What a family

 This is the the whole clan.  At thanksgiving we had our pictures taken because we were altogether.  That doesn't happen very often, we are always missing someone.

 My parents and all my siblings. 

 Allison and her crew.

 

Heath and his crew.

I don't know why but I don't have one of Ivan. Hmmmm

Here are all the grand-kids.  All 11 of them. I love my family!

Salt in a wound

So these last two weeks have not been the best for me, and my family.  Well really it's the whole last half of the year, with my grandma's death, and my grandpa's death.  Then came this month just to pour salt in the wound.

  My sister called me after Thanksgiving to inform me that she and her family were going to move to North Carolina.  What the?  Yeah, apparently Aaron is got a promotion and they are off to the other side of the country.  It will be a good opportunity for them, and their family, but it sucks for me. And we all know it is all about me!  I will miss them so much.  Not that they were that close being in Colorado, but at least I could drive to see them in less than a day.  Now....... not so much.

 

 Then the other bad news came.  My dad was diagnosed with an aggressive Colon Cancer.  As I am writing this I am having a hard time not crying.  They took out part of his colon, and we are praying that it was caught in time.  This is the second cancer he has had in less than four years, and it has been really hard. 

   We are trying to look at all the blessing that we have.  This picture was taken this last weekend.  We drove down just for the day before dad had his surgery.  We decorated their Christmas tree and drove them nuts.  Allison said "make sure you get pictures with the kids and dad".  She is right.  You always think they will be there forever, so you don't think about taking pictures.

 Has December been all bad? No of coarse not. 

As my friend Shanwnee says "it helps to have little ones when you are sad".  This little man is so funny.  He has been acting like a dog, picking things up with his mouth and carrying them around.  He will be walking soon, probably the next time I write.  Time flies, even when your not having fun.

 We tried to do some fun things this month in between the crazy.  We made these cookies, that looked really bad, and tasted even worse.

 They were supposed to look like melted snowmen, but they didn't.

 They just ended up looking creepy and I mean it when I say they tasted horrible.  Not even Dillon would eat them.

 I did some crafting of coarse.  Here is my wreath made of dowels.

 Dillon was in the school play.  I guess every year the 3rd graders puts on  a play.  This year the play was "A Sombrero For Santa", it was actually a really cute play. 

 He got to be an elf, and had a speaking part which out of four 3rd grade classes was no small feat. 

 Elleree and Truman got to see Santa and sit on his lap.  They even got a candy cane for their trouble.  So no, this month has not been all bad, and I know that we are very blessed.  It has just been hard, but then as my dad always says "the path of least resistance is what makes men and rivers crooked".

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!