Some Overdue Christmas Photos

Not wanting to break from my norm, here are some Christmas pictures that are about a month overdue! They aren't in order either, but it's all good!

Dan trying out Joel's beloved Colt's football helmet!

Jack and Jake...best buds!

Joel trying out Claire's guitar!

Looks like Claire found the perfect place to rest.

Lydia and Noelani...best cousins forever!

Jake got 2 boxes of Dinosaur Eggs all to himself! (He loves them, but rarely gets them)!

Lydia's gift to Grandma! She made this piece in art club. I made my mom a similar one in elementary school. How fun that she has one from her grand daughter now!

Anna's first Christmas!

My special gift from my two oldest kids...a notebook with 100 recipes! They (Jake especially) worked so hard on writing down recipes, complete with hand-painted illustrations! I love it!

Grandma knows Lydia will always love a pretty outfit! Aunt Sarah Beth and Uncle Matt got her one, too, but I don't have a picture of that one. She loved it enough to wear it in the spelling bee this morning, though!

Claire got her own giant package of Craisin's (she loves those)!

And finally, some Christmas cupcakes I made for our Sunday School party. I wish I had mini-M'M's for the lights on the "tree." But it still turned out cute, I thought.

Some Funnies to Share

So, here is one more cookie to show...notice the mistake? Whoops! Forgot the "r" in Stroop.
This is one sad piece of toast. And this is one of my favorite pictures recently taken. Claire wanted to help out while I was cooking supper. I asked her to set the table. I finished cooking and when I turned around, this is what I saw...complete with toilet paper napkins!

5th Anual Christmas Cookie Decorating Day!

I had to look back on Picasa to figure out how many years we have been doing this. The kids were so little when we started! I hope they don't outgrow this tradition anytime soon. A big thank you to my sister, who helped me shape and bake all these cookies! And of course, to all the decorators! Two out of the who knows how many trays.

Claire thoroughly enjoyed herself this year! That pile on her plate that looks like just candy actually does have a cookie underneath!
Who needs napkins when you have your shirt? Right, Jake?
Jake's favorite that he made.
Lyd's fave she made.
Claire's fave she made...that's pretty impressive, wouldn't you say?

A newbie! Found this cookie cutter at a garage sale this summer.

Another newbie.

*I do have one more special cookie pic to share, but it'll be on the next blog posting with some other funnies.*

Happy New Year! (and some late Christmas pictures)

Happy 2012

While my intentions are to post things on time, life gets in the way. The kids have had a nice break from school, but we did mingle some sickness in there. Two days before Christmas, Claire came down with strep. Thankfully, this was a Friday, so I was able to get her into the Dr's office before the weekend. By Christmas Eve, she was back to her perky self and we were all able to attend the annual candlelight service at church that afternoon. A highlight of that day was getting to see Brian (my "kid" brother) who is home for 2 weeks from Afghanistan. We had a unified service the next morning, during which my mom, Lydia, Dan, and myself sang special music (Tell Me The Story Of Jesus). After the service, we took our pictures in front of the tree (seems to have become a tradition). This year, we had an ANNA girl to join us...yay!Sitting still (for anything, much less a picture) is not high on Anna's priority list. This picture reminded me of a little Claire girl just a few years ago...

Freedom!


In the bulletin, the special music was under the name, "Kanost Family." So, here's a pic of the Kanost women, I guess.

York

So I was trying to be clever with the title of this post but I got nothin'. This short word has been in my vocabulary a lot recently. I am claiming it the word for this fall (for me).

First off, there was our New YORK trip in October.

Secondly, there's been much talk of YORK-ies in our home. No, we are not getting a dog. Lydia has to do an IRP (independent research project) in her KARE class and the topic she chose was YORKshire terriors. She saw one for the first time in Jack's pets and fell in love with this breed of dog. Hmm, Lydia...could it do anything with the fact that they usually have a bow in their long hair? Just saying...

