In Total Panic Mode Now

Yes that is right. Total panic mode now that it is officially Christmas Eve and I am not done shopping, or wrapping or making. Can we get an extension on Christmas this year please? I have never gotten this far behind in previous years. I am starting shopping in January this year for next Christmas. LOL. I would probably still be behind by the time Christmas comes around next year. Ok off to go back to bed and get up to do a million things tomorrow.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve???

How...no when did this happen? OMG. I think I am starting to go into freak out mode now. I still have so much to do. CRAP. Maybe I shouldn't go back to bed, but rather stay up and get more stuff done. Wrapping, and writing out those recipe cards, and putting the recipe books together, and wrapping, and mailing out our Christmas cards, and ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I have so been in the mood to scrapbook, however I don't have the pictures printed out of what I want to scrapbook, nor do I even remotely have the time to get it done. With all the rest of the stuff I have going on there is just no way in heck that I could fit it in right now. I want to get this Christmas stuff all finished up, CLEAN my desk and then print out the pictures (at Costco probably) and then do some scrapbooking. I have so many ideas that are fresh and I am so excited to scrap so many different things, that I am trying to just hold on to those ideas a little longer. I did find some red and blue snow paper online (at Freckle Friends) that I want to get to go with some of our snow pictures, since Caleb's hat and mittens were red and light blue and his jacket was red, and Jacob's mittens were the same as Jacobs and I think his beanie was red too. I can't order it now (well I added up all that I want and it was about $50.00 after tax and shipping. Well I just can't swing that right now with all the holidays, so hopefully after the holiday hustle and bustle and we can stop spending money like crazy then I will place my order. Here is just one sheet of paper that I totally fell in love with. It is from October Afternoon. When I went to Freckle Friends website, they had a link for the new stuff from OA, and there are some cute things. Just from the three lines is where my $50 bucks will go. Check it out HERE .

Ok back to bed to dream of my paper and get right back up in a short time to get finished on all the stuff I need to do. Ryan and Marcus spent the night last night with their cousin, so maybe first thing in the morning I can get some more wrapping done if the babies are still asleep. I need to download our cooking pictures too. Marcus and Savannah made cookies in the shape of their first initial. I think they were having a good time. Caleb just wanted to eat the sprinkles and was done with the whole thing after I took the UNcooked cookie away from him that he was trying to eat. Jacob was enjoying it, and even helped me bake some other stuff throughout the day as well. He is my little cooker man. He is almost 4 and can crack open an egg as good as I can. I love it. Ok back to bed now.

Baking today

So yesterday when we went to the groccery store we got some stuff to do some baking today. Ok I honestly think we went a little baking crazy. I got enough stuff to make 2 batches of lemon bars, chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, two batches of cinnamon strusel bread or muffins, blueberry muffins or bread and coffee cake. Oh my. We will see how this goes today. I am off to make the kids some cinnamon rolls for breakfast and then I want to clean up the kitchen a bit (my sewing machine is on the table) so that we have lots of room. Then we will be baking up a storm today. Oh first I am going to put some beef stew in the crock pot and let that cook all day while we are baking. I love the smell of something simmering in the crock pot. Especially on a cold day like today. I think we really will be getting that storm in that the weather reports said we would. (I only believe the weather when I see it). I finally got some stuff wrapped last night, and still have tons more to do. I am still working on those recipes for the recipe books. I can't believe I thought in any way that it was a good idea to hand write all the recipes for 9 recipe books. WHAT was I thinking? I guess I thought it would be a nice touch in many years down the road to have my hand written recipes in the books. Yeah keep telling myself that. I still need to hem Jacob's pajama pants and cut out AND sew Ryan and Marcus each a pair. How in the heck did Christmas come so fast this year? I wanted to sit down and write down some ideas on things I want to get scrapbooked this year, but I just don't have that kind of time right now. lol. So maybe in the days between Christmas and New Years I will do that. I am having a hard time with the DISASTER that is on my desk right now. It is the worst yet. I have stuff on the floor all around the desk. I have so many projects going that it is hard to even find what I am looking for.
I have an idea that I am going to present to my grandma and her husband this year. I need some kind of new storage for all of my stuff. Well I love those square cabinets that you can buy at Target with the 3 or so openings for 12x12 paper. Well each one only has 3 openings and they are like $30.00 each. Well Jim (my grandmas husband) is REALLY good with wood and I am thinking he might be able to build me something bigger , but the same concept for less money than if I were to buy several of the ones from Target or Michaels or wherever. I am thinking I want to move all of my stuff like punches and rubons to open cloth bins on a bookcase in the closet. I would like to have drawers, but I work better with open containers. So that is my plan of organization for this coming year. Now we will see how it works out. I am sure that he can make it, he is really good. I need to figure out all the sizes and how many openings I want it to be and all that great stuff. So maybe I will tell him to make it for my birthday, or I can pay for it and have it now. (I don't know if I can wait until July). I know this is a process that will take months anyways. I don't have tons of money to just go buy all new storage at one time. So it will be a little here and a little there, but it will get done eventually.

