Em's Christmas sewing

My niece, Emily has a list of things she wants to make for people for Christmas.  Because I can't share the fun things I'm making without their recipients seeing them early, I'm showing hers off just a bit.  She was finally able to come over and get started last night (and made much progress).  Look how cute these turned out!  And she did every every part of every step herself.  (So easy to 'help' her sew now!  All I have to do is answer the occasional question and keep her company).

Hopefully this weekend she'll be able to finish the rest of what is on her list. 

What projects do you have going on?

Happy Halloween-ing!

A fun busy evening of Halloween-ing for us!  Now all the kids are a little woozy from all the eating of all the goodies we made today. 
The menu for dinner was brain and eyeball soup with a side of fingers.
What every good Halloween celebration needs we had:
~pumpkins carved into jack-o-lanterns 
~haystacks
~guts
~skeleton heads
~deviled eggs
~a gigantic bag of candy from Grandma
~The Lost Boys
~The Goonies
~Its The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown
~ The kids made a video about a Zombie and 2 puppies.
I was a little sad not to be throwing the big Halloween party that we usually do every year.  This turned out almost as fun though!  Still many laughing silly kids!

Happy 4th and such

Nothing like a small town parade!  Start to finish it was almost 40 minutes long (which is on the longish side for here).  Spencer was excited to see his Aunt and his cousin in the parade.  I am having trouble posting the rest of the pictures from the weekend of the 4th.  Consider this a half post, perhaps I'll finish it at some point.  No promises though!

Mother's Day Flowers

On Saturday we took the kids to plant Mother's Day flowers.  I love little things like this available in the community to go participate in.  This was followed by a trip into the store to "just look" at toys.  That was followed by leaving the store with a crying 4 year old whose heart was broken that we were really just looking and not buying.  Happily he was asleep by the time we got home!
We hope all you mommies out there had a Happy Mother's Day!

A little peek into Spring Break Clinger style

Happy Colors

I was amazed at the speed that 36 hard boiled eggs were colored at our house!  Really much less than ten minutes and there were no eggs left white.  Nat was very serious about the whole thing and had her technique perfected.  The boys thought it was pretty cool that their hands looked "zombie-ish and bloody" after being stained.  And how in the world did we end up with not enough eggs to make deviled eggs?  Sneaky kids kept sneaking them before I could.

Another Tradition

Remember THIS?  We love this tradition that comes at least once a year for the past, oh, most of my life!

                    

It is that time of year again, Taffy making with Grandpa.  Looking back on the pictures I took made me laugh, Natalie was Grandpa's little sidekick and was so excited to be helping and in all the pictures she was just next to him, watching and always with a spoon full of candy.  She was the main taster.

 

Such fun memories we're making.  Traditions run strong.

A very Twister New Year to all

We had a fantastic evening hanging out with friends to celebrate New Year's Eve this year.

Here's to a great year blessed with great friends!

Not many a photo for our Christmas

It is still a little crazy to me that my boy is 9!  He is no longer quite as crazy about Godzilla and super heroes as he once was.  He is wild about the wild west these days and loves all things cowboy.  He received a couple of belt buckles for Christmas that he was overjoyed about, and a log cabin for his cowboy action figures to set up fort in.

Christmas Eve was a wonderful day of cooking while watching Christmas cartoons with Spencer then a quick visit to my in laws and dinner with my family.  On Christmas we had my parents over for gift opening in the morning then a great day playing at home then headed over to John's parents house for lunch and visiting all evening. 

I wasn't feeling the greatest on Christmas and somehow (I still have no idea how, I must've really really not been feeling good), I ended up with almost no pictures.  At the time it seemed like not a big deal to skip the picture hoopla and lay on the couch.  Now I'm missing the photos that could have been.  Oh well.  We did have a Merry Christmas and hope you did too!

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!