Lastly, right now I am typing this blog in YORK, PA! My mom and dad were planning on visiting my brother and his family in December. I haven't been back in this area since summer of 2007, so I asked if I could tag along. It took some figuring out having places for the kids to stay since Dan was out of town this week, but we successfully left Thursday around 4pm and arrived here a little after 1am. One fun memory from the trip was singing to my dad at midnight on the 16th (his birthday). Only I initiated it, not knowing the clock in my mom's car was a little fast. We had fun celebrating two birthday's (my brother's is on the 24th) and an early Christmas with John, Amy, Jonathon, and Matthew. We leave tomorrow after church. Not looking forward to the long drive home leaving YORK, but at least we will have more daylight hours on the way home.

Anyone want to buy me a York Peppermint Patty before the 22nd (the first day of winter)?

A Little Thursday Randomness

Here are pictures taken earlier this fall that I never got around to sharing until now (imagine that)? The kids had fun carving pumpkins. Jake even carved his entire pumpkin by himself this year! Did you notice that tongue that comes with intense concentration sticking out? The last picture is of the finished pumpkins next to Kevin, our scarecrow man and his new friend, Kelsey. Speaking of, I just got done washing their clothes to store away for next year.

And now, on to much more exciting news! I'm going to be an uncle! Woohoo!
Sarah Beth and Matthew had the family over last month for a reveal party. On the day of their ultrasound, I was given instructions NOT to call...since keeping a surprise is hard for both of them. I would find out that evening at their house. Evening came and sitting on their dining room table was this cake. Of course, we had to wait until after supper was over. We were all anxious to get into that cake. You see, the middle layer of icing would be either pink or blue, revealing the gender of baby Rickert #2. My guesses were for a boy...although I thought Anna was a boy, too. Finally, supper was over and my mom had the honors of cutting the cake. Blue icing it was!!! How exciting! Ironically, the night before on Cake Boss, I'd watched Buddy make a gender reveal cake for a couple...only chose to be surprised with their guests and the color of the cake under the icing was the reveal. What a fun way to share! Anyhow, I am super excited to be meeting my nephew in March...due 8 days after his big sis. Only, maybe he'll follow Anna's lead and come a month early and have a February birthday...we shall see.

And now, I must get the kids fed and Lydia ready for gymnastics. Grandpa Kanost is taking her tonight so that I don't have to drag Jake and Claire there. Thanks, Grandpa!

Repundle, Repundle...Let Down Your Golden Hair

FINALLY, here are some pictures of Claire's 5th birthday party, which was a big hit! *Explanation of my blog title: Claire's has a best-est little buddy from school, Morgan. Apparently, Claire had told Morgan that she had "Repundle hair," so Morgan went home and told her mom she wanted Repundle hair, too!*

Wish I'd gotten better pictures of the decorations. We hung paper lanterns and had a tower complete with Rapunzel and her long hair.

This tower cake was fun to do. We had a mishap in the middle of Claire's party with it falling over. I'm definitely learning cake decorating as I go. I didn't put a slab of icing at the base of the cake to kind of cement it in. Thankfully, it stayed upright for Claire and the guests to see it. The last picture makes me think Flynn Rider is calling for Rapunzel to "jump and I'll catch ya!"

First thing we did was have the kids sit down and do a craft. Again, wish I'd taken a picture of the final result. They made Pascal (the chameleon) party blowers, with the blower being his tongue. Very cute idea I saw from online.

Next, we played a game called, Pin The Nose On Flynn Rider (in the movie, he doesn't like how they drew his nose in the Wanted posters). This has been somewhat of a tradition in our household for the 5th birthday party. At Jake's, we played pin the tale on the dinosaur; Lydia's was pin the lips on the frog (prince). It seems to be a big hit for this age.

And of course, even if you are 10 and 8, there is fun to be had. This picture shows Lydia tricking Jake by standing in place of the poster.

Time to eat!!! Frying pans were used as serving bowls for the chips since a frying pan was Rapunzel's choice for a weapon in the movie, Tangled. And off to the left, you can sort of see Lydia's Pascal party blower.

Something funny being shared by Travis and Lydia.

Mrs. Chrisman, Claire's pre-k teacher got to come to her party. Her 1st daughter, Ellie is around Claire's age and even though they aren't in the same class, they enjoy each other's company before and after school.

Blowing out the candle!

Opening presents!

An attempt at a group photo (minus Morgan, who had to leave early).

Claire, Kelsey (we made Keven a friend this year), and "the boys." Claire LOVES the three T's! (Tine, Travis, and Titus)