Happy Christmas, Happy Memories, Happy Wishes

With Christmas wrapping up I realize how few pictures I've taken this year.  That is out of character for me.  The ones I did get were pretty good though so they'll do.  (I'll maybe post some in the next few days, but for today here are some pictures of the mugs and matchy holiday things that have made me so happy every morning this month!  This collection was gifted to me in pieces by 3 different friends (who do not know each other), amazing that they are all so matchy!  I heart them.)
It was a nice quiet Christmas, Spencer was the only one of the kids we had here this year.  It was a wonderful peaceful few days.  Next week the chaos starts when the rest of the kids get here!  Here's to hoping for positively charged chaos!!
The past has been on my mind lately.  And if unbreakable connections are what they used to be I'm fairly certain that the past is on someone else's mind lately as well.  I went to Barnes and Noble yesterday, there were thoughts and memories of an old friend who loves bookstores the way I do. I'm thankful for happy memories.

Happy wishes for Happy futures! 

Holiday time is here!

The last few weeks have been full of Christmas preparation and fun and kids!  We've had weekends with our nieces visiting, and friends visiting and even some evenings of fun with our friends!  Yay for grown-up friends to hang out with! Yay for fun games and laughing and coffee!

The movie theater here does this great thing where they have free movies every Saturday in the holiday season.  They are usually movies either just out or about to be out on DVD but great fun for the kids anyway!  We've been taking whatever kids we have at the time and they've been having a great time picking treats and seeing all their friends from school at the movie.  It is seriously packed, kids on the floor and in the isles packed.   They've been doing this forever, I remember seeing either Beauty and the Beast or Aladdin at the free matinee' with friends in Jr. High.  I think we even sat on the floor.  Fun tradition!  Here is another reason it is kind of fun to live here again.  

Keeping us busy the rest of the time are things like Christmas cookie making and decorating, gingerbread houses, making holiday ornaments and all sorts of fun stuff!

Each time I think maybe I'm crazy to gather THAT many kids to do these things but it has been chaotic fun. Lots of laughing and much creativity.   Hopefully these are the memories that these kids will remember happily. 

I finally got the tree up.  The first year I really wanted it up sooner and we had to wait until we were sure we weren't moving before Christmas.  So yesterday, with help from friends, my tree is up and decorated and now I get to enjoy Christmas tree light for a couple of weeks!  I love writing in my journal by Christmas tree light on December nights.  With hot chocolate and Harry Connick Jr.  Wonderful winter moments.

Santa's gingerbread village~

Here is what our afternoon was all about.  How cute are these?  For our 4-H meeting today my mom volunteered to help the kids make gingerbread houses (ok, graham cracker houses).  Thanks to a bunch of great parents and grandparents we had all sorts of goodies to build and decorate with! 

The kids had non stop fun and ended up with wonderful cottages, and mansions!  One even had a garage!  What a funny, messy, silly good time we had!

Thanks, Mom, for your help!

More birth on my mind

I found this wonderful new blog.  THIS is the link.
I can't stop reading.  I know this kind of reading isn't for everyone but since, oh, about the year 2000 I've been oh so interested in all things birth.  One of my doula friends calls it the 'birth junkie' syndrome.  And now, as we're hoping our family gets to go through the birth thing again to add a family member, I especially enjoy it.  I just wanted to pass along the link for anyone interested.  It is a great collection of writings. Enjoy!

Happy Birthday Natalie!

Happy Birthday to Natalie!  We celebrated her birthday Saturday.  She is turning 8!  We had a fun day, she got to take Makaylyn, and 2 new friends Gracie and Sophi with her to the movie then eat pizza and have a couple of hours to play before her grandparents and cousins came over to share the silly caterpillar cake that the four girls decorated with very little help.  I had to excersice such self control to not just decorate it myself but to let them do it.  It turned out oh so charming!  I'm glad I let them have free creativity over the project!
I so wish I had had better luck with my camera!  The decorating would have been a good time to get on film!
After cake we headed into town for the parade of Lights.  It wasn't snowing or raining this year so it was actually enjoyable!
It has been so fun to watch Natalie change and grow the past couple of years into this stlylin' little girl that she is now.  I asked her a few questions to 'capture' her personality now.