Want to win some Cosmo Cricket?

If you do then go HERE . Thanks Jennifer for posting it to your blog. Looks like some great stuff. I really do like Cosmo Cricket. I have a few sheets from the Robot (Cogsmo?) line that I am waiting to use right now. I think I will be using it on some Lego pictures of the kids. Anyways check out the site and enter to win.

"Give Me Attitude..."

I crack up at this little guy all the time. We were getting ready to go somewhere and I put on his jacket, and I told him to finish getting ready (meaning his shoes). Well he didn't get his shoes on but Ryan or Marcus' beany and Jacob's safety glasses that he brought home for the kids to play with (along with hard hats). So I wanted to take a picture of him and I told him to give me attitude (not even knowing if he really knew what I meant) and this is what I got. He cracks me up.

The the other day when I was taking pictures of the Christmas tree he asked me "Did it smile good for the picture mommy?"
He is so silly.

Christmas Tree Day

(I don't know how to get a good "glowing" picture, so this is the best I could get)

Well I didn't post the pictures of when we got our Christmas Tree. I had the greatest of intentions to take pictures at the Christmas Tree "Farm" when we got the tree, but is was freezing temeratures, so I didn't even take out my camera. We were trying to pick the tree and make sure that the babies were still warm. (I would have sworn it was going to snow that night for sure). So I was really bummed about this since this is the first year in several years that we got a real tree. So I just took a picture of the tree in the living room floor, and of Jacob adjusting it into the stand. It is the best that I can do this year. A few days later I thought I should have taken a picture of the Christmas Tree place, from the truck. But I didn't think of that at the time. So I am thinking I will just drive to the Christmas Tree Farm and take a picture of it now. I just might do that today. Even though we got the tree at night, a day picture will show the entire place, so that is fine with me. So the first night we just did the lights and the garland. Then two nights later we finally decorated it.

Here is Jacob playing with the clippings from the tree.

Caleb was really interested in the lights.

Here is Ryan decorating the tree.

Marcus decorating the tree.

Jacob decorating the tree.

Caleb really didn't understand the concept of decorating the tree. Infact since we decorated it, he just keeps UNdecorating it. Everyday he has taken off more ornaments and slowly but surely we keep moving up the decorations, and the bottom half of the tree isn't even decorated anymore. Oh well.
Ryan got to put the angel on top of the tree this year.

I of course do the annual picture in front of the tree picture. Man with 4 kids it is so hard to get a good one of them all looking and smiling. Someone always seems to be looking the other direction, or their eyes are closed, or the have a wierd look on their face. So I was really happy when I got this one on the 4th or 5th try (there are usually many more tries).

This year before we put away the decorations I am going to take a picture of all the ornaments the kids have gotten every year for the last few years to put into an album. We give the kids an ornament each year, and so does my mom. Jacobs mom usually gives us a family ornament each year too. So I want to make sure that I get a photo of all of these.

