Quickie

Here's a quickie post to explain the pics below. I ran out of time (kids calling me) to get an explaination out with the pics. Just wanted to show off my "homemade" goodies from R's family. The top pic is a really cool idea that my sis-in-law did. There's a website where you can put in your pics and it blows them up and divides them out and you print them on your own computer. She put it on foam board and I hung them with tacky-stuff so that I could position them as I wanted. I thought this was really cool :) My other sis-in-law made these cute little ornaments with my kids' pictures on them. My bro-in-law made his yummy pickles and tomato juice from his garden. The best part is seeing what others come up with each year!

Hope You Had a SUPER Christmas!!!

Yes, that is Superman riding a horse with a cowboy in red gingham pajamas. Only boys!!

Twinkle, twinkle little star

When I was about 8, we moved to what I thought was the "country." Living just down from the high school, I thought 5 miles out of the city limits was country living. Ha! Anyway, once we got out of the "city lights", my dad would set up the telescope and show me the moon and the stars. I would look at the moon forever. Funny how much humility you can find on a cold, clear night with a sky full of stars. Makes you feel very small and in awe of the universe. We would get up for meteor showers as I grew older. And after I moved out of the house, my dad would always call me when there was going to be a meteor shower. R and I have gotten up to watch showers before. We even went to a big dam one year when we lived in Nashville to watch a huge shower. Tonight, is probably the biggest meteor shower of the year. The Geminids. This should be a great show (if there aren't too many clouds) because they shoot slowly and should be around 100 an hour. While I love having R to watch them with, the little girl in me will always wish my dad was standing beside me.

Brag

No picture, yet, but I have to brag on one of our local high school's FFA. BHS sold Christmas trees this year. We took the kids down this weekend to check them out and they had the cutest little "shack" set up with trees. They had lambs out w/ felt reindeer antlers on them and sold hot cocoa. You know I'm such a sucker for anything quaint or "hometowny" (yes, I know that's not a real word.) I have to brag on them (and will post pics later,) but this is one of the prettiest trees we ever gotten. They had pre-cut the branches that stick out all crazy and they loaded it on the car for us. Thanks so much BHS! Great job!

Christmas Challenge

After years of thinking up something for someone to give you or gift cards, R's sister came up with the idea of "homemade gifts." For me, this sounded like fun. Those of you who know me well, know that I love to "create," but you also probably know how I pile a little too much on my plate. Well, last year, between school and kids and work and Christmas, I was completely overwhelmed. You should have seen me snapping at R while stitching away at my sewing machine the day of. Well, not this year! I have been to Hobby Lobby and bought my "stuff." I AM going to be on top of it!!! I really do love doing this. It really is fun to watch everyone open them and it really does feel special to know that you made it. Here's what we did last year....R wasn't too excited, but everyone can make SOMETHING. He made his brother personalized labels on his computer for his canning. His brother gave us all jars of his pickles and tomatoes that he canned out of his garden. His sister made me a cute knob board and R a decoupaged picture frame with the kids. She made their brother an adorable personalized stepping stone for his garden with colored glass. I appliqued pjs for his sister and a sweat shirt for my other sister-in-law. Well, I can't reveal what I'm making just yet this year, but here's some pics of really cute fabric I bought. I'll show when it gets closer to time!! BTW, if you've got any ideas for the guys, please share!!!

Thankful

Thank you Lord, for my beautiful, healthy children, for a loving husband, for parents that are still here, brothers and sisters to share with, and wonderful friends. Thank you for sending your son. Thank you, thank you, thank you...

Our First School Program

Here are a couple of pics from our very first school program. He didn't do much, well, really anything at all. I thought maybe he had stage fright being in front of so many people, but he very nonchalantly told me he wanted to be an indian. Oh well, he looked like a cute little pilgram to me!

Busy October

Let me just say that October has flown by!! We have been so busy this month..... E's birthday, Fall Fest, Halloween, midterms for me, parent/teacher conferences, etc. Time to change up house decorations already!

Halloween costume + bounce house + cupcakes + friends = fun!

I learned an important lesson this weekend. You don't have to go all out, crazy-planner-lady to have a fun party. Sure, it helps if you invite people more than, say, 5 days ahead of the party, but that's another lesson.
My firstborn will soon turn 4 (shedding a tear) and time just wasn't on my side this year. As I type this, I should be studying for a difficult test tomorrow, but it can wait another 5 minutes. Anyway, I typically put forth lots of effort to plan a cool themed birthday party with lots of details. While you may never have noticed these details in the past, trust me, there was lots of compulsive analyzing going on in my mind. Well, what can I say? My baby was just put on the back burner this year.
Ultra-quick, ultra-cheesey photo invites were sent out the week of a party that was booked at the last minute b/c it was the only weekend available. No goody bags were made, no cake was ordered. Only homemade cupcakes, Domino's pizza, & a few other quickie snacks. No birthday themed plates, napkins, or cups. What's my point? Well, after my super-obsessing in the past, I realized my child still enjoyed having a few friends, a cupcake (or two,) and a celebration just for him that was thrown together in 2 hours (that includes pick up and setting up the bounce house!)

Punkin Pickin'

This weekend, my boys went to their first pumpkin patch. My sister's mother-in-law (affectionately known as Me-me) grows a wonderful garden and plants pumpkins way down in the back. We let the boys and my nephew get back in there and pick a few. Here you can see that P has picked his out :) E found a little green one that wasn't ready, yet, but he tried anyway!