Here is Natalie's Birthday Interview:

1. favorite color:  Green

2. best friend: Makaylyn

3. favorite food: cheese

4. favorite thing to do with friends: put makeup on and do hair

5. favorite thing to do with family: put makeup on and do hair and watch movies and ride horses

6. favorite movie: "twy ieght" ( I know we should tell her it is pronounced Twilight but maybe we'll wait a few months, it is too cute.)

7. If you could do anything you wanted all day what would you do?  Eat candy and do hair and makeup with Mak and my other best friend cousin.  (Her other best friend cousin is Sydney, Nat is just not great with names:)  And make crafts and cut out pictures.

8. What do you want to be when you grow up?  A grown up.

9. What boy do you have a crush on?  NONE!! NOT ANY!!! I only like my dad thats a boy to hang out with.  And Spencer.  And sometimes David.

10. What music do you like best? The Angel songs.  (Angel of the Morning, we have a bunch of different versions!  She loves loves loves them!)

11.  What is your birthday wish?  um, um, um, Not the candle one because it won't come true but the other one is to have a sleepover with Mak at Christmas.  And see my dad more.  And get a Webskins.

Happy Birthday Natlaie!  We so love you!

Happy Thanksgiving, Chipmunk!

As we're getting ready for Thanksgiving at John's parents house I've been asking the kids to tell me things they are thankful for.  And here we go...
John (yes, some days he counts as a kid), says he's thankful for his cup of coffee, I guess I'll have to wait until said coffee kicks in before things like healthy kids or his amazing fabulous wonderful wife pop into his head as things to give thanks for!
Natalie says, shes thankful for dogs.  Then I prompted for more and she added her mom, dad, sisters, Dena, brothers and hair.  She looks especially pretty today, she got herself ready for the day and before we knew it she was decorated with pink and purple hair and very very very blue eyeshadow.  Oh and she's dressed head to toe in leopard print.  She's stylin'.  I think perhaps I'll try to get the 'good' pictures of everyone Friday.
Samantha says there is nothing she's thankful for.  That she just isn't thankful for anything at all.  She does have a cold and I suspect she'd be thankful if she could breathe!
Tia says she is thankful for family and computers.

David says he's thankful for family and guns and video games. 

Later tonight after our wonderful day at John's parents house, Nat, Mak and I stopped at my parents house.  That is where one of my favorite things of the day happened.  Nat said she wanted water so my dad gets both of the girls cups down and is helping them fill them.  Nat peeks in the pantry and says "wow, thats a bunch of food you're storing!"  Mak looks in and says, "yep, they're storing it for winter!"  Then together both girls say "Like Chipmunks!!"   My parents couldn't stop laughing.  I love that to these funny 7 year old girls it is so logical that if you are storing food it must be for winter and it automatically makes you like chipmunks!

We had a great day with our family!  Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone we didn't get to spend the day with!

His list of Thanks

I, as I am every time my kiddo goes with his dad for a holiday, was sad to see him go because it feels so not natural to be away from him on special occasions, but I know he'll be safe and loved and have a good time so it is ok.  Before he left today I was making breakfast and I asked him since tomorrow is Thanksgiving and all what he is thankful for.  Then I decided to write it down.  Here is the list he came up with in about a minute.
Mom, John, Dad, all my grandparents, my whole family, all my friends, especially Brock, our house, our dogs, playstation, shoes, steak, our lizard and turtle, clam chowder, our cars, my toys, oxygen to breathe, water, the earth, our heater, elk.
Pretty good list.  A window into the heart of my boy!  I love that randomly in the list, steak and clam chowder show up. 

Now I'm just waiting excitedly for John to get home with the rest of our kids!

Turkey Shoot!

