Merry Christmas

We are so very blessed, I mean seriously think about Jesus dying for your sins. I mean WOW! As we celebrate Jesus's birthday today I am pondering how hard that must have been. Can you even imagine it? I know I can't!

We have done several events this season, like looking at Christmas lights several times. What can I say the boys absolutely love them!! They get so excited about Christmas Lights, I love going with them.
 We baked cookies a couple different times for ourselves, neighbors and Jacob's Christmas party at school. He had a lot of fun making them. We have shopped and wrapped presents and painted and played everything we can think of! He is getting to be so helpful!

I have pictures of everything and will post once I get a chance but in the mean time here is a family photo to wish you a Merry Christmas from our family to yours. May God richly bless each and every one of you this year!
Love,

the Reids, Bryce, Aley, Jacob and Stephen

Christmas Cookies

Yesterday Jacob, Stephen and I made our first batch of roll out Molasses cookies. The boys had as much fun eating them as they did making them. Here are a few pictures of our fun times!

Ready to bake!

Rolling the dough

He was all done helping and ready to eat them!

Cutting them out

Which one where!

Life at the Reid Household!

Well owning a home comes with many challenges! We have had a year of repairs, but we are still loving owning our home!
This summer on the hottest day of the year our A/C went out, no easy cheap fix nope not for us, a whole new unit! Ugh we made it through, then the heater didn't work once it got cold out, so a couple weeks ago we got that repaired with replacing the board! Now we have a collapsed sewer line! Not fun or easy fix! Tomorrow the plumbers will be here to replace the line outside, it is pretty expensive! This one has been a hard one for me to swallow, with it being Christmas and wanting to buy gifts for people I love. So instead of staying down about it I have finally been able to give it to God. He knows exactly what is in our account and He will always provide for us! God is good all the time!

 Jacob turned 3 in November and we had a birthday bash for him! He had such a good time! It is so fun watching him learn and grow!

Stephen is now 18 months a very inquisitive! He is into eveything! He said " I want Momma" and " I want cup" last week. I cried both times we have tried to get him to talk for months! This is one proud momma! I am so very blessed by these 2 amazing blessings from God! I can't imagine my life without them!
So I had planned to post pictures of our Christmas baking this morning, but my photos won't upload I don't know what is going on so next post will be about our Christmas fun!

Family Pictures,

Thanksgiving 2010! Houston TX

 

 

 

Ok so this is a little old but still a good one.

I have to chuckle a little at this photo because Stephen has so much hair suddenly now, he looks bald in this pic compared to now. His hair now sticks up everywhere and will not lay flat! Too funny!

Stephen has been sick for a couple of weeks now! UGH!! It has NOT been fun. Started out with a stomach bug then got over that and a few days later got some kind of upper respiratory virus. We ended up taking him to the ER last Wednesday during the snow storm, not fun but necessary! He is finally starting to get better again. He is breathing much better.
So this past Sunday we couldn't take Stephen to the nursery at church so we stayed home from church. Bryce said he lets go to Red Rock and cook out so we made hamburger patties and got all our food and yummies ready to go and took off around 11:30 I think. Well we pulled up at Red Rock and there was/is a burn ban. Well there goes the cooking out., so we went to Sonic and got burgers and went back and played and ate. It was so much fun. Jacob LOVES to slide he just kept going down it the whole time. We really needed some family time and some fun. We are so blessed to have Bryce to keep us having fun. We played for a little while then came on home, we had some errands we had to take care of. Well once we got home from playtime and errands we slept for a little while.

Yesterday was Valentines day and we had a great day! We decided to stay home and not go out and spend any money on babysitter and dinner or anything else. So I made Red Velvet cupcakes and pink icing. The icing was my VERY Favorite. I have never made icing the way this recipe was made. It was something like this, this is off the top of my head, cook milk and flour until thickened then let cool completely, cream butter sugar and vanilla together and then add the milk and flour mixture to the butter sugar mixture and beat until spreadable. I added red food coloring to make it pink and iced the cupcakes!!! So good. Then I made Bryces favorite meal, homemade chicken corden bleu with roasted asparagus and mashed potatos. We had more family time and played with the boys until bedtime. Once they went to bed we watched a little tv and had cuddle time then fell asleep early. It was a wonderful day. Also Bryce brought me beautiful roses and gave me a card and a card from the boys. I loved it!!

