Gingerbread Men

My good friend Jessica just happened to post her recipe for gingerbread men just as I had been thinking of making some. I took it as a sign that it was meant to be and here are the results:

I have to say that they turned out pretty great for my first try. Carter had fun with them.

As for catch up, it's been a busy month! Thanksgiving was awesome. The food was delicious and we were able to get Mike's mom here for a few days, which I know made her happy. My favorite sister, Amber, came out for the week, and even though we didn't get out to do anything amazing, it was so much fun having her here. The kids absolutely adore her and they were both sad to see her leave. We are still trying to convince her to move out here.

Since then, I have just been trying to get my house cleaned up and get ready for Christmas. Mike had the idea to paint the basement and make a toy room down there for the kids' Christmas. For those of you who haven't seen our basement, this is what we are up against:

Except now we have all of our storage down there as well. Needless to say, it's been a project (all of those shelves are built in and had to be broken down), but it is coming along nicely. I knocked the strange room pictured here out a while ago, so that has helped (anyone who really knows me shouldn't be surprised to find out that demolition is my favorite part of any project). Really all we have left to do is paint the floor, get some carpet down and move the toys in. I really want to frame it off, so the utilities are in a separate room. but for now, I am just going to have to come up with some cute partition ideas. Anyways, nothing exciting, just life!