Christmas baking!

One of the gifts the girls got from Grandma Betty and Papa Dale were these cute aprons and chef hats. She also sent some gingerbread mix along with a gingerbread man cookie cutter. We made our gingerbread people on Sunday while it snowed. I have to say that those were the best ginger people I have ever had! They were soft and not too gingery. Dagger wouldn't get out of the picture, so we just took it with him.
Alysse's friend, Alexis, joined in our fun. They were cracking me up because they put flour all on their faces and aprons so it would look like they worked really hard. Remember those old Rice Krispie treat commercials, anyone?


The girls had a tea party with their ginger people, and the rest of us enjoyed ours with the wassail I made. Nothing like wassail on a cold, snowy day!

An Early Christmas

Since we will be going to Louisiana over Christmas, I thought it would be fun for the kids to open one present a night from my in-laws. They had so much fun anticipating getting to open a present every night!!! I had them finish opening all of them on Saturday night because I knew we would have a hectic week trying to get everything ready before we left. They loved all their goodies, and so did I!!! It was fun to have Christmas before Christmas! :)

Austin LOVES Legos! He was so excited when he got this that he ran straight back to his room and began putting it together.

The next day - voila!

Grandma Betty and Papa Dale loaded Alysse up on Hannah Montana goodies. Here she is showing off her new Hannah Montana pajamas.

Ashlea is showing off her bears and some of the clothes she was given for them. This girl loves stuffed animals, and what is even better than stuffed animals - clothes to dress them in!

I have another picture I wanted to put up on the blog, but since the other Armstrong families haven't opened their presents I have to wait. If you are wondering what I got, I was blessed with my favorite perfume (Cashmere Mist), a gorgeous sweater, a comfy robe (wish I never had to take it off), and something I can't mention since Christmas hasn't happened for the rest of the family. Thank you to my other family! You have already made this Christmas season very special. In case anyone is wondering, we are leaving the tree up until James returns, and his presents are under there waiting for him.

Alysse's handbell concert

Alysse had her handbell concert this past Wednesday. They did an amazing job! I was so proud of her! Way to go Alysse!

November in a Nutshell

Okay, so I am way behind in my blogging. I hope that once James gets back to be more consistent posting! November flew past(which is great since that means James will be home sooner!). I will do my best to give an overview of a whole month without boring you to tears. First, our school did their fall book fair at Barnes and Noble this year. It was amazing! We had a great turnout, and it sure was fun getting to shop B&N! The handbell choir performed and did a fabulous job! I was so proud of Alysse! She has really enjoyed handbells, and I am so excited that she has this opportunity!
The Friday that the kids got out for Thanksgiving break, Alysse's class had a Thanksgiving feast in her classroom. When I was growing up, one of my favorite things was the Thanksgiving meal in the cafeteria. The parents would come and eat lunch with us that day, and I always enjoyed that time. We have been at three schools, and only the one in Texas still does that. I talked to Alysse's teacher to see if we could do our own feast. She was sweet enough to agree, so here is the result. It turned out very nice, and I really enojoyed spending this time with Alysse. Just so you didn't think I left Ashlea out, her room parent talked to her teacher. However, the other first grade rooms weren't doing a feast, so Ash's teacher didn't want the others to feel left out. Maybe next year!
For Thanksgiving week, my parents came in town which was super nice to be able to have adult conversations and to keep me sane while the kids were out all week. My parents are really into bowling. They go to all sorts of tournaments including the national tournament every year. Therefore, when they come in town, they always enjoy taking the kids bowling. I took this picture of Ashlea, and then put the camera down and forgot I had it the rest of the time which means that I, unfortunately, don't have pictures of anyone else bowling. The kids did a super job! I think Austin or Alysse even beat me in one game!
On Thanksgiving, we all ate at the club on base. I thoroughly enjoy this tradition as I don't have to cook or clean! If we had a huge family gathering, I would love cooking and cleaning, but since there aren't usually very many of us, I prefer to enjoy the delights at the club. We always watch the Macy's Thanksgiving day parade and vote on our favorites, got eat, nap, and then head out to the movies that night. We usually see our first Christmas movie of the season, but there weren't any kid-friendly Christmas movies out this year. Boo Hollywood! Anyway, the next day, we all headed to Canon City to ride the Royal Gorge train. It was a very nice trip with beautiful scenery. Here we are in front of the train. Austin, our budding photographer, took this picture. He's pretty good, huh?

