Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas from all of us to all of you! We have enjoyed reading your Christmas cards and messages. We hope you are all safe in your travels and have a truly blessed holiday season with friends and family!

Things here have been SUPER busy the last two months - that's my excuse for not blogging. However, I just couldn't stand to see the Halloween pictures as the most current post anymore. Here's a quick run-down:
- Lauri's get-away to Salt Lake with her friend Melissa
- Hosting Thanksgiving for Lauri's side of the family
- Lauri's 2 month tooth-ache that ended in a root canal today (well, actually, my dentist couldn't even finish the root canal yet)
- Lydia's 3rd grade Christmas program
- Felicity got braces
- Evelyn's first grade musical play - Melton the Warm-hearted Snowman
- 2 class Christmas parties
- Shawn put together our ward choir Christmas program
- The Stake Christmas music fireside
- Christmas planning and shopping
- Shawn took on directing the 5th grade play - Romeo and Juliet. Rehearsals start in January and Felicity got the part of Lady Capulet
- All three girls had their Christmas dance recital
- Getting ready for the new year in primary
- School, church, work, volunteering, a few minor illnesses and life in general

Halloween Festivities - Lots O' Pics

For Halloween this year Evie was a vampire, Lydia a zombie-bride and Felicity started out as Alice Cullen, tried a second version and finally landed as a witch for trick-or-treating. We didn't get around to carving our pumpkins until Halloween Day, but we did get it done. Here are some pics of the festivities - school Spooktacular included.

The girls at the Spooktacular

Lissy in the parade

Lydia in the parade

Evie in the parade (not a great shot - they walk by so fast!)
Lissy ready to go to her friend's party Friday night (her first non-birthday boy/girl party!)

The girls designing their Jack-o-lanterns
Lydia's "girl" pumpkin

Evie's "kitty" pumpkin

Lissy's "puking" pumpkin (hasn't puked ... yet...)Jack-o-lantern row

Lissy the witch ready to trick or treat

Lydia the zombie bride ready to scare

Evie the vampire ready to go a-haunting

Cedric - the hot dog

Happy Halloween!

October Projects

Felicity had to build a model of a Native American dwelling for class, so she chose a wigwam. She really wanted to make it using paper mache', which we have never really done before. Instead of using newspaper, we decided to use brown grocery sacks to make it look more like mats or skins. Well, it didn't work too well since the paper is stiffer and the paper mache' dried kind of white, so it became a "winter wigwam" and she added polyfill for snow. Shawn helped her make a fire inside the wigwam and she painted some wooden pine tress I had for the landscape. She also cut out some felt for mats for the inside. We think it turned out pretty neat!

Felicity's Winter Wigwam for school.

A view of the interior of the wigwam.

For our bookgroup this month we read "The Graveyard Book" by Neil Gaiman and it I was hosting again. When I saw these cookies on my friend Karen's website store I couldn't resist giving them a try, so I ordered the cookie cutter and some squeeze bottles to make the job a little easier. They're not nearly as pretty as hers, but I think they turned out pretty good - and they were yummy! I made enough that the girls and I also took some into Shawn's work last Friday.

Quick Update

Just a quick update on the last week and a half -
- Felicity has still had her cough - took her in last week and the PA said to give her Ibuprofen. Didn't help, in fact it's getting worse again. Taking her back in tonight.
- Getting ready for primary program.
- Lydia gets strep throat and missed 2 school days last week - LOVED watching movies all day in her bed (she did do homework too). I've never been so glad to hear strep throat as a diagnosis (and not swine flu).
- More getting ready for the primary program aftermath.
- Shawn gets strep throat and misses a couple half days of work.
- Cedric got a much needed haircut.
- Gathered up and bought costume supplies.
- Went to "marathon meetings", took activity day girls to retirement home to sing, set up for primary program, had primary program, prepared my sharing time "celebration station" for program aftermath (make a baggie of trail mix), then got someone else to do it so I could be primary secretary too.
- Made paper mache paste so Lissy could make a wigwam for an assignment.
- Took Lissy to the orthodontist for a consultation.
- Started to work for Shawn's office again (braces cost how much?!)
- Shawn started Karate again after his sprinkler installation class was over.
- I went to the eye dr. to update my contact prescription.
- Dance classes, helping at school, library, grocery shopping, presidency meetings - not much cleaning.
That's what we've been up to. We've gottten a lot done, but there's still lots to do. I guess that's what keeps us out of trouble and mischief, right? Our primary program went great and I think the kids had fun with the "celebration stations" afterwards (bingo, memory, coloring, make trail mix, and watch their singing practice videos.) It was a little more work than popcorn and a movie would have been - but I dont' know if they could have sat still for much longer. We also had the congregation write anonymous comments to the children, so we read those and sang some wiggle songs before we divided into our stations. Our pianist said if she had to play "My Eternal Family" one more time she would have puked! I think we're all ready for a break from the program songs for awhile.

