First Sledding of the Winter Season

Sunday we needed to get outside so we decided to go sledding in the afternoon. Last year sledding consisted of being pulled around on a sled with a couple bumps here and there. That was all the excitment a 1 1/2 year old needed. Not this year, this year it's on to bigger and better hills. This year Chris and I had just as much fun as Jackson did!

Here we go!

In the beginning we went with Jackson. It didn't take long for him to ask to go alone.



These are Jackson's first times down by himself...and Mom being a kid.



After sledding and working up a bit of a sweet tooth, we decided to head home and build our ginger bread houses. This will most definitely become a Stokes tradition. We, including Jackson, spent 2 hours decorating our houses. Jackson spent half of that time sneaking treats, that was half the fun in a household where sweets are rare. Let's just say bedtime was well over an hour past normal Sunday night because of his monumental sugar high. He was a crazy man!

Here's a tip for those of you who decide to build a ginger bread house: use 'cement' icing to hold the graham crackers on to the boxes you use for structural support. I'm glad I researched this process; otherwise I would have used normal frosting, which wouldn't have worked as it doesn't harden as fast or as hard as cement icing. Once we began decorating it was up to our imagination and a dozen different types of candy and frostings to create our houses. From the looks of them I would say Chris' is the most meticulous, mine is the simplest and Jackson's is the most abstract. You be the judge!

The graham crackers are up!


The boys took this very serious

They're taking shape!

Posing with their masterpieces


Jackson posing with the completed houses: Jackson's, Mine & Chris'