Toffee Recipe

Ok so I made several batches of this, this past holiday season and had a few requests for the recipe so here you go. Also this is something my mom and grandma used to make every holiday season and so this always reminds me of her. Most people call it peanut brittle when they eat it, but my family always called it Toffee. I hope you all enjoy this, but don't eat to much!
1 Cup White Sugar
1/2 Cup Water
1 and 1/2 Sticks REAL Butter cut into 6 pieces do not use margarine
12 oz Deluxe Mixed Nuts
1 Teaspoon Vanilla

Do not rush this recipe it takes a little bit of time and patience
Do not use any kind of coated pan
MUST use a wooden spoon
Do not use any kind of metal or plastic spoon
Heat Sugar and Water in Medium Saucepan on Medium or Medium Low heat just until Sugar melts add butter 1 piece at a time and continually stir until melted then add next piece and repeat until all butter is added.
Bring to a boil and add in a candy thermometer, while this is cooking pour the vanilla over the top of the nuts and set aside
once the thermometer reads between soft crack and hard crack add in the nuts and fast pour onto greased or buttered cookie sheet and let cool.

Let me know if you have any questions!! Enjoy! Aley

Whats going on with the Reids

Lets see to start off with we are settled officially now in the new house and loving it. We actually took on the task of putting in new wood floors in part of the house. Oh wow let me tell you about that. First we got them laid then it was suddenly Thanksgiving so we put all the furniture back in those rooms and had Thanksgiving with my Aunt and Uncle and a friend of mine, it was so wonderful and nice! Then we finally a couple weeks later moved the furniture back out so we could putty, sand then sand some more and more, then move out for a few days to a nearby motel and Bryce put the final couple finishes on them. Whew it was work but OH so worth it. I LOVE Them! They look amazing! Thanks Bryce for working so hard!
Then we FINALLY got to put up our beautiful big Christmas tree, wow it was gorgeous. We celebrated Christmas with Bryces family on Christmas Eve Day, thanks Steve and Teri for hosting and all the work you did. Then Christmas morning we got up and drove to my sisters house in Arnett and spent the afternoon and part of the evening with my family. It was so nice to see everyone. Thank you Audrey and Bill for hosting and helping with the food. Dinner was FANTASTIC! So after stuffing ourselves completely full for 2 days we had church on Sunday, then came home to rest. I am not sure what evening that next week we finally let our boys open presents from us. Jacob loves to open presents now!

Well then of course the next week was New Years so NYE Kelley and Josh kept the boys overnight, yes they are brave, and Bryce and I spent some LOONG over due alone time and actually went to the movies and out to dinner. It was so fun! Josh and Kelley had a great time with the boys and the boys were really good for them. Then on NY day we got up and went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast and were so blessed to run into Greg and Kim. It was really great to see them. We all visited for a little while then we ran off to pick up the boys. The boys were happy and tired so we took care of a few small things that needed done then came home and we all napped for a couple hours then we took the boys and went to see another movie. It was fun but oh so cold! Then Sunday we rested quite a bit we were all still worn out. It seems that all 4 of us are fighting off colds, ugh not fun! Jacob has been napping really good all week so that tells me he doesn't feel real great!

Bryce and I have started the 40 day challenge with a group of people , please pray for us it is not easy to stay off most foods and only eat specific things. Hopefully we will make it through and have a little smaller waists in the end! ;) Once we get the foods down we will add in the exercise so hopefully that will help even more. Well I better be off to bed I have had a few really busy days and I am ready to close my eyes! Good night all!!