Before Christmas...

Sorry. No excuse really. :) Here are some pictures from before Christmas that I've neglected to share...

Asher and Micah went ice skating again with the Karate West demo team...

It was a gorgeous day for it and they followed this with a taco and Christmas cookie party at one of the member's houses with some pool (billiards) play and plenty of laughter. Love this group of kids!

After Noah got home for the break, we finally put lights and ornaments on our tree...ta da!

After the state First Lego League tournament, the team met once more for recapping and celebrating. Our contribution was bringing a bag of ginormous marshmallows so the kids could try the "chubby bunny" contest thing. Micah managed, just barely, to get two in his mouth...

And, by the way, when decorating a Christmas tree with teenage boys, mine in particular, you end up with random "themed" branches...

That left photo is Asher's "efficiency" by hanging a number of his ornaments from each other rather than individually. Then, there were also instrument, Batman and Avenger themed areas. Boys. ;)

And one last picture...

These brown butter salted caramel mocha cookies are fabulous!! I've made them once before and now remember why we loved them so much. YUM! The day we made these, we *may* have baked 11 dozen cookies...and received our annual box of cookies from my brother (we *adore* this gift every year!)...and been gifted two or three things from neighbors and friends...and had a box arrive from my mom with even more sweets. Yeah. We were a bit overloaded, lol. Fortunately, we gave away most of the cookies to neighbors and friends...and the rest somehow disappeared in a matter of days, lol.

Okay. I think that brings us mostly to Christmas. :)