More Crafts

I have been busy........crafting and doing other stuff.  Here are a few of my completed projects.

 My mom cut out these family letters forever ago, my friend Shawnee and I finally got together to finish them.

Back by popular demand, okay maybe not, is my Christmas card.  I made most of these last year, but when Beckett came early I was really stressed out so I said "screw sending Christmas cards".  This year I finished them up and am sending them as we speak. I swear they are cuter in person.

 This canvas is my first attempt at using this photo editing program I just downloaded.  I liked it.  I got the letters here and the numbers here.  It was kind of fun!

 I am still on my quest to find ways of using my babyfood jars.  I made this Advent calendar out of them.  Everyday has an activity that we will do, and no it was not easy coming up with 24 of them.

 I have been sewing like mad, I decided to sew the kids pajamas for Christmas.  Unfortunately the needle plate on my machine broke.  What the Heck, I know.  It was really crazy, and it broke my needle in the process, so it is out of commission until the one I ordered gets here.  Bummer.

I have canned 5 batches of raspberry jam since I came back from Thanksgiving.

Oh and I forgot to show the link for the tutorial on that ruffle scarf I made.  Sorry, so here it is.  Scarf.

Don't worry I am still working on more.....

Mister Monster Man Turns One

I can't believe it, but Beckett is a whole year old.  He is such a part of our lives I can't remember what it was like without him.  

 Here is a picture of his birthday cake. It's Cookie Monster, for my little monster.  I always make the worst cakes, so don't feel bad if you couldn't figure out what it was.  Most of the time no one else can either.

 I made a small one so that Beckett could have his very own.

 My parents were the only ones able to make it.  We celebrated on a weekday and it was too hard for everyone else with work and school.

 We went to Sizzler to eat, and came home for cake and presents.  It was hard to keep the other kids from blowing out his candle.

 He didn't know what to think about most of it.

 When we put him down in front of his presents, he just sat like this.

 I finally had to help him with them before the other three opened them for him.

 Pretty soon he got the hang of it.

 He only got one present from us, but he seemed okay with that.

 He took his car pretty seriously and tested it out before he would get on it.

Once he did it was the prefect fit, and he is soooo cute on it.

 This is him throwing a fit when we took him away from his toys to eat cake.

 But he decided he liked the cake, but not getting messy.

 Truman ended up having to feed him pieces of cake. 

Little man I love you something terrible.  I can't believe you are already a year old.  Time never stops. You were my hardest birth, and we had a pretty stressful year with you.  But, I am so grateful you were given to us. I hope you will always be my good little monster!

Another "beautiful" tree

As is Jason's tradition the last couple of years he took the kids looking for a Christmas tree.  

 The trees are always hideous, and this years is not exception.  No matter how "beautiful" Jason says it is.  Jason was just really excited this year to get a really tall tree.  It is at least 9 feet tall.

 Dillon helped chop the tree down. 

 If you look close Truman is in the background laying on the ground "taking a nap".

 Here are the great tree hunters.

 The tree was so big that even with with our ladder it was difficult getting all the lights and the star on the top.

 This is Jason's awesome way of making sure the tree doesn't fall over this year.  He put a shower rod up behind the tree for tension, and then tied the tree on either side to the wall.  Yeah we are not white trash at all, don't worry.

 Decorating the tree is always stressful for me.  The kids just want to pull out all the ornaments and throw them on, and my OCD doesn't allow me to let them.  So they have to wait while I dig them all out and give them to them.

 Beckett was just interested in chewing on all of them, and making messes, and just being my little monster.

I always love how the ornaments only end up on the bottom 1/3 of the tree.

 This is the best picture with all four of them.  Beckett would not sit still, and don't ask what Elleree is doing, because I don't even think she knows.

This is the finished product after we put the kids to bed and distributed the ornaments evenly, and cleaned up the mess.  Every year our tree looks different, I do love that!

Thanksgiving 2011

 Ah yes Thanksgiving.  What else can I say besides my family is crazy! We were all together this year.  Everyone, Ivan had Paisley and Heath had Pierce. We had family pictures taken, but I haven't seen them yet.  Knowing our family they wont turn out very well.

 The kids played together really well.  They played games, watched movies and ran around.  Paisley dressed up Abby and Elleree.  Apparently she thinks Abby is an old homeless lady and Elleree is a fashionesta.

 My mom worked really hard and made a wonderful meal for all of us.  

She has had a really hard month.  Her horse died, Her dad died, their dog died, and one of her best friends son's died.  So making Thanksgiving dinner for us was not what she really wanted to be doing, but she did it anyway.

I didn't get very many pictures, and the ones I did get were actually taken by Jason.  Thanks honey!

There was pie, and this is a picture of my not very appetizing huckleberry pie.  It doesn't look very good, but it tasted good.  We had a lot to be thankful for!

Nothing Much

Not much has been happening around here.  Last weekend we got to go visit Jason's parents, and it was a good time.  We have not seen them in quite awhile.

 We watched some football, the kids played a tone of games.  Grandma Kay's house is the place for games of any kind.