Spooky Sign

Well, I don't really have a tutorial, but I'll explain how I made the Spooky sign. In Word I set my page to Landscape and minimum margins. Then I typed Spooky (I did EEK on a separate line too) in the font "Blackadder ITC" and set the font to about 200 points. I centered the text and printed it (black) on some vintage looking music scrapbook paper that I cut down to 8 1/2 by 11 inches so it would fit in the printer. Then I just cut a brown mat to fit my frame, cut my "spooky" to fit on the mat, inked the edges and stuck it on the mat.

I don't remember where I got the font, and I can't find it for free anywhere. If you don't have that one, something old fashioned and fancy, but a little creepy is what you're going for. I recommend having someone step on your frame so the glass gets a nice long crack in it, but that might be a little dangerous....

I hope that helps. I just make things up as I go along and use what I have laying around, so I may not explain things very well.

Note: To truly copy the sign at Roberts, I would have used a board, some modge podge and vinyl lettering.

Inspiration Continues

Monday afternoon, I was still inspired to be creative and complete a couple of projects that have been lingering around my "office" for awhile. I had some dollar store frames I've wanted to make decorations out of for about a year now. Before the wonderful shelves arrived, the frames were sitting on the floor and got stepped on by an anonymous party (of the young girl variety) and the glass in them broke. Well, I went ahead and threw most of the glass out (kept the least broken one for "spooky" effect) and made my projects. I don't know how creative it is if I'm just copying other people, but here are my new Halloween table toppers.

Spooky - copied from a decoration seen at Roberts craft store.

Eek - copied from a few blogs and a friend's decoration made by another friend.

Boo - a variation on last year's "boo" deocration to match this year's creations

Here is last year's:

Award Winning-Husband

While I spent almost 6 hours at Super Saturday last weekend, here is what the Best Husband (and kids) in the Whole Wide World did:

- pulled out the old tomato and corn plants

- bundled the old corn stalks to make me festive decorations for the front yard (I am so excited - I have always wanted these - geeky, huh?) (the pumpkins are from our sweet neighbors who called the girls to come over and pick them out from their garden) - drained and hung the hoses in the garage for the winter

- installed shelves in my "office/scrap room" closet so I could get all the boxes off the floor!

This so inspired me to do something "crafty" in my room that I made my "autumn thank you" cards for our card group this week. Then I used the leftover scraps from Super Saturday and some other random stuff I had and made a bunch of other cards. The girls were also inspired to be crafty and made baby beds and "rooms" out of boxes (sorry it's a bad picture).

Thanks Babe! You're the best!!

Happy Halloween - ballet style

After dance class one day, Evelyn put our skeleton and scarecrow decorations into ballet positions. The scarecrow is in Releve' and the skeleton is in Passe' . I thought it was just too funny and had to get a picture to send to her dance teachers.

Super Saturday Card Class

For our Super Saturday last Saturday (go figure) I agreed to put together some card kits and teach a class. I made 15 kits, with supplies for 10 cards in each kit. These are the 5 designs I used and the kits had two of each design. I copied most of the designs from other people, but this first one I did make up. Get WellHello Happy Birthday
Thank You

Blank

About a week before the class I got really stressed and had an emotional break down. I had subbed in the library at school for 3 days and the last day was when we had a snowstorm, so the kids had to all stay in the library during lunch recess. I didn't think it was that bad, but at the end of the day my back really hurt. The next day I ran around trying to get things ready to go to Caldwell for conference weekend, get packed, etc. all before Shawn came home. I was hoping to have all the supplies I needed for the class so I could put the kits togther during conference. Well, I didn't have them, my back still hurt, the girls had put the last straw on this camel's back and as Shawn put it, I had a "hissy fit" and decided to stay home while he took the girls to Caldwell. I'm not proud of that. It left things in a bad state for Shawn, the girls and his parents. I missed spending a nice relaxing and fun weekend with all of them. I don't blame them all for hating me, but I really am sorry and I hope they forgive me.

I did spend 12 hours that weekend getting the last of the supplies and cutting out bits and pieces of paper and ribbon and dividing up other supplies for 150 greeting cards. Super Saturday was a couple days ago and it was fun. They based it on a carnival/state fair theme and did a really cute job. There was a carnival game at each station and lunch was provided via a "cook-off" of soups, cornbread and pie. All the classes had a tie in to a carnival game too. For example mine was a dart throw with the phrase "Never Miss and Occasion".