The turkey shoot was such a fun time this year!  Spencer and his friend Brock both got to shoot at targets and clay pigeons.  They had a blast, Sean and Zach helped them.    We played bingo, got a couple of turkeys, spent time with friends, laughed and laughed. It was a great time! 

I really like the picture of Sean helping Cade "blow his hands warm".  Cade came running up yelling "Dad!  Help me blow my hands warm!  Help me blow!".  So cute!

The boys were super excited about shells from the guns.  I think we came home with a good million of them carried safely in little boys' pockets!  

After hearing we were going to a turkey shoot a couple of my friends were picturing something along the lines of a bunch of turkeys wandering around and a bunch of people with guns chasing them and shooting.  That wasn't quite how it went at all.  To avoid confusion, Corie thinks they should rename the event.  Here are some of the ideas we came up with for its new name:

Happy Fluffy Day

Happy Fun Day near Thanksgiving weekend

Fuzzy Warm Fuzzies with free turkeys dasy

A kind of Thanksgiving celebration, with bingo!

Happy Fluffy Bingo with a Turkey

(This list actually could go on and on, we were perhaps getting carried away).  I think Happy Fluffy Day is a good one.  I wonder if the Lion's Club will want to rename it when they hear that we'd let them use "Happy Fluffy Day". 

Journal

These are some of my very favorite pictures.  As you can see from the date stamp, they are from September 2005.  We were at Mirror Lake, taking the day to walk and explore and do a little trail hiking.   Magical mommy son moments.  I had my journal with me (not much a surprise since I have it with me almost at all times).  We had stopped so he could get a snack out of the backpack and rest a minute.  I pulled out my journal and pretty soon he wanted to write in it too.  This was when he was very interested in Godzilla and really starting to be an artist when it came to capturing Godzilla on paper.  This journal has pages and pages right in the middle of Godzilla, Space Godzilla, Mothra, Rodan, Destroya, "kinkidorra":)  .

I love love love it.

These pictures are so soulful and catch the pondering.  I love them.  These days Spencer has a journal of his own.  He writes in it now and then but at this point it is still mainly me that sits down and letter style writes to him about what he did on this day or week of his childhood.  My mom did the same for me and it is something I treasure and love to read.  I hope Spencer feels the same way later when he looks back on it.

My grandmother wrote and recorded so many things from her life and from those of her kids, those writings are also things I count among my treasures. There is almost no describing the passion I have for my journal and for rereading them time after time.  How fun was it to read back on my high school journals about John years later after we were engaged?  Or reading now about my tiny baby? And all the other things contained in those books?  Wonderfully fun!   There have been times over the years when my privacy was violated and my journals were read without permission and the thought crossed my mind  to not write.  Then I realized that getting rid of untrustworthy people in life is a better way to go:)  I know this purposeful writing is something I'll keep doing. And then share happily.

I'm Thankful, #5 ~Friends!

I just found this great blog entry about a so much fun long weekend that I had in September.  Since she did such a great job, and has some great pictures, I'll let her tell the story.  Just click HERE and go see!

Another thing I'm so very thankful for, my WONDERFUL friends!  I do have such great friends.  I'm pretty good at choosing them I guess:)

Are friendships with  girlfriends something that boys understand? The reaction John has when I go over cell minutes talking to Emily makes me wonder.
But when I just NEED to go be with Emily, or Corie then I do and feel much better about the world. I feel revived.  We do things girls do, we talk, we talk we talk, about the good stuff, the bad stuff, the silly stuff, sad stuff.  And we laugh, mostly we laugh.  We support each other and cheer each other on.  We celebrate each others little victories, we go on tiny hour long vacations when needed.  We have inside jokes, we create together, we are sounding boards for each other.  My list could go on and on.


I feel that I've been lucky my whole life with good friends.  We were talking tonight at dinner about when your birthday falls making you the older, or younger kid in your school class.  My parents were talking about how my birthday fell on the deadline so I had to wait to start kindergarten and was one of the older in my class.  That made me think how lucky that one little thing was, if not for that I wouldn't have had Teresa, Erin or Candice to hang out with in my childhood days.  And how would have I gotten through those teenage years without Shanie, or Cari, or Kym or Patty?