I got to go and see my friend Katie and hang out with  her.  Seeing her was really nice.  I miss hanging out, going shopping and shooting the breeze with friends.

There was a few minutes of napping as well. Kristy came hung out too.  It's nice to visit family.

Since nothing has been going on, I have been  making things........

I made this scarf.  I know it's a great picture, I am a professional.

I am actually really proud of myself for this one, because I came up with the idea all by myself!  My boys have a ton of those medals that you get for participating in sports.  Football, basketball, soccer, wrestling you name it they have one for it.  They were driving me nuts.  They boys wanted to keep them, but there are too many to just have hanging around.  So...I took them off of their neck things, and made a mobile/wind chime.  It sounds really cool in the wind, and the boys think it rocks.  Bonus, I can just keep adding them when they get more, because they will.

I have made other things, but they are not yet finished. When they are I will show you.  Don't bite your nails too much in anticipation!

So, Beckett was born with this cyst thing right above his left eye. They are weird because they are actually formed in the womb as the cells are dividing.  Truman had one on his chest.  I asked his pediatrician about it at one of his check ups, and he said not to worry about it.  

Now, fast forward a few months.  I took Elleree to an ENT to have her ears looked at and the ENT was amazing!  She looked at Elleree and after telling me about her, she was watching Beckett crawl on the floor, and said "is that a blah, blah, blah cyst (I can never remember what kind it is) above his eye?". I told her it was, and she asked if I had had it looked at.  By this time she had Beckett in her arms and was examining him.  Now I never, never ask a doctor to look at another one of my kids that doesn't have an appointment.  I have gotten in trouble for that. Shoot I've gotten in trouble for having them look at more that one thing on the same person, and not makeing a separate appointment.  So I was very surprised she even noticed Beckett, little alone was willing to check him out.  Anyway... I told her that the pediatrition said not to worry about it.  She said, "I disagree, these have a tendency to grow bigger, and get infected,  (Which is what happened to Truman), and where this one is located if it did, it could block his vision."  She also informed me that if you don't get them taken out early, the bone starts to form around them.  Then if it does need to be taken out later, it would leave a big indentation (this also happened with Truman). Not as big of a deal on his chest, as it would be on your eyebrow. She said, that if we had met our deductable, there was no reason, at all, not to have it taken out.  Have we met our deductable? ahahahahhaahha. Silly doctor. 

So today the poor baby had it taken out.  The doc said it was the size of a marble.  There should be minimal scaring, if not nonexistent, and there was only a slight indent on the bone, which would probably fix its self as he grows.  He was so good after the operation, other kids were screaming and crying and he just hung out.  The nurses all thought he was an angel which he is!

Halloween 2011

I love Halloween.  I try to have as much fun as possible.  Last year was not so great, so I was determined to make up for it this year.  The day was a whirlwind of craziness. I had Truman's party at school to do with treats and games and crafts. 

 Between getting ready for my party I was able to get the kids ready, but as is my M.O.  I didn't get very good pictures of them.  

Dillon is a werewolf ( or as Elleree prefers, the big bad wolf), Truman was a Bajugon warrior thing (don't ask, he picked it out), Elleree was Little Red Riding Hood, and Beckett was Superman. 

 Jason was a red M&M, this costume blew up, it was fabulous.  Once again not an awesome picture. 

 I didn't get too many pictures of the party, because it was kind of hard to orchestrate the festivities and get pictures at the same time.  I missed my family a ton this year.  My mom and dad weren't able to make it, and none of my siblings could come either.  They are always a lot of help, and make it fun, but what do you do.

 Dillon didn't have as much fun this year.  None of the kids he invited were able to make it, so he was really bummed.  We didn't have a bad turn out though.

 We had food, pinata, fishing pond, scavenger hunt, decorated cookies.

 Here is Truman with his friend Logan (who was Heman, crack me up) with their completed craft project.

 I think despite everything the kids had fun.

 This is my friend Shawnee with her girls doing a little craft project.

All I know is that it was such a hectic day, that the day after I completely lost my voice.  I wasn't able to speak at all.  

I couldn't leave out my new skirt.  I finished this last week.  I think it turned out okay.  I have no idea what I am going to wear with it, but I liked the material so I made it.  What else are you supposed to do when you have no voice, I mean really?

To Vegas We Go.....Again

So, I came back from our trip to Vegas on October 23, and on the 24th (which was my mom's birthday) I got a text from my aunt telling me that my grandpa was in the hospital.  The tumors in his brain were causing bleeding.  The next day they took him off Dialysis.  On Friday October 28th he passed away, he was 86 years old.  

So this last weekend my dad, Heath and I drove down to Vegas for the funeral.  You can never get too much of Vegas...right?  It was nice to see all my family.  It has been a long time since I have seen some of my cousins.  My mom got to see her cousins as well.

This is a picture of my grandma with her only brother.  They are only 18 months apart and very close.  They were really cute.  

I was glad that I was able to make it to the funeral.  Jason took time off and stayed home with the kids.  It was so cute when I got home, Jason really missed me.  He was so funny.  He realized how crazy it was having to stay home with the kids and all the things that I do.  It is nice to be appreciated!