Normally, we decorate for Christmas the day after Thanksgiving, but after the train ride, I was pooped. Mom and Dad were leaving the next day, so we just enjoyed being together one last evening instead. On Sunday, I pulled our small tree up from the basement as well as our Christmas village. Everything else was too heavy or bulky. Here are the kids decorating the tree. Austin did all of two ornaments so that I could take a picture, but the girls were excited and decorated the whole tree! They even crawled underneath and put ornaments on the back!


Here is the finished product! Don't you love the leaning star? As hard as I tried, I couldn't get that star to stand up straight!
I just read over my post, and I had to laugh because apparently any form of "enjoy" was the word of the blog. I probably said it at least 10 times. I would usually go back and re-word it; however, it is 3 in the morning! My brain isn't up to being a thesaurus right now. Gosh, I hope I spelled thesaurus right, too! :)

Halloween

Now, normally on Halloween James takes the kids around. He and some of the other dads get together and drive the kids around. Remember, we are in Colorado, and usually Halloween is the coldest day of the season which means the kids are in their coats, hats, and mittens, and are freezing by the time they get back. James usually takes the seats out of the van, opens the van door at the clusters, has the kids jump out to go trick-or-treating, and then they drive to the next cluster. Since James is the greatest husband ever, last year most of my friend's husbands were deployed, so he took 8 kids trick-or-treating. I had to laugh this year when the weather turned out to be in the 60's at night, and the kids could actually walk around instead of being driven as well as not having to wear their coats over their costumes! James would have enjoyed this Halloween! Here are pictures of the girls in their costumes. Alysse was Samantha (the American Girl doll), and Ashlea was a kitty cat. Austin went as Austin. He was never big into dressing up, and now that he is in middle school he is "too old" for that. Our cadets, Mikey and Kat, were super sweet and called to see if they could take the kids trick-or-treating. While they went around, I went to my friend Danielle's to pass out candy. One of our other traditions on Halloween is that I make gumbo. My friends look forward to it as much as my family does. Around here, gumbo really warms you up as we sit outside in the cold to pass out candy. I'm getting hungry just thinking about it! Enjoy the pictures!

Pumpkin Carving Party

Every year we have a pumpkin carving party the Sunday before Halloween. We carve our pumpkins, roast pumpkin seeds, make caramel apples, eat chili, and watch Charlie Brown's "The Great Pumpkin". We always have a great time! For the past couple of years I have invited our friends whose spouse was deployed. This year my friend Sharalie and her family came since her husband is in Korea for a year. Our cadets came down to give me a hand with the carving, and I am so glad they did! Here they are carving away!
Austin carved his own and did such a great job!

Here he is with his finished product!

Ahslea wanted this very detailed haunted house that took our cadet, Mike, around an hour to carve. Thank you Mike!!!! As you can see it turned out great! Mike had Ashlea decorate it, so you put a lot of rain drops on it and balloons that say boo!

Alysse chose a kitty cat for hers which our cadet, Kat, was gracious enough to carve. The funny thing is by the time Halloween got here the cat was pretty shriveled up, so he added to the Halloween ambience.

We had a great time, but we sure missed James! As we watched Charlie Brown, I got a little emotional knowing this was the first of the holiday season, and he wouldn't be here. I sent him pictures of their pumpkins and costumes, but I can't wait for next year when he will be home with us!

Rocky Mountain National Park

I am way behind on my blogging, so I will try to do a quick catch up. A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine (whose husband is also deployed), her kids, my kids, and I took a trip to Estes Park while the kids were out of school for a few days. We stayed at the YMCA and headed into Rocky Mountain National Park for a day of hiking, picnicking, and elk watching. We had a great time! We still didn't hear the elk bugling which was our main purpose, but the important thing was we had fun! Here are a few pictures of the park, the Y, and the kids enjoying board games and legos!Hopefully, you can tell the kids are spelling YMCA in the first picture.


