Writing in December about December...

Amazing... lol

I'm really going to make it my goal for next year to update the blog more....

I can't believe it's 12 days before Christmas. Not one christmas cookie has been made, not a single christmas card has been sent out...not any lights on our house... presents??? yeah right...

Unfortunately our family has been pretty sick the past couple of weeks. My kids are lucky to have gotten dinner... let alone christmas crafts, cookies, lights or presents...

i just have not had any energy to do anything. Being pregnant i can't take a whole lot for this "virus" that has taken hold of our house. I can't sleep at night cause i stay up coughing... My poor hubby keeps sleeping in the guest room so he doesn't have to hear me all night.

My kids are fed... balanced meals? if you can consider frozen pizza and chicken nuggets a square meal, then yes.... They have clean clothes. not folded or put away, but they are able to go through the mountain of clean clothes to find something to put on. Sean and i have been able to attend their christmas programs and lunches at school. Did i look cute? no. Did i talk to any other parent? no... but, i was there... and we were able to support our children.

Alas, we are starting to feel a little better. Hopefully i can wade through the dr appointments and cleaning this week to have time to make a few crafty projects and treats for christmas.

I did however get one thing done before the sickness came... Mostly cause it was done in Nov. at a Relief Society craft night...

I thought it was worth mentioning though. i thought they were kind of cute.

very simple nativity. well... Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus anyway...

again... kid friendly!

Hopefully, i will be able to update later this week with the good news of how organized my house and family are for the holidays! LOL

or at the very least... we are surviving and feeling better...

Thanksgiving

So, its December 14th, and i'm just know writing about Thanksgiving. How horrible is that. can you tell that updating my blog has been on my list of stuff to do for a while now? Maybe my New Years Resolution can be updating my blog weekly?!?!?

We've had a great holiday season so far. Before i start writing about Christmas and the things we have been doing ... i want to share a few pics of some crafty projects i did this fall. This first one i actually made last year... but since its the only fall decor i have, i figured i'd share it.

Cute pumpkins huh. Its just fall fabric... stuffed, then some leaves and raffia at the top. Oh and a a stick for the stem. Super easy, and kid friendly.

i'm one of those people that need to have something hanging on my front door. And i didn't have anything for Fall or Thanksgiving... so off to the craft store i went. I actually was just looking for a sign... but couldn't find one that i really liked. so, a craft project began.

i got the letters on sale for .50 cents. and the background board was on clearance. i got it for $2.00. I just modge podged some fall paper on the letters. Inked and sanded the edges... then glued it to the back board which i stained a dark brown. Added a little raffia... and called it good. not bad for $4.00 bucks huh?

I wanted to make one more project.

I just didn't have the time to do it before Thanksgiving was over.

isn't it cute?? it's the only wreath i've seen that i actually like. I found this project here

Cute blog called Inspiring Creations. She does a great job! Guess this is going on my list for next year!

Baby Shower

My sister, Stephanie, threw me a baby shower this past weekend. I'm only 7 months pregnant. So, this was a little early. But, we wanted to do it before everyone got busy with the holidays. And that way whatever i didn't get at the shower, i could ask Santa for. :)

The shower turned out really well. Mom and Steph did a great job with it! We had a boy onesie theme. The invites were adorable. Instead of playing all the stupid baby shower games, we decorated onesies and ate. it was a lot of fun. here are some of the pics i took of all the decor.

This is them decorating the onesie cookies. they made blue and brown frosting that matched the colors of the party. she even got the little round balls to look like that snaps on the bottom of the onesie. i wish i had some close ups of it. super cute!

She took the time to make fry boxes as the thank you gift. She stamped thank you on all of them and put a little onesie decal on the front. Then she filled them with Hershey kisses. she even got the cookies and cream ones that had the silver and blue wrappers. I don't know how long it took her to make these, but WOW!





This was the table scape. I absolutely love it. We made the tissue paper balls from the pattern on martha stewart's blog. They turned out really cute. I took some close ups of the different things at the table so you could get a better idea of how detailed she is.

Water bottles with personalized labels. I loved this idea. Its says baby. and it has the same onesie decal on it! too cute!

this is a fruit dip that i made. it so easy to make but it's totally to die for! of course the only nutritional part of the whole thing is the fruit that you dip into it. lol

i'll have to post the recipe soon.


i also made angel food cake to go with the fruit dip. it's incredible!

Look at these meatballs! The individual tooth picks all have the onesie decal on it. Stephanie is so smart. they look fabulous!

