Advent

Let me put out here a public THANK YOU to my husband and mom.  Eleven months ago was a busy and exciting time at our house.  On December 27th I bought a new Christmas tree at an after Christmas sale, and I put it up.  On December 28th, I gave birth to our wonderful baby boy.  For the past eleven months I have heard about how I left 2 Christmas trees to be taken down and put away, along with all the other Christmas decorations.  My mom and husband tackle the task with zeal and had it all taken care of before I was released from the hospital.  THANK YOU.  Along with that, they even helped me to prepare for this year!  

Today marks the beginning of Advent.  The season of lights and preparing for the birth of Christ.

To celebrate the season, I have a Christmas count down calendar.  But for even more fun I wanted to start a new tradition, and I knew this last year.  Mom and Eric, individually wrapped up the Christmas books as they put them away!  I know they thought it was the morphine talking, but they also know how I love to plan things out ridiculously far in advance.

So this year, I was very grateful to pull out the books to start off our Advent season, and they were already wrapped!  Each day, now through Christmas we will unwrap a "new" book to read and to prepare for the coming of the Lord.  I felt a load lifted from me as I found the books to already be wrapped!

On another note, I have publicly acknowledged my gratitude for their help last year.  This year is pay back, as I have 2 trees to put up, with three small "helpers" and to take down with three small "helpers", or also known as by myself.  Can we be done with the ribbing?  At least you two had each other and me to blame.

I am thankful that I can see

When we moved in, our great room had one ceiling fan fixture.  The room is approximately 17ft. by 22ft. and one light source just didn't cut it.  We now have lights!  We moved the original fan to one side of the room and put a second one on the opposite side.  Then we had 4 can lights put in, on each side, controlled separately.  Creating two distinct spaces within the same room.  That put us at 10 lights!  But we weren't done!  We also put 3 smaller can lights above the breakfast bar area.  The room now has 13 lights, and possibly thirteen switches --I'm not sure.

North side

South Side

hmmmm.... I know I turned this picture...these are the bar lights, on the ceiling.

Not quite done, we added two lights in the garage as well, and they also make a huge difference!  Now I can actually sort through things and see what I am doing!

We added a security light to the backyard as well.  And let me add, as I say we, I do mean we, Eric did most of the cutting for the can lights and hooked up the ceiling fans. I helped wrangle kids at Home Depot and during the installation --and for anyone who has attempted to do that, or herd cats, know what I am talking about. We did have someone who knew what he was doing, run the wiring and connect it all safely and correctly!  THANKS TYSON!

Thankful for the opportunity to own our own home.

As a side note...I fear this may mean that we'll be able to actually see the dust, and it may be expected that I dust more often.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

We truly do feel blessed, even if we are far from family and many friends.

Even if we're not having the traditional turkey and too much meal, we are blessed with food on our table.

When the vehicles give me a headache, I am grateful that typically they are minor, fixable and we can afford to fix them.

I am grateful that when I am handed lemons, I really do know how to make lemonade and that I have friends to share a glass with.  (and this sentence reminds me of my nasty Midwest habit of ending a sentence with a preposition, I am forever thankful for the wonderful education I received in Iowa, even the bad habits I'm left with).

As we celebrate today, near and far, know that wherever life is at this moment, you are loved, and that makes you very blessed; and I am grateful that I (and my family) am loved.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Thankful for

I am thankful for children who care for each other and can't stand to be apart from each other!

Thankful that she is confident and does her own thing and loves life!

For their Bonnie and Clyde routine that keeps me on my toes.

a few things I'm thankful for

Each of us, no matter what is going on in our lives, have much to be grateful for.  Let me share a few things that I am thankful for.

Messy faces

Goofy faces

Happy faces

Reminded

This past week I tried something new.  I had read about it in a book and was told not to waste my time doing it.
I know better than to believe everything I read.

However, the author seemed to have really given everything in the book a try and somewhat of an authority. The lady makes her own hair spray, breaking down the cost and environmental aspects. That's a lot of effort into something and seems that the info the book contained, should be considered.  So for the last 4 years --that I have had the book, not that I ever did it before I had the book --I went about my happy way believing that I shouldn't waste my time.
Then about a year ago, someone mentioned that they were going to do this.  I gave them my two cents that it's not worth one's effort, just buy a can or two.  I have a neighbor that mentioned doing it. Yes, God was nudging me to have an open mind.  And so I have been thinking about it.  Really, it shouldn't be hard, and at least I can say I tried.

Well God is LAUGHING at me and my foolishness!

Roasting pumpkins.
Last Sunday, with the girls' help, we cleaned out a pumpkin and roasted it.  The author of the book, said that roasting pumpkins take too long and don't yield very much pumpkin.  She said that a lot more effort is put into the process and just not worth the effort.

So after the first pumpkin was done, I had TWENTY FIVE cups of pumpkins, and Laurelei had stuck a knife several times into a second one, that therefore still needed to be roasted.  Um, in my book, that is A LOT of pumpkin.  The first pumpkin I bagged up and froze in 1 and 2 cup amounts.  The rest of the week has been spent making pumpkin bread and muffins and cupcakes, two batches of pumpkin ice cream -yum -OH MY!!!

