and bustle, parties, food, gatherings, singing, dancing, and just being Jolly. December is my kind of month.  We have already had two jammed packed weeks of fun and are looking forward to two more.

We kicked off the holiday season with our annual Betlzer Family tradition; cutting down the Christmas tree.  This year we went up the mountain with some great friends, who happened to show us the "honey pot spot" of Christmas trees in the Big Horns, played, ate, built a bon fire, and were very merry!

 H and one of his BFF's, they are pretty much the cutest things together. They never fight and they even shared their hot chocolate...

 or did they? All the pictures I have would say otherwise.

 And as if that wasn't enough, the next day we got to go pick up AUNT B!!!!! What a treat was having her here with us for over a week.  H was in heaven and it was probably the nicest vacation I have had in a long time.   He wanted to do everything with Aunt B, even when she would try to sneak a little private time, he would sit outside the bathroom and wait for her.  

 The played countless hours of Legos. 

They read a lot of books.

They shared, almost everything.

 They snuggled. Lucky Luna. That's more love than she has had in a long time. 

Somehow between all the H bonding time Brit and I were also able to do some sister bonding.  We cooked and baked (some recipes to come!), and talked for hours, worked on some projects and were together! I couldn't have asked for anything more. 

A note from H.

Aunt B -
I miss you. Come back, please.  It is not that fun without you here. Mom does not know how to play guys or make chocolate pies.  She is horrible at hide and sneak and even worse at sneaky feet. She can't build a Lego firetruck for anything and she doesn't even save the cats from the trees. Come back soon.  I LOVE AUNT B!!!
-H

Wow.Time flies.

The last month has been a whirl wind, I have no idea where the time went.  Lots of family, lots of fun, lots of work and now, here we are in December!  To make up for the last month's lack of posts here is a quick month in pictures -  

Hud the builder. Happy Halloween 2012

 EGGS - Finally! The chickens, well only one of them, started laying.

 The highlight of the month was  Thanksgiving in Prescott.  

Chasing Peacocks at the Prescott Zoo.

Snack time.

Happy Birthday to my best buddy and cousin - Stephan

Who is letting these kids run around like this??

 

Aunt Nunn and Chris.

The beautiful Long family.

 

H loves Arizona.

 You are never to old to wrestle.

 Cousin love.

 The Petroglyphs in Prescott.

 Acklin Family fun. So great to see you Aunt Lori and Uncle John.

What to do with all that "art"??

H is an artist. Or at least he thinks he is, I'm not so sure, I sometimes think he is just making a mess. He is good enough, however, that he has mastered the art of painting while eating a cookie. Multitasking at its finest. Needless to say, we have to have art time at least once a day. It can get boring and in my opinion wasteful, paper after paper with not but random squiggles. We typically just re-used the papers until they we covered in art and then I would recycle them.  Lately, H has been getting more particular and insisting that he can only create on clean new pieces of white paper! Honestly! So to keep encouraging his creative urges and make myself feel less wasteful we have been coming up with new uses for his art.  Our current favorite is envelopes & thank you note in one.  It's sort of a win-win situation, h gets to do his art and I get to check something off my to do list.  They are actually pretty fun and more personal than store bought thank you's. So for all my friends who are looking for an winter afternoon activity, here you go!

All you need are your art supplies, scissors, a mad artist and a little time.

Here are the measurements, in inches, we used to make an envelope. We used a thicker art style paper, but anything will work. These measurements are nice because 4x6 pictures fit perfectly inside. However, if you don't mind smaller envelopes, here is a template you can print and copy. You can cut first or draw first, doesn't matter, but make sure you write your thank you note before you fold 

Place double sided sticky tape on the sides, fold, and stick

For thank  you notes, we just wrote right on the inside of the envelope, before folding and sticking, obviously!

These are far from perfect but they are a fun kid friendly idea.

This one is my personal favorite.  Sometimes, I have grand visions of how our art projects are going turn out; cute, color coordinated, going perfect with my decor and then reality hits and I remember I am working with a two year old who does not share my vision of "art".  When I told H I was going to take a picture of his art to put on the blog, he drew the big BUTT above...I'm not sure what he was trying to tell me here???

AND Since we make pancakes at least once a week we are always experimenting with the recipes.  Here was today's and they were delicious.  So good that I think we will be making this same recipe but with pumpkin later in the week! 

Gluten Free Pear Pancakes

1  small banana mashed up
1/2 cup pear puree
1 Cup Bob's Red Mill Gluten free flour
1/2 Oat flour
1 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. cinnamon1/2 tsp. salt
1 tbls. maple syrup
3/4 -ish cup warm water (plus more to desired consistency - I like thick doughy pancakes so I used less)

Mix together, in order listed above, and make pancakes.

This one is for the Grandma's

If you didn’t know my husband is a thespian!  Yes, Colin decided to try out for the Wyo-theater’s Gala this year, Any Thing Goes.  Apparently, anything does go because he made it, JUST KIDDING!  That was just too easy! Seriously, the show is awesome and Colin is the best darn steward I have ever seen. If you live in Sheridan you should go, if you can.   The unfortunate result of this amazing production is that it has required my husband to be at practice 5 nights a week for 2-4 hours.  We have missed him and can’t wait to have him back.  Needless to say, evenings can get a little long with his absence, so we have had to mix it up a bit.  We had several dinner dates with friends which were wonderful and I have invented several new nighttime routines.  Once a week we have been having BedTime PartyTIME, if he brushes his teeth and gets to bed with out a fuss all week, we break out the books and the animals and P-A-R-T-Y, library style.  It is honestly so sweet, one of those things that you want to remember forever. 

 This week he really got into and while I cleaned up the kitchen he set up the party.  If you notice all his favorite animals got their own books and the others had to share. 

 (for aunt nunu, i helped get this guy to stay in the chair)

 He loves this baby fox and is funny with it.  He was having a hard time reading to it and hold it, so he came up with the idea of zipping it up in his shirt...

 I have no idea where he would have come up with this, do you Colin?