I've met a few friends throughout the years that I'm sure I knew in a past life.  Soul mate friends.   I think it took less than an hour to feel that Emily, Mary Lynn, or Amy were GOOD friends (and I was right, our years and years of friendship say). And Carey, and Suzy.
And now, with sisters-in-law, I've discovered what a blessing it is to have friends that are sisters.  I would never have guessed  how funny making pancakes could be.  I have a sister, and love her, but our age difference was always such that we were in such different stages of life that we were only close for a little while.  These new found sisters of mine are wonderful, and it is almost like experiencing having sisters for the first time.

Also, I'm so happy and excited to be finding such fantastic fun girls to hang out with here where I live! Yay for new friends!Yay for new friends who make you lattes!!  Yay for new friends who you can just be yourself with like you were old friends!!

For all of the fantastic women in my life, I am thankful.

12 Days of Junkie giveaway

Go enter this fun giveaway! You know you want to! You just may win. Or I will, either way, fun to be had by everyone!

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be sure to check out her post HERE.

These deals are worth taking advantage of! I just wanted to share!

Thankfulmonies #5

As I'm listening to "Cool as Folk" on Yahoo radio, with my cup of tea I realize how great most of my mornings are. I am lucky enough to have a job that never starts before 9, or 10 and usually a little later than that. So I always have a bit of time in the morning to get things done around the house, relax with my cup of raspberry tea, which thanks to some great coupons has temporarily turned into vanilla raspberry chai tea (Coffeemate creamer has a great new flavor, vanilla chai, and the coupons made the bottle of creamer only $1). Anyway, as I was saying, music, tea, morning sunlight coming in all my windows, fuzzy socks, slow showers, time to get out and walk with the dogs, these are the things my mornings are made of after the bus comes. ~Before the bus comes is a little more hectic, if you've met my son you know he's only a morning kid on field trip days! I do love those mornings I can get him out of bed early enough to have a long conversation/breakfast!~

I do love these slow mornings of me time. It gives me time to gather myself and my thoughts and be ready to face the day.


I'm also thankful for how giving people are! Our 4H group's service project is off the ground running! We have received so many great donations that we can pass along to some deserving kids! The outcome is going to be far more than we expected and we are still collecting toys and books until the tenth of December. We are going to be able to do more for these kids than we thought. Wonderful! It is uplifting to see how 'good' people are and how much help they're willing to give to this good cause.

I'm Thankful, #4

In the spirit of being thankful and tying that to where we live....
I really am glad to live closer to both sets of parents/grandparents. It really is nice to be able to see them both at least weekly if not more. And to be able to be here to help with little projects that need done. Today we spent a little while over at my parents house fixing the roof up for winter. Then stopped over at John's parents house for about an hour to visit and see the kids. And we were still home before dinner. Fantastic. Being able to enjoy things like weekend dinners, having grandparents at school programs, getting to see everyone on a holiday. These things are the reasons we live here.

The photo above isn't recent, but its fun. It is Halloween early 80s style. Those adorable kids in costume are my brother Stanton and myself. With my dad. Spencer thinks this picture is CRAZY! He says he doesn't remember when Grandpa used to fix his hair like this. He only remembers when Grandpa fixed his hair gray. Priceless.

Christmas card givaway at Your Card Bakery!

http://yourcardbakery.blogspot.com/2009/11/christmas-card-giveaway_11.html?showComment=1258309332767#c5917650833874905729


There is a great giveaway at Your Card Bakery. Click HERE for the details. Today is the last day to enter so hurry!

Marshmallow

Our 4-H kids made marshmallow suckers at their last meeting. I had nothing planned to "make" but luckily we were able to gather a few decorative ingredients and fashion a treat of some sort. It seemed to be a lot of fun for the kids.

New minutes! Yipee!

Today I'm simply thankful that it is the day that our minutes reset on our cell phones!
That means I can call Emily!! (Who I am also thankful to have in my life!)