Cinnamon Rolls, Crafts and Errands

Saturday afternoon, we went to my parents for "Brinner" (breakfast for dinner) My dad made homemade sausage gravy, which was the point of the whole thing--I wanted some biscuits and gravy! My mom made French toasts, bacon, sausage, and biscuits. I have been wanting to try Pioneer Woman's cinnamon rolls forever and finally decided to make them. They weren't hard, but you have to mix the flour and yeast, let it rise, add some more ingredients, refrigerate (if you want the dough to be easier to work with) then it makes several pans! I had almost 8 pans, but I ended up combining one, so we ended up with 7 pans total. we had two pans on Saturday, then my parents took two to freeze, my sister took a pan, and we took two pans to freeze. I froze them with and without frosting and I'll see how they are when we defrost them and have them later. They turned out amazing, though. I absolutely loved them and they were definitely worth the work and it wasn't real hard to make them. I made a pan with the maple frosting that she uses, but I was afraid not everybody would like it. The maple frosting calls for 1/4 cup brewed coffee and I wasn't sure how that'd be and I definitely wasn't giving the boys frosting with coffee in it, so I made Pioneer Woman's cream cheese frosting as well. The maple frosting ended up being amazing, but the cream cheese frosting was good too. Click here to get the recipe.

Sunday morning, the boys got a package in the mail from Aunt Brandi! Does anybody else get mail on Sundays? We've been getting packages on Sunday for a few months now. I don't know if it's a seasonal thing that will stop around the holidays, but I always feel so guilty when I go to the door on a Sunday and it's the mailman.

The boys were so excited. We get a lot of packages because Greg and I do a lot of shopping online (if we can order it online instead of going to the store, we do) So, the boys were excited when I said it was for them and that they could open it.

The only thing the boys have asked for from Santa this year is Rescue Bots. I actually went out and got a couple for the boys to put in their stockings and Brandi ended up getting them each one for Christmas and it was not the same ones I got the boys, so it worked out great. They were SO excited when they saw these.

They also got another kids bible since the other one they have is for toddlers and we've read through it SO many times. I didn't get a picture of it, but it's bigger and has a lot more stories, but still perfect for their age. They also got a Melissa and Doug number puzzle that goes up to 20. They're working on numbers in school and are getting stuck on some of the "teens", so this is perfect for them.

Evan with "Heat Wave" I never thought in a million years that I'd know the name of the Rescuebots. This one turns into a fire truck.

They have played with these nonstop since they opened them on Sunday. Greg actually said to me later that day that he's never seen them play with a toy this much. And that was on Sunday--it's Tuesday night and they've still played with them nonstop since they opened them. They LOVE them. There was no fighting on Sunday, they played together so great.

Sunday, we ran errands together as a family. It was the first time in a long time because while I was in school, Greg would take them and I'd do homework or I'd run to the store with them during the week. It was nice going together, it's so much easier having an adult per kid. I offered to let the boys stay in the car while Greg ran into Sam's Club and we could watch a movie, but they weren't having any of that--they know Sam's Club has samples. They were so funny when we were in there, they can spot a sample stand from a mile away and were directing me where to go.

When we got home, it was more playing with rescue bots.

They wanted to make sure I got a picture and they each told me the names of the rescue bots a million times. They also wanted to make sure that I knew exactly how they transformed and showed me a million times that day.

They also played with their number puzzle. Greg worked on it with them while I was cooking dinner. He made it into a game and worked on their numbers with them.

Monday, my mom came over and I went to the dentist for 3 hours to get a root canal. Fun stuff! Apparently, I grind my teeth at night and I do it so hard that I cracked my tooth. I had put it off as long as I could, but my tooth was killing me. I got there at 10:00 and they got started right away, but for some reason, I do not get numb when they give me numbing medication, so it took almost 2 hours and several shots to numb my mouth. I have no idea why that is, I actually had a problem when I went under anesthesia in May, I kept waking up during the procedure and they had to give me double the amount they planned on. So, Monday, after my appointment, Greg came home and took the boys out to run some errands and let them play at Chick-fil-A and I took some medicine and slept from 4:30-9:00. So, between my appointment and sleeping, Monday was a waste. :(

Tuesday, though, I tried to make up for it with some fun crafts with the boys. I got a snowman craft at Target on clearance last year and it came with 20 snowmen, so the boys were able to do one for my mom, dad, and sister and I turned them into magnets for them to put on their fridge.

The boys had so much fun doing these. We still have some snowmen left, I wish I had done this craft sooner and they could have made some for friends and family that don't live close and we could have stuck them in the mail with their Christmas cards.

The boys did them all by themselves. I pulled out the letters and put them on the table in order but that was it, the boys did the rest.

After our snowman craft, my dad stopped by while he was in town and we gave him the snowmen to take home and put on their fridge. After he left, the boys got to work on their gingerbread house. This year I was smart and bought a kit, after learning last year that using graham crackers does not work.

Evan was way more interested in eating than building. He kept asking me for a bite of frosting. I spread the frosting out on the house and left the room for a second while they were decorating and I came back to this little stinker licking the knife.

The boys had fun decorating their house and even more fun eating the candy and marshmallows while they did. I had a hard time finding a safe gingerbread house that didn't have peanuts in it and wasn't processed in a factory with peanuts. I finally found one at Publix, but it wasn't on sale, so I just got one. I debated going back and getting another one all month, so they'd each of their own to decorate but I'm so glad I didn't. One was plenty for them.

You can see Evan double fisting candy in his mouth--haha.

The finished product.

It was wet and nasty on Tuesday, but I had errands to run. Some of them, I was able to do without getting the boys out of the car like picking up my prescription from Walgreens for my antibiotic (for my root canal), returning library books, meeting people to sell some of the boys old clothes, etc. So, I went through the drivethru at Mcdonald's and got some chicken nuggets and the boys had lunch in the car and watched a movie while I did most of my errands and sat in a ton of traffic (running errands two days before Christmas was the best idea)

The boys loved doing errands when it means some yummy chicken nuggets and a fun movie.

We did have to get out twice while running our errands and so I put the boys to work and gave them each a 2 liter to carry. Apparently, carrying a heavy object is the key to keeping the boys in line while we're out. They weren't able to go crazy or run off because they were concentrating on not dropping the soda. This may be how I do my shopping from now on. ;)

So far, the boys Christmas vacation is going good. Greg gets a 4 day weekend for Christmas, so I'm really looking forward to that and I know the boys are too.