Happy Fall!

It is my favorite season. It never seems to be quite long enough, but I am trying to enjoy every little bit of it. We have been as busy as ever, but I'll try to post some cute pics of the girls and few other things we have been up to over the next few days. Enjoy!

Since Grandma and Grandpa were kind enough to loan Lissy some egg-shaped rocks for her rock collection, she decided to display them all as eggs in an Easter basket. We found some clear eggs in our stash and numbered them and created a key that she hung from the basket. The little piece of iron pyrite went in the huge golden Easter egg, of course.

Lissy asked to make a giant tent downstairs one day and was busy at it for quite awhile. When I went downstairs later she proudly showed me her "padded floor and tunnel". She may not grow up and become the world's greatest architect, but she was happy and had fun.

Now that Evie can read, one of my favorite things is to come across her caught up in a good book. I just couldn't resist snapping these pictures. Her favorites right now are the Junie B. Jones books, but she's also tried a Goosebumps (gave her nightmares I think) and is working on a Magic Treehouse book right now, along with a Junie B. Jones. I guess she is her mother's daughter and can't decided on just one book at a time.

Busier than I thought...

Nothing much has been going on around here this last week. That’s what I thought until I started writing this, but we have been pretty busy. Monday night for family home evening we all went to Shawn’s softball game since it was an early one. We picked up dinner from McDonalds and Shawn from work on the way to the game. The other team only had 2 players show up, so it was a forfeit, but the girls had fun playing on the playground and big hill at the park while we waited a bit. For treats we stopped at Dairy Queen and got the dipped ice cream cones.
Tuesday and Wednesday Felicity got to go on their 5th grade overnight adventure. They take the girls up one night and the boys up 2 nights later. She is working on a post about that on her own blog, but she had a good time and got to do some fun science activities. Evelyn did lose her 2nd tooth, so the tooth fairy paid another visit to our house. Wednesday ended up being pretty busy I guess. It was payday so I ran to the bank and to Sam’s in the afternoon after helping in Lydia’s class. After school Evelyn went to her friend’s birthday party and Felicity went to piano lessons. We had our dinner group around 7 p.m., I hosted our book group at 8:30 and Shawn had his last softball game at 9:30. I made 2 Texas 4-Layer pies – one chocolate and one butterscotch – for the dinner group and book group. We enjoyed the leftovers for a few days after that.
Thursday I helped in Evie’s class and the library, we had our presidency meeting before the girls got home from school, and after school Lissy and Lydia went to activity days. That night the big girls had dance so Shawn, Evelyn and I went to the library and to ShopKo to get Shawn some pants while we waited for them.
Friday afternoon I finally got my hair cut! Yay!! That night we picked up some chicken for dinner and took it to the park for a picnic. Then we laid on blankets and read some of our family book (Percy Jackson #2), walked the path along the river, skipped some stones, and just enjoyed each other’s company and some nice fall weather. It was fun to watch Lydia and Evelyn throw handfuls of rocks in the river (they don’t have the patience for rock-skipping yet) and Shawn and Felicity concentrate on the skipping rocks part. Evelyn and Felicity also looked for “seashells” and Lydia pretended to be a mermaid lounging on the rocks down in the river.
Saturday morning it was our turn to go help clean the church. After that we came home, made egg sandwiches for breakfast and then worked out in the yard for a bit. Shawn and Lissy mowed the lawn while the little girls and I started to clean out the garden. We filled 4 garbage sacks with dead plants and picked more zucchini, tomatoes and 1 yellow squash. After that, Evelyn went to another birthday party, Shawn to ok Felicity to work on some golfing skills and I took Lydia with me to shop for some supplies for a card class I am teaching. That evening we made pizza and watched the BSU game all together. I recorded the RS broadcast to watch later this week.
Sunday has been pretty typical – Shawn had choir, I had meetings. After church we made a FAST dinner and then played a game of LIFE with the kids (after they did the dishes). Then Shawn had to go to a music meeting so the girls and I read a chapter in our book (after we finished the game without Shawn). Now they are all tucked in their beds and Shawn just got home from his meeting. Time to relax J

Zucchini Bread

The zucchini bread recipe we like the best is on our recipe blog. It is Coconut Zucchini Bread and it is delicious! It does have pistachio pudding/nuts(if anyone is allergic) in it and the coconut is optional, but I wouldn't leave it out! The link to "It's a Keeper Recipe Blog" is in the right hand column of this blog, then click on the bread category and it is the last one. Enjoy!

Harvest DaY

Last Saturday was a harvest day for our garden. We picked and froze corn, picked and froze squash, picked and "salsaed" tomatoes, and made yummy zucchini bread.