I still cannot believe that Christmas is on Thursday and today is Sunday. OMG. I am so not ready this year. I don't understand how I get so far behind when I start so early. I really need to bust some butt to get it all done. I still have gifts to make, to sew and EVERYTHING to wrap still. I better get off this darn computer then.

More snow day pictures...

So here are a few pictures from the next day of snow fun. First is that tree picture in black and white (see post below).

Here is a picture that Marcus took of me and the babies. I hardly get into the pictures, but I figures hey why the heck not.

These icecicles were hanging from our house the next morning. It was pretty cool looking.

This tree is in our backyard and I loved the two leaves hanging there.

This is our house all covered in snow. Yes that is our dog out there too.

This is Caleb giving the snow some love. Love that smile he has too. He really did like the snow.

But this was his most favorite thing to do in it. I really wanted to tell him to stop, but it was this little boy innocent face that just let me, let him do it.

Jacob decided to taste it too.

This is the view down the north direction of our house. I love the snow covered mountains in the back.

So I can't wait to get all these photos printed and start scrapbooking them. I had the Christmas card photos printed the next morning at Costco and when I went to pick them up they were running about 2 hours from printing. The lady said everyone was printing snow pictures and they were overloaded with them. So I think I will wait until after Christmas. I know I won't have time to do it before, so I will just wait until then.

I have got some more errands to do today. I have that last minute, last few Christmas gifts I have got to get bought and finished up. I am going to put some homemade chilli in the crockpot so it will be good and yummy when it is dinner time.

I haven't even started wrapping anything yet either. OH MY is Christmas really in just 5 days? I gotta get on that.

Snow Day Pictures

Ok so the other day at Target I bought all the kids nice matching shirts in grey and red for our Christmas card photo shoot we were going to have. Well that all went out the door when the snow came. I liked this picture I took of the kids with our snowman and I decided to use that for our cards instead. I figured it is so few and far between (and never like this) that it has snowed, so I thought it would be a fun photo to use. (Wish I would have known that and I would have made my cards in a snowy theme, but oh well.

So the kids had a great time, actually I did too, playing out in the snow. I took tons of pictures. I won't share all of them, but here are some. I was so amazed at the amount of snow that we got. Jacob txt messaged me from work at 5:45am and said it was snowing out there. It was barely snowing here at this point. At about 7am Marcus and I took this picture outside, because we said it probably was going to be like all the times before and snow just a little to tease us and then stop. So we wanted at least one picture to prove that it really did snow this year. Well yeah the snow proved us wrong. So this was first thing in the morning.

Even though the kids still had school, I went ahead and let them stay home. They ended up getting released early anyways, so it was all ok. So these pictures are from early in the morning still. The snow wasn't even sticking to the sidewalk yet.

We did however have to go out in the snow that day. Well we left when it still wasn't snowing really hard. I HAD to go to Target to get diapers. Then I had to go to the grocerry store or we wouldn't be having dinner that night. I wanted to go before it did get any worse out there. So it really wasn't that bad to drive in. We just went really slow and it was ok, just cold. Good thing Target and the grocerry store are a straight drive farely close down the road. So when we got home the kids wanted to play again. It was snowing hard by then, so we decided to make a snowman. Here the kids are trying to push this huge snowball up the driveway. It was hard (and I tried helping too), because the driveway was icy, so we kept sliding back down. We got it eventually though. That is where the Christmas card photo came in.

The babies loved the snow too. Jacob didn't like snowballs thrown at him if they got snow on his face. Caleb was really just enjoying eating the snow. How silly. We really didn't stay outside for a long time, because I did not want the kids to get sick, and they already had gotten over colds. Look at those rosey cheeks.

This is the big tree in our front yard. I love the way it looks all covered in snow, and with the snowman down there in the yard too. I think I might turn this one into black and white.

I know this picture is hard to see, but I just had to take a picture of the temperature in the car. It says 31 degrees. It has never said that, so I just wanted something to show the temperature outside.

This picture cracks me up. Marcus laid down to make a snow angel, and Caleb saw him do it so he decided to make one of his own. I love it.