This was my favorite part of the food. different cheeses on a platter. i'm not a huge cheese connoisseur, but i love to try different types. i actually went with all mild cheese. And nothing too outrageous. It was a lot of fun. I got some great pics of some of the ladies trying the different cheeses, and the looks on their faces. i think they may stick with cheddar. lol

even here she had the little tags with the kind of cheese. way to pull it all together steph.

Mom and Steph (well, actually i think it was dad) set up a crib to put the gifts in. I thought that was a great idea. way better then just a table. super cute idea. made it look more festive. and part of the decorations. Love it!

They strung a clothes line across the whole room with the onesies. They started the nite plain. but as everyone decorated them, they hung them back up looking even cuter. i wish i had some pics of the finished product. but, you'll have to take my word for it. way cute. We had just found different clipart online, and made up some sayings to go with them, then just printed it out on transfer paper. We ironed them on the onesies. We had a few decals that Steph had gotten at Hobby Lobby. And she had also picked up some fabric markers. Way fun, and much better then all the boring Baby shower games! (no offense to anyone out there!)

Overall, the party turned out great. i hope everyone had a good time. I did anyway. it was nice to just socialize with everyone, and Steph and mom did a fabulous job with the planning and decorating. It was the baby shower of the century!

Thank you.

Happy Halloween

We had a Halloween party at my mom and dad's house this year. we invited a few families from the ward over. It turned out well. we expected to get rained out, but mom's prayers were answered and it ended up being a perfect evening for an outdoor party.

Stephanie and i had a good time making some signs for the decorations.

The boys looked so cute in their costumes. They wouldn't tell anyone what they were going to be so that grandma and grandpa would be surprised and say "who are those boys? i don't recognize them". They even said during their prayers the week before, "Please bless that grandma and grandpa will be surprised by our costumes, and maybe even be scared" Ahhh the innocence of children"

I even talked Sean into dressing up for the party. We both got hair cuts just for our costumes. I even dyed my hair for it.

If you've ever seen NCIS... you should recognize my costume. Abby is my favorite character. i wish i had gotten some better pics of it. i had the mini skirt, the striped tights and the combat boots to match. Sean... can you guess what he is??? i'll give you a clue... " I pitty the fool, I pitty the fool"

That's right... a white Mr. T

He looked great. Mohawk and all... though you can't tell from the picture...

I did have to steal his overalls after the party and wear them... can i just tell you how comfy overalls are when you are pregnant...

school projects

Last nite, Sean and I worked with the boys on their first school projects. Of course, they were both due on the same day, so we had two projects to do in one nite. But, we had a great time together.

Taison had to do a shoe box habitat. He had to pick his "favorite" habitat to learn about then create it. (didn't we all just love those projects growing up) He actually wanted to do a swamp as his habitat, but do you know how hard it is to find swamp animals in the toy section. lol.

So, he settled for an African Savannah. Sean and Taison spent time on the computer researching all about it. They came up with a plan of attack and with the help of my trusty hot glue gun and our long/dead grass in our lawn... we created the best grassland ever!

Daimon is learning about reading, and characters in books. His assignment was to choose his favorite book and dress up like the main character. Of course, the first thing he said was that Star Wars was his favorite book so that he could dress up like Darth Vador... we killed that one real quick. Thank goodness his teacher said that she didn't want to see a bunch of store bought halloween costumes. So, we settled with the book "Put me in the Zoo"

He looked great in spots. We took some felt circles i had cut out earlier that day and Daimon hot glued them all over a pair of pants and a T-shirt. Then we painted spots on his arms and face.

I think they did a great job on their first school projects... They were proud of themselves. Taison was nervous last nite about presenting his habitat and couldn't fall asleep. And they were both so excited this morning that they were up 30 mins before the alarm even went off. Sean and Taison practiced his presentation a few times, while i painted the spots.Sadly, some of the kids in the other grades made fun of him in the halls and at lunch calling him the 'spot boy'. He was very upset about that. But, his teacher told him that out of all the costumes in the class, his was the very best. Thank you Mrs. Jones! You saved Daimon's self confidence.

I hope all school projects go this smooth.

Sweet Boy

Yesterday afternoon I received a phone call from Daimon. He is 5. He was at grandma and grandpa's house while i was at work. I answered the phone and he said " Hi Mom." but, it was not his usual happy self... so i asked him what was wrong. He said he was sad. I asked him why....

"there are people killing each other." he said...

My first thought was where? who? what is going on? am i missing something?

