Tuesday, November 30, 2010

It's Beginning to look a lot like Christmas!!

Here are our door decorations.....the only outside lights I have right now :-) 
And below are the little boys helping me set up the Christmas tree.  Friday after Thanksgiving Spencer was relentless in hounding me to get the Christmas decoration boxes down.  I finally did get them down, but still haven't put them up yet.  Drew got up the outside lights and the little guys did the tree...Now Alli will put the lights on today and we'll begin decorating the entire house!!  I love Christmas!!!  And with Playlist, I can create my own Christmas music and not pay a cent!!  Now we just need some scented candles or pine cones so it smells like Christmas too :-)  Happy Holidays!!


(I don't know which child took this photo....I just really liked it and thought it was funny that it was all hat!)

Saturday, November 27, 2010

Serious Shutterfly Promo!!


I don’t know how you can choose just one…….aren’t they gorgeous?  I can’t decide if I love one photo or multiple photos??  What do you think?  I think I love this one the best!!!

 But these are good too:








I love holiday Christmas cards!!!  I love receiving YOURS and hearing about your family and seeing your beautiful children and families.  (Here is a link to look at a few more from Shutterfly.)  It is such a fun time to get caught up with all of you. 

Wondering what to do for Grandma and Grandpa??  How about a beautiful desk photo calendar??  You might need a few for the aunties and uncles, too!!  So much to choose from and love! 

Happy Holidays my dear friends—from our house to yours.  (I can’t wait to see which ones you choose.)  You can receive 50 free holiday cards of your very own from Shutterfly too!!  (Check it out!)

And it isn’t too late to be thinking about what those graduation announcements should look like!!

Thursday, November 18, 2010

The Turkey's Go On Strike!!

Well....here is my famous little turkey!  The sixth grade class performed their annual Turkey play.  (All the Turkey's go on strike because they are tired of disappearing at Christmas.  The cranberries think they should be the main course--they are tired of being a side dish.  The squashes vie for more eatable options--like milkshakes, cake and in your cereal.  The mediators and arbitrators fight about who can fix the crises.  The news media reports on the event and the stress between the football players, who can't play if the turkeys on on strike, the turkeys, and the Joe Q. Public, who don't want to change Thanksgiving from Thursday to another day of the week to resolve the issue.....plus a few others, not mentioned.)  It is one of my favorite performances each year.  I watch it over and over even when my children aren't in it.  Total run time is 30 minutes with intro and everything. 

Darren and Jacob were both Turkeys so our family thinks all of the children should be a turkey when they are a sixth grader.  We'll have to wait and see what happens for Allison, Spencer and Joshua :-)

Here is our gorgeous sunset yesterday.....(no photo-shopping, sootc--straight out of the camera for you non-photo people)
Today it has just rained and rained...all day, no stopping .....can't win them all :-)  Happy Day!!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Ever had one of those PERFECT evenings??

Earlier this week, Drew was working late.  Dinner was over and cleaned up.  The TV was off.  Michael Buble was playing on the computer.  Jacob was chatting on line.  Joshua and I were reading 'Green Eggs & Ham' and all of the other kids were laying around in the family room reading books.  It looked like this:
Joshua read the entire book by himself.  When he finished it, he said, "I can't believe I read the whole book!!  We need to do a 'high-five' for each page!"  So then we had to do 60 high-fives! 

It was just such a nice evening.  So peaceful, so perfect.  Drew came home and we had family home evening and went to bed.  Here is how Josh felt about his success:

Saturday, November 6, 2010

Hmmmm....

What do you do with leftover apple crisp (which your family has eaten all of the topping off), a little bit of maple syrup, leftover oatmeal, and last night's dinner rolls??

Mmmmmmm.......Yummy!!

Thursday, November 4, 2010

Whirlwind of a week or two!

OK, so I haven't posted in a while because things have been really hoppin' here!  But to fill you in, I'll recap with a few photos.....