This next picture is of the Aspens. There were just a few Aspens left that had color. I hope you can see how pretty they are!

Tooth Fairy is a-coming!

Ashlea has had a loose tooth on the bottom for a while, and last night at church during children's choir not one but two teeth came out!!! Now, we were not able to locate both teeth, and I don't even want to think about where it might have ended up if you catch my drift. Here she is in all her new toothless glory!

Have no fear! The tooth fairy was very good to her! :)

Mom's visit

OK, this entry is a little late due to technical difficulties. Also, you will notice that the pictures are small and can't be enlarged. Sorry about that! I got these photos from Mom's camera via Snapfish, so when I copied them this is what happened. Last weekend my mom came for a short visit. While I certainly wish she could have stayed longer, I enjoyed the time I had with her. We surprised the kids on Thursday because we had told them she was coming in on Friday. It was really funny to watch their faces as they realized who was with me when I picked them up. On Friday, while Mom and I were enjoying our day of fun, we drove up on this scene in the photo. If any of you know my mom, we stopped in the middle of the road so that she could take pictures.

While she was here, she had lunch with the girls which is always a huge treat for them - especially when someone brings them Subway!


That night we relaxed at home and watched "Peter Pan". We got up on Saturday morning to head out to Dunkin Donuts which turned into quite an adventure. We were almost to the store when we came upon a part of the road that had road closed signs and cones put up so that there was no possible way to get around them. We made a u-turn in hopes of finding another route that would get us there. Well, we eventually ended up back where we started, but this time a cop was pulling up the sign and cones. We are excited because we are close to donuts! As we get closer to Dunkin, we notice that 8 condos were completely burned out - 1 all the way to the ground. It was a horrific scene! There were cops, fireman, EMTs everywhere. We later found out that one person died in the fire. Please pray for these families as they try to rebuild their lives after losing everything! On to a happier note now, we did make it to Dunkin and enjoyed our donuts!

After we got through eating our fattening donuts, we headed to the art and farmer's market that was close by. We had a great time looking, sampling, and buying all the wonderful fruits, veggies, breads, homemade soaps (my favorite), kettle corn, and all the other great things we found there! I love a good farmer's market!

We had a great time with Mom/Nana and are looking forward to Thanksgiving when we'll get to visit with her, my dad, and my cousin, Jeanne! It sure was nice to have another adult around for a while!

Air Force Football!!

If you are patriotic and love football, then Academy football games are for you! Anyone who knows me knows I LOVE football. Now, I grew up on Saints football and am still a huge fan, but I didn't really have a college team to root for. My college didn't have football when I was there, and while I am from Louisiana and enjoy LSU winning, I never was really "into" LSU football. Since we have been at the Academy, I have thoroughly enjoyed the college football atmosphere. These games are so fun! First, we have the Wings of Blue which is the Academy jump team. The first picture is of them as they have just jumped out of the plane. These pictures are ones that you probably want to click on to enlarge and see the full details.
This is the guy landing who is holding the American flag.

This is one of my favorite parts - when The Bird comes parachuting in.

I took a picture of the cadets just because I think they are cool, and if you've never been to a game, then you need to see how awesome they look.

One of my other favorite things is seeing the flyby. Today we had a C-17 that was hooked up to a C-5. Now, I could be totally wrong about the planes, but I do know that a C-17 is a refueler that refuels a C-5. So, this picture shows what it would like like when two planes refuel in the air. Now, keep in mind how dangerous refueling is. These planes are still flying while gas is leaving one plane going into another. Not a simple feet! Thank you to all our pilots out there who take on this risky job in order to promote freedom around the world!

This is Alysse and one of our cadets that we consider as one of our children - Alicia. Alicia is a cheerleader, so Alysse was ecstatic to see here this weekend!

These next few are Alysse cheering and dancing. She is hard to spot, but she is in the very front. She is wearing black shorts and to the left of the AFA cheerleader in white. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can spot her more easily.



Here she is coming up the tunnel on Alicia's shoulders.

P.S. Air Force lost today in the last minute of the game, but I was so proud of them for hanging in there against Utah!!! Go Falcons!