Celebrating Christmas in KC

Union Station had FREE admission to a Holiday Train and a visit with Santa.



About ready to board the holiday train.



One of the train cars had a huge model train and town set up for Christmas. So cute.






Renae loved the train.



Goober.



We ended the evening at Noodles and Company. Yummmy.



Maybe someday we'll take one in NYC when Jesse takes me on my dream trip.



Cheeser.



Flirt.

Merry Christmas.

Handmade Holiday Hoopla

This is what my fingers have been up to this weekend. At the bottom of the post you can see what even littler fingers have been up to. She's a great helper!


More felt food for Renae's kitchen collection.



Every kitchen needs a full gallon of milk!



Chex mix with felt ornament for Renae's Sunday school teacher.
(Ornament and top are based off of Redeemer Kids-kids program @ church)



Sammy finally gets a stocking this year.



The S is for Sammy in case you were wondering . . .



Renae needs an apron for all that cooking she'll be doing!



Velcro straps so she can "tie" it herself.



Pocket and top trim is from one of my old shirts. Cut. Glue. So pretty.



There are some girl cousins who are getting some recycled crayons from Renae!



Divide the colors . . .



Insert in oven . .



Melted beauty.



Didn't I tell you those little fingers are cute?

I actually have another post for this week to show you! Can you tell the semester is over and I actually have some more time for blogging picture updates? It helps that I have interesting stuff to blog about . . .

Semester's Over!!

Hey oh! Jesse is finally done with the first semester of seminary. Thank freakin' goodness. We have learned some good lessons. I'm sure there are many more to come. Hopefully next semester will see us with calmer schedules and routines. Jesse's only working 1 job, I'm only working 1 job and teaching only Spanish class of just a few kids. Sigh of relief. It feels good to know we are coming out of this particular valley and looking ahead to a change of scenery. Moving on . . .



Aunt Kari gave Renae a little trim a few weeks ago when they were in town!



She stood so still. And no ears were chopped off.



Have you met our chubby baby?



He's living large still . . .



And Uncle Trey is still Renae's BFF. Go figure.


I'm sure lots of you saw these on Facebook, but here are my Christmas presents for the kids! Renae is getting a play kitchen for her gift and I wanted her to have some food to go with it. We found a really cheap kitchen at Hy-Vee of all places. I had to put every single piece together after snapping it off of a plastic grid. It's nothing fancy, but who cares. We'll probably sell it at a garage sale in a few years anyways.


Breakfast food out of felt was so easy to make. Seriously.



Sammy's tool box.



You can see the tool is the famed "S" brand. Very upscale.



I had visions of doing more tools, but I'm running out of days to get these done.

What I loved about making Sammy's gift was I could work on it while Sammy played at my feet. It's still not wrapped and in plain sight. Sammy has even played with them a few times! You gotta love how cheap, easy, and simple gifts are for 1 year olds.

Anyone else doing some fun crafty Christmas presents? I'd love to hear about them!

New Blog Title, New Blog Expectations

OK. I'm a wee bit blogged out, and I'm sure you've noticed . . . I really don't post much anymore.

Life has been harder than usual since moving to seminary land. Reverse culture shock comes in many different forms, and apparently can creep in almost a year after arrival back in the States!

Time for blogging doesn't really exist. Inspiration does . . I mean, my kids ARE still super cute! But again . . . the time factor.

So feel free to keep reading about our lives here, but you will need to seriously lower your expectations of how frequent I'll be updating. I can't promise more pics will be up on Facebook either . . .

So here is the quickest Masson family update I can think of:

Jesse-UPS. 3AM. Office Depot. Almost done working at Office Depot. Yes! Promoted to a supervisor at UPS. Woot woot! (after only 3 months of working there!) Full time school. Stressed. Finals this week and next. Stressed. Good looking and sexy.

Julie-The Mom Life. Teaching Spanish. Cutting out classes for next semester. Working about 10 hours a week. Needs some friends. Still couponing. Felt. Christmas presents. Needs some friends. Needs a gym. The Mom Life.

Renae-Sings. All the time. Extrovert. Loves Spanish class. Top in her class. Almost night potty trained! Such a fun 3 year old.

Sammy-All boy. Loud. Getting into everything. Bad sleeper. Took out morning nap. Now a great sleeper. Dang it. Loud. Getting into everything. Loud. So funny. Signs please. Loud. Almost walking by himself.