On Oct. 23rd, Saturday, my sweet husband asked me if I would speak in sacrament meeting with him for his High Council assignment.  I said sure, knowing that I could just rework a talk I had given a few years ago and still had on the computer.  The children had 'primary program' practice.  (The primary program is done annually in each ward.  It is where the children do most, if not all, of the speaking and singing for the program part of church services.)  While they were there, the big boys and Drew were working, so I gave myself a hair cut.  I just have to do it every once in a while when it is driving me crazy and there just isn't any money in the budget.

After all the kids got home, I had the thought that I should go and try on the outfit I was thinking of wearing to church.  It fit and looked cute, but I didn't have any shoes that would work.  "This outfit says 'boots',"  I thought.  I haven't ever had a pair of boots.  But a store popped into my head and I ran off to go and see what they had.  I found a pair that worked perfectly and they were only $30.00!!  I bought them.  Then called my sweetheart so he could tell me to take them back.  I told him what I had purchased and why and that I would take them back, but I really didn't want to.  We came to a compromise.  I would stay in the grocery budget for the rest of the year, and I could keep the boots.  I had no idea how much I would like boots!!  I love them!!  Here they are:


Sunday, I got up and got dressed and put on my new boots!!  I spoke in church with Drew and then rushed back to our ward to watch our little ones put on their program.  Got home from church and started packing for Alli's field trip.

Alli & I, and 22 other students and seven other adults, went on a camping field trip for three days.  (Sorry, no photos of that, school policy.)  Anyway, that was a lot of fun.  The first day it rained and poured.  It is an outside classroom experience, by the way.  When dinner was finished and I was still so cold that my toes and fingers were numb, I decided I had better just drink hot water to warm myself up.  Three glasses did the trick and I was warm again.  (No heat in the cabins at night, so it was important that I wasn't cold when I went to bed.)

We got home from that.  Thursday I caught up with housework, shopping, etc... Drewster was sick (husband).  Friday I was feeling sick too, just a nasty run-down head cold with a cough.  I had known it was coming, but was trying to hold it off as long as possible.  Saturday was a busy day.  We had a funeral @ 10 a.m. with a luncheon, the ward Halloween party from 1-3 (where I was supposed to host a booth), and the big boys wanted to go to another Halloween party that evening which would require a 40 minute car ride, round-trip.  Friday, I knew most of that wasn't happening for me.  So I called who I needed to call and made arrangements to bow out of all of my responsibilities, except driving the boys to their engagement.  I didn't even take Halloween photos.....shame on me.

Actually, I forgot......on Friday morning, Darren came home from seminary (early morning scripture study class) and while he was turning out the lights in the building, he ran into the corner of the wall.  I was at the Urgent Care helping Darren get seven stitches in his left eye-brow.  Here is a photo for you:




It was pretty cool right before Halloween!!  Saturday I laid around and rested.  Sunday, I was well enough to manage church.

Monday we were off and running again!!  Two visiting teaching appointments, a forgotten item at school, and loads of laundry.  Drew still wasn't feeling well and came home at lunch, Monday and Tuesday. 

Tuesday was voting day.  Drew got into the polls @ 7:30 a.m.  I ran the kids to school and then took Darren to have his stitches removed.  That an hour and a half!!  It was quite ridiculous!  They had to butterfly bandage his eye because it hadn't quite closed yet.  Then we went to get gas and remembered that Drew had the key to our gas cap with him at work.  Drove to get the key.  Then drove Darren out to school.  Then hit the polls at 10:30 a.m. and home by 11.  Drew came home @ lunch and being a poly sci junkie watched all the polls come in until 3 a.m. :-)   Silly boy.  Guess we all have to have our hobbies!!

Yesterday, we had play group at my house.  Then Alli got an award at school (citizen) so I had to go and see her receive that.  And it was look alike day at school, where you dress up like someone else.  Alli and I dressed alike and the boys dressed alike:

And I didn't even include the time it took for us to decide how we were voting, an interview with the bishop, choir rehearsal, three long-distance friend phone calls, and talking to my mother, all of which added to the busyness!  Last night, here is what I found to do with all of those vegetables that were getting ready to mold in my refrigerator because I hadn't had much time to use them:


It was delicious!!!  And today, I made time to post!!  I'll try to do better this week :-)  Have a great day!!