Logan's Candy Cane Tour

Thursday night last week we met up with Hannah's Brownie troop and their families, along with several other troops, to tour Logan's Candies.

The tour started outside ...

 And through the window they all watched the owner as he began to mold what would turn into hundreds of candy canes on that surface right in front of the window.  We watched the candy through the window as it cooked and boiled in a hot pot.  Then he laid it out on the surface and began to shape it.  He broke the candy mold into two pieces and then colored one of the pieces red.  

 We got to watch it begin to take shape as they added stripes to the candy.

 Then inside on the counter he started to work smaller pieces of the candy off and he passed them down the line to his wife and other employees.  Each of them had a job that helped the candy canes take their shape.

 They made little peppermints and we all got to taste them while they were still warm.  

Then each of the kids got to take a candy cane and shape it into anything they wanted while it was warm.

 It was a neat tour and the kids loved it!
A fun outing to kick off the holiday season.  

The next morning  before school...

 We were all so proud of Claire who received the Kids With Character Award at the morning assembly!

She's been watching Hannah receive awards at these assemblies for a couple years now, and she was so thrilled to be getting her own.  

Way to go Clairey!!!

Our 4th

Happy 5th everybody!
How was your 4th?
Ours was great.

 Mr. H had to work but he was able to leave by 1.

 The girls and I were ready at home and waiting for him.

 And as soon as he got home, we packed up the car, and took off towards the beach.


Meet my Uncle Dave and my Aunt Glenda...

Aren't they cute?

My Uncle Dave has a fishing boat in Newport and I sort of invited ourselves down for the day.  ;)

My Uncle Dave's kids are my cousins Chad and Donavon.  It's always a good time when we get to see them.  Chad was there, and Don and Kaylen drove down from the Bay area to be there too.  My Grandma also came down, with my cousin Dee and a friend of hers.  And my sister and her fiance and friends were camping at The Dunes so we got to see them too.   My parents were up in Big Bear and we missed having them there too.

 It was a great day filled with lots of fun, food, and good times.

Thanks for the hospitality Captain Fin!!!!

My phone died later in the evening and I didn't get any fireworks pics.  But we had a prime spot to sit and watch the show from the boat.  
We waited a bit to let traffic die down before we headed home.
We got back close to midnight and discovered that poor Abbey must have gotten scared from the fireworks and peed in the house and then tracked it all over the place during her nervous pacing.
It's hot and humid here today and we are just lounging around.
Hope your 4th was a fun and safe one!  

New Year and New Adventures

A couple days before New Year's my mom and Noah met my girls and I at the theater to see Walking With Dinosaurs.  It was very cute and we all enjoyed it.

On New Year's Eve we stayed in and watched Pirates of the Carribean with the girls.  

They hadn't seen it before and it was fun to watch a movie as a family that we all enjoyed.

I made the girls homemade chicken nuggets dipped in almond flour and parmesan for dinner and Mr. H picked up some sushi for us.

Dinner was delicious.
And after the little people went to bed, we popped open a bottle of bubbly.

And then we watched Breaking Bad.
We just recently finished the show and what an ending!

My cousin Katie told me how much she was enjoying this cookbook, so I ran out to find it and I'm so glad I did.  I love it!

I've made several things already and each recipe has a beautiful photograph to go with it.  I love the photos in the book just as much as I love the recipes!  My mouth was salivating as I flipped through it.

Last Friday night our sitter came over and Mr. H and I had a quick dinner at RA and then saw a movie.

Before picking her up we got In-N-Out for them for dinner.
We saw American Hustle and were both SO dissapointed in it.  It was slow and we were bored and seriously wishing we saw something else.

The next day Mr. H was off work and we had no plans.
The weather was sunny and 75, and I was a little antsy after being home with just the girls for 8 days, and the girls, as always, had energy to burn.
So I suggested we attempt to hike up Skyline.
We've never really taken the girls hiking other than "exploring" the trails when we go to Oak Glen every year.
We weren't sure how far we'd even get but we decided to give it a whirl.

And we were SO glad we did!!

They had SO much fun!  

We all had a blast.
We wound up hiking 2.5 miles out before we decided to turn around before we pushed our luck.

The girls begged to do it again so we made plans to go with my parents the next day.

After our hike we got some Miguel's for lunch and just relaxed before heading out to see my cousin's high school basketball game in Yorba Linda.