I, of course, asked him who was killing who, (never know with him, it could be on a video game or something) He said that just regular people are killing each other in the streets, and it's so sad. why would they want to kill other people for real?

I asked him where he saw this.

He said he was watching the news.

Come to find out, it was a news story about the war going on in Iraq. They were showing footage of bombings, fighting, etc... And he was really upset by this. Not that it was messy, or Gorey... but, that people were killing each other. how do you explain the politics and reasoning's behind a war to a 5 year old?

Here's to keeping a 5 year old innocent as long as possible..

.

More Halloween Decor

I've been slow at work this past week, so i've been keeping busy by reading plenty of crafty blogs. Pretty much blog hopping from site to site all week. Now, I'm not a crafty person. i have never claimed to be. I often say just that. "I'm not a crafty person" However, as often as i've said that to myself and to others around me, i still tend to lean toward always wanting to do a craft project. In other words... reading about craft projects all day makes my mind spin with things that i want to do. The first thing on my list was to make a 'spell book' for Halloween decorations. I got the idea from here.

My sister picked up a couple of free books at a used bookstore. I covered them in Halloween paper, and used the labels from that website. I don't think my books turned out quite as cute as her books did... But, both of my boys loved it and asked if there was really spells in the book!!!

And, THAT is what really matters!

Halloween

My boys and I decorated for Halloween the other night. i was pulling out these cute ceramic decorations. You know, the glass jack o lanterns, and the whimsical witches shoes... Well, i was getting pretty excited about them... but not my boys.

They kept digging into the bin looking for "the cool stuff"... Want their definition of cool stuff??? plastic spiders, a bag of spider webs, and caution tape!

With Dad's help they spend the next 20 mins putting "caution... Beware" tape across every door in the house. And then the next 30 mins putting spider webs over everything...

Seriously? i'm never spending money on nice decor again when a bag of $.99 spider webs was enough for my kids! In retrospect, i suppose it's a good thing that my boys don't want the fancy stuff... that it's the little things in life that get them the most excited. And so, what they loved, i guess turns into my favorite things too. Sometimes, you just kind of wish that their favorite thing would sometimes be yours... (i worked hard sewing handmade pumpkins for the kitchen table!)

County Fair

This year we were able to take a few hrs off of work to go to the fair. we went on a Wednesday afternoon. It was a very rainy day, but i'm now convinced that that is the best time to go. It wasn't hot, it wasn't crowded, and there were no lines for the rides. We even got a magic show to ourselves. Everyone had a great time. I just got a few pics... but, i thought i'd share...

Blue

If i knew how to change the font to BLUE i would do it because.... It's a boy!
We had the ultra sound last Friday. It took a long time to see because of the way the he was positioned.. but, he finally rolled over so we could see "the boy" Everyone keeps asking if we are disappointed... All we can say is this: " how could anyone be disappointed with a normal, healthily ultra sound? We are happy about that and... The rest doesn't matter"

Now, for names.... any suggestions?

Updates to the House

So... my new favorite brother-in-law, Randy, came down from Chicago last week. He volunteered to help Sean put new floors in the house. So, instead of a vacation, enjoying his time, he got to work. And he has worked the whole time he has been here. No wonder he is in a hurry to head back home. LOL

These are some "before "pictures...










After a week of hardwork.. (from them, not me) This is the final result!





The guys ran into a few problems along the way, but they kicked butt. My house is so much cleaner. It seems so much bigger... I absolutely love it! It feels like a new house!
Notice the new entertainment center too!
I want to have a house warming party now... :)

Thanks Randy! You are welcome to come over anytime! (next time i won't put you to work!)

New Stove

So...my new favorite brother-in-law, Jeff, bought Sean and I a new stove! The one that came with the house was an old 1980's stove. It was warped so bad it hardly cooked anything. The heating element in the oven was going out so when baking it either burned or came out raw. Needless to say we really needed a new one. However, it was quite far down on the list of things that we need to purchase. Jeff asked if there was anything we needed. Sean, being frustrated at cooking said "A new stove" Now, Sean was totally joking... I mean we really needed a new stove, but who actually buys someone a stove?!?!

But, here we are - a few weeks later - with a new stove!!!

I'm so excited i can't hardly stand it. We were also able to get the matching microwave!!! (which really helped us since we had a cheap one sitting on our coveted counter space)

Now, i can cook on the stove with out having to hold the pan sideways to match the burner. I can bake with out burning... What a great modern convenience.

Thanks Jeff!!!!