Monday, December 18, 2006

Ginger Bread Houses 2006

Tonight we held our 5th annual Besaw family Ginger Bread House decorating get together. It was a smashing success! We held it at Melissa's house this year and we had some of the most creative ideas ever!

Unfortunately, I was left to help Tyler with his house. Fortunately, in the end, Jamie came in and rescued the house. When she tagged in I had effectively destroyed all four walls. Granted, I had a great variety of yummy treats, my lack of engineering prowess showed through when the base couldn't support the ten pounds of candy I had frosted on.

Clayton teamed up with Grandma Terry to bring us a Necco Clock with numbers and hands drawn on. They also had penguins and goldfish in their pond. Meanwhile, Morgan and Craig came up with an idea to have a Smarties "cobblestone" yard. It gave their cottage a most "European" feel to it.

London's house didn't exactly exude a ton of creativity, but I'll tell you what, she more than figured out how to add lollipop/gumdrop lamps to her house. Also, if I am not mistaken many of the gumdrop bases had to pass a stringent taste test to make the cut.

Miranda helped Kennedy, who, as always, was all smiles.

The twins each came up with some exciting new designs as well. Madison had quite the Licorice Gateway that lead to her cottage's porch. She also had a pretty fancy Tootsie Roll fence. Meanwhile, Mackenzie's Santa sled was led by a red-nosed kissdeer. She also had a rather fancy candy rock path that led the way to her door (complete with knob).

Melissa spent the night helping to frost key additions for everyone and finding key candies and edible treats for anyone's ideas. Regan and I (after I destroyed Tyler's house) chased kids and tried to help keep peace. Grandpa Rod held little Marcus and Marcus seemed to love his touch because he was zonked most of the evening.

All in all, one of the best (and messiest) family home evenings of the year. Below I have posted a blog with some photos of the homes with their builders. However, I thought it important for this blog that I show off how great this year's homes looked. (Bear in mind that none of these photos were the finished product and yes, we did add roofs).

Ginger Bread House Pictures

Madison takes a quick break
Tyler cheeses up for the camera
Mackenzie is all Business with her house
London loved the Lollipop look

Morgan and Craig, what a team!
Clayton planning with Grandma
Kennedy was all Smiles
Marcus just watched

Sunday, December 03, 2006

The Christmas Tree & Other Ramblings

Tis the season! Jamie, Tyler and I (with lots of help from Grandma Renae) put up our Christmas tree this past week. Tyler is very proud of it and likes to show it off to anyone who comes visiting. He really enjoyed putting the candy canes on the tree and loved to climb up the little step ladder and pretend it was a "spaceship." He is a comical little guy and we are proud of the work he put into making our "Crimpas" tree look nice.

Meanwhile, Renae had to head back to Virginia this week and we will miss having our maid around. Jamie is doing pretty well with things, but is finding that with a baby in the house we do have to say No to Tyler a lot more and that can be a drag. Unfortunately, Tyler wants to smother the baby with his love. Could be worse, he could want to smother him in a jealous rage. However, the result is the same and we find that Marcus would be loved into an ealry demise if we don't keep a close eye on Tyler. As you can see in these pictures, Tyler loves to touch baby brother's head (about the only part of Marcus' body we let him touch without getting in trouble).

This week Tyler also sat on Santa's lap for the first time. Last year he was too scared. This year he saw Santa at Tracy's work Christmas party that was held at Thanksgiving Point's Dinosaur Museum. He seemed to have a great time and is lucky to have such a loving aunt willing to let him come along.

Not much else is going on here. I am very anxious for the end of this week. I will then be off school until the new year. I enjoy school and have been learning a lot. However, it does make life a little more hectic that I would like. Is anything new going on with anyone else? Is anyone even reading this?

Loves,
Kent