Before we left Hannah had to show me how far she could shoot her bow and arrow that Santa left her.

And we're off...

The girls love watching Dee play.  They sit in the stands so well and this time their friend Peyton was there too and they were soooo excited to see her.

After the game hugging Dee with their Uncles being silly in the background.

The next morning we packed a lunch, filled up our water bottles and backpacks, and set out for more adventuring at Skyline!

It was another gorgeous day and my parents were really glad they joined in.
We can't wait to do that again.
And talk about a great way to wear the kids out!!
They were so nice and tired afterwards, and my parents took them back home to their house so that Mr. H and I could shower and catch a matinee!!
We can't even remember the last time we saw a matinee?!
I just finished reading The Book Thief a couple days ago, and after sitting through American Hustle and being so dissapointed that we didn't see The Book Thief instead, we knew that's what we were going to see.
It was great!
Different than the book as always, but a great movie.

It was one of the most perfect weekends I've had in a long time.
And now we're on our last week off from break before school starts again on Monday.
And I'm not going to lie, as much as I hate our early start time around here, I love routine.  And I'll be happy to get back to that.
I want to try and start waking up an hour before I have to start getting the kids up to have a little time to myself to wake up and have my coffee first.  But that means getting up at 5am, and it sounds good in my head, but we'll see how well I am able to execute that plan.  
Sleep is awfully nice at 5am too.  

Happy New Year to you all.
Hope 2014 treats ya well.

Leading up to Christmas

Finally getting around to the few pics leading up to Christmas that I have...

A client made this bookmark for me on her sewing machine!  I aboslutely love it and thought it was so thoughtful because she knows how much I love to read.  

Here's what I wore to help at Claire's holiday party for TK.
My jeans are the Mia skinny jean by Kut from the Kloth, and oh my gosh do I love them.

I was in charge of the cookie decorating center.  I put this picture on instagram and said that it was fun, but it was also a whole lot of stimulus for one morning!!! ;)

The girls opening up a Christmas gift from Grandma Hass.  She bought them a series of dance classes and money for new dance leotards.  They were thrilled!  

And here they are opening a package delivered from their Uncle Dusty and Aunt Karen in Portland.  They tore that thing opened pretty fast!  And they loved what they found inside.  Thank you Dusty & Karen!

Mr. H and I made it out to Taps one night a couple days before Christmas.  We had a nice dinner and then went to see Saving Mr. Banks at the movies.  We loved it.

The first Monday the girls were on winter break I wound up at the pediatrician's office with Claire.  She had a nasty cold that turned into an infection.

On the 23rd I made a double batch of this enchilada sauce for our enchilada makin' fest to take place the next night.  And 2 cowgirl quiche's from PW's book for dinner that night too.  After all that I was too lazy to also make cookies for Santa, so we bought the packaged ones.  

On Christmas Eve we all pitched in to make our dinner of enchiladas, rice and beans, and additionally we made 12 dozen enchiladas to save some, give some, and eat some more.  It was fun.

And after we went to sleep that night, good old St. Nick showed up.

Later we showered and put our pj's back on and headed to Yorba Linda to my Uncle Tim's house for the family Christmas pajama party.  It was 85 degrees and sunny.  Felt like we should have had a pool party!

And speaking of pool, Hannah learned to play for the first time.  She was quite the little billiards fan.

When we got home that night the girls were cranky and tired, and Mr. H and I were exhausted.  But our little house looked like it had thrown up, and I just can't stand to sit and relax when my house looks like that.  Plus we have outgrown our house and now every little extra thing inside it makes me feel like the house is swallowing me up and I can't breathe!  So I thought I'd just start by making a small pile of Christmas decor to put away in the morning, and we wound up taking down all of Christmas!  It took us until 11pm and we were so tired afterward, and poor Mr. H started working a stretch of 8 days straight after Christmas, but it sure felt good to get it all put away.  I felt like I could breathe again.

The next morning the first thing the girls did was get up and put on their new princess dresses from Grandma GG and start playing with all their new things.  

We took it easy the next couple days, recouping, organinzing things a bit, and finding homes for new toys.

That Friday we got together with a few friends and had a great time.  We all brought appetizers to share so I made a veggie tray and dip and these meatballs that were a hit.  

I made them the night before and then just put them in the crockpot along with a jar of marinara sauce to warm the next night.