Snow, Birthday's and Elves.

This morning right after breakfast it started snowing. Hayden and Jericho were busy playing and didn't seem too interested, Xander on the other hand raced out the back door...without a coat or shoes, to catch snowflakes on his tongue.

Photo a day challenge, Day 9....This is the weather today.

Hopefully some bigger snow is coming soon. This sputtered out after about 20 minutes or so.

Lily, with a coat, came out for about 3 minutes...then she was cold and over it LOL.

Today is Gangster's 9th Birthday! I remember when we first brought his cute little self home, he was so tiny...and that puppy breath :) He was such a cute baby...he is the lighter colored pup low right.

The kiddos plopped a homemade party hat on G's head...he was thrilled, can't you tell LOL.

The crew, still in their PJ's...ill-fitting PJ's at that Hahaha. They are so hard to shop for, seems like we either get things too big or too small, if we get just right they grow out of it in a month LOL. We did a little measure taking today...just to see where everyone is.
Xander is 3 feet 10 1/4" tall and 46 1/2 lbs.
Haddie is 3 feet 10 1/2" and FIFTY pounds!
Bug is 1 inch shorter than Xan and only 44 lbs.
Jericho is 37 3/4" and 31 lbs
They are all getting so big on us.

Back at the Bday celebration...Xander started singing Happy Birthday to Gangster. I don't think G appreciated it all that much.

Lily tried to silence her brother and a little brawl broke out.

Gangster and Hayden pretended like they didn't know the rest of the group LMAO.

We got a venison stew tossed in the crock pot for dinner tonight. Didn't have a recipe to work from, just kinda used what we had in the house.

It actually turned out really good.
The last time we cooked some of the venison our neighbor gave us it was really tough and the kids and I just couldn't eat it. This time it dried out a little but other than that was really good.
We used about 2 lbs of meat, 2 cups of raw baby carrots, 4 medium yukon gold potatoes, half of an onion, 2 cups of fat free reduced sodium chicken broth and some spices...garlic powder, worcestershire sauce, oregano...whatever seems good to you. Toss it all in the crock pot and set it on low for about 8 hours.
1 serving is around 150 calories and 1 gram of fat.

Our Elf friend Percy flew in from the North Pole tonight after the kids went to bed.

They are going to be so excited to see him.

He came with a note, some bags and a little treat for each of the kiddos. Seems Santa would like for the kids to fill the bags with toys they don't need or want anymore, so they can be shared with other children. I saw this fabulous idea on a couple friends Facebook's...I hope it works!