 

And don't forget the seeds! These are 'sweet' roasted seeds.  The next batch will be savory...yes we have TWO more pumpkins, that need to be roasted.  I would skip it, but the girls ask every day if we can cook them today.
That wasn't the only laugh that God has had at me...remember how last week I felt like I had apples coming out of my ears?  Well this week in our produce food co-op we got close to another five pounds of apples!  So in addition to feeling like I had pumpkin up to my eyeballs, we dried some apples, to try and keep our supply under control. I have intentions of making apple pie in a jar (freezing instead of canning), but at the moment I'm not thinking about that or the oodles of apples still staring at me.

I was reminded, not to believe everything I read.  Everything I hear or even everything I see.  At the moment all I see is pumpkin puree and apples. I had a dream about dishwasher shopping, I was looking for a bigger one, and one that would hold bigger pots and bowls, scours them all clean ~even dried old yucky stuff and  still fit nicely under the counter.  Yes it was a dream, I know. When I got up and unloaded the dishwasher, a tine broke off...I pray that isn't a sign to come.

Apples!!!

We seem to have apples coming out of our ears!  We brought Honey Crisp apples back from IA and we went to the apple orchard ourselves as fun family outing.

Daddy not paying close attention, everyone got into the apple picking mood!

RRRRREEEEEAAAACCCCCHHHHHH!

I think she ate 3 apples while we were picking...the whole apple!

It has been wonderful to have an abundance of apples to snack on...but it is warm around here and my fridge will only hold so many apples and still have room for milk.  So we spent a day making apple muffins and apple bread, mmmmmmm  mmmmmmm   good!

The freezer has lots of yummy treats for us for then next couple of months, and I think we have another apply baking day coming up soon!  We have a lot of apples!

Dance recital

The girls had their first dance recital this past Saturday.  They'll have their second this coming Saturday and their third on Dec. 5th.  It will be interesting to see how they progress.  But for their first one they both did GREAT!

Not sure at first about going on to stage, Laurelei went on stage and stayed there the entire song!  She didn't cry or run off!  She also didn't do the dance, but in her class only 2 and a half kids did dance --one was so scared yet trying so hard, most of the time she was frozen but got her arms chugging once in awhile.  Two did get overwhelmed, cried and ran off stage...so all in all she was a success!

waiting her turn

She didn't stand completely still, she did look around and take her hat off.

CJ is currently in a class with 8yr olds.  So at 4, she has done a great job keeping up.  She is in an acroballet class which is really perfect for her, she loves the hand stands and cartwheels.  However, the choreography is hard for her to keep up with.  This month she is transitioning to a 5yr old ballet/tap class.  She loves her new tap shoes...mommy is not as excited about having 2 tappers in the house.  She was nervous leading up to the performance, but did a wonderful job, leading the other dancers a couple of times when they forgot the steps.

Also on Saturday was my birthday, I thought it was fine to spend it at a dance recital, the girls were disappointed that I didn't have a party.  CJ insisted on getting me flowers, she said she thought I would love to water and take care of them everyday...ahhh so sweet, and naive to think I don't have enough to tend to in a day!

And we ended the day with peanut butter brownies with chocolate and cashews....not bad at all!

Hall-o-week

What a week! Filled with lots of fun, but I think I'm going to need a weekend just to recover.  When did Halloween become a week long of celebrations and preparations? We started with a trip to the zoo to partake in the Howl-O-Ween they had.  What we didn't realize a head of time, is that each night it is offered, at least a third of Tucson shows up.  Despite the crowds it was a really fun time!

most of the animals were not on display, but we did see a few animals.

this bat kept following us around everywhere....spooky!

This is R4...R2D2 was very busy with pictures.  This guy moved around and was quite fun to watch.  The Star Wars area was Eric's favorite...I think all the classic characters were accounted for.

A quick treat before heading home.  Okay, after this there was a stop at the ice cream truck for push ups for the little girls and a big ol' cone of something for Eric.

Tuesday CJ's pre-k class dressed up and trick or treated around the offices in the building.  There were at least 3 little mermaids in class, which CJ said was why she didn't want to be Ariel.  I love that she dances to her own beat!

Wednesday we built a chocolate haunted house.

Sneaky sweetness kept plucking pieces of candy every chance she got.  The house did not last long.

Thank yous we gave to CJ's teachers and the girls' dance instructor.

 We joined our neighbors to do some pumpkin carving.  We helped cleaned out the guts, but only colored on ours, we had to leave and make it to school on time as well that morning.

 

 

And just for fun we made some cupcakes this week too!

And finally the big night, we went to a classmate's party for a bit, came home did a quick Tinkerbell to Ladybug costume change and headed out to do our own trick or treating to a few houses.

 

But spent most of the night having more fun handing out candy!

 

what a trooper!  He only got about a 10min afternoon nap, but enjoyed being outside.  And for anyone counting...he is now 10 months old and cruising around the furniture.

Are you still here?  Time to go take a nap...both you and I...if only the kids would.