Ryan and Marcus made one more snow run at about 8pm that night. They were having alot of fun. They had on about 30 layers of clothes. This is why I had so many loads of laundry to do the next morning. The babies and I did not go out with them this time. It was too late and cold.

So Jacob took it really slow coming home from work that night. Well he got onto our street and there was about 5 or 6 cars stuck at the end of our road. When you turn onto our street it goes uphill right away. Well all these cars were getting stuck in the snow and ice and just sliding around. So we ended up pulling out about 8 cars. We would pull out one or two and come back and there would be like 3 more stuck. Jacob didn't mind though. About 4 of them were women by themselves and didn't know what to do. He did his good dead for the day. So he got off work at about 4, and we didn't walk into the door until after 6:30. But he would have thanked anyone who would have helped him if he needed it, or me if I was stuck.

I am still downloading pictures from the next morning of snow fun. So I will post those when it is done too.

I just have to say

IT IS SNOWING!!!!!!!!!!

I told Jacob I would believe the weather report on snow when I saw it. Well it is here. The kids school is not cancelled yet, but they are hoping it will in the next hour.
Jacob txt messaged me from work this morning at about 5:45 and said it was snowing. So I got up right away and checked. It is just now starting to stick to the truck, but the ground is still wet from the rain.
I am so excited.
We NEVER get snow.
I hope it really sticks.
I have great snow paper I have been dying to use.
I want to take our Christmas Card Photo in the snow if it sticks.
I want to build a snowman with the kids.
I wish Jacob was home from work.
I had some errands to run today, but can get those done later on.
They said it will be sunny but cold for tomorrow. Figures.
Well we are still listening to the radio to see if school is out for the day. I might just let them stay home if it keeps snowing, but schools are still open.
Did I mention how excited I am.
Off to help the kids keep an eye on the snow.

Santa and a Christmas Tree

Well we got to see Santa yesterday. We got there before Santa came out and only waited about 15 minutes for him to arrive. There was about 25 people infront of us and we only waited another 15 minutes to get through the line. It wasn't bad at all. Caleb wanted nothing to do with him and Jacob loved every minute of it. So of course this years Santa picture is of Caleb crying. Which is totally fine since we have one of Jacob crying a few years ago. The mall was of course packed. I did get some good books for the kids. Ryan and Marcus each got a Steven King book and Jacob and Caleb are getting this cool book that I found. It is a collection of nursery ryhmes, stories and poems for their age. So Calebs is for One and Jacobs is for Four. I will photograph them. They are really cool books. I love giving the kids books as gifts. I got Jacob a pretty cool BBQ grilling cookbook since he is our bbqer for our family. I got a few other things at the mall while we were there too.
Then when Jacob got home from work we went to get our Christmas Tree. It was so stinking COLD. I wanted to take some pictures while we were there, but it was too cold to even take out my camera. I was trying to make sure that the kids stayed warm. We came home and Jacob put it in the stand and trimmed it. We put on the lights and garland last night, since it was getting late. Tonight we will put on the decorations. I still can't believe that Christmas is in like a week and a half. I still have so much to do.
I don't have any pictures for this post since I am at work, but will try to post them tomorrow.
Off to get some stuff picked up before it is time to close.

Off to see Santa today

The kids are excited to go see Santa at the mall today. Ok maybe this was an overstatement. Little Jacob is really excited, Ryan and Marcus are not and Caleb doesn't understand. However I am afraid that Caleb is going to be crying this year in the photo. To be completely honest I usually don't buy the picture that the Santa stand people take. For starters it is completely overpriced and second they always put this UGLY border on the picture and you can't buy one without, so I take my own camera, take a quick picture and then print it out myself. I usually like mine much better anyways, so there you go. I just wish we didn't have to wait in a big old huge line for it. Hopefully it won't be too long. I have a few other things to pick up while we are there and that is it. I hate the mall in general anyways, but add to it Christmas time and about a million extra people and it isn't somewhere that I love to be. The parking is a whole other issue. The kids have some gift cards that they want to spend, and they pretty much know what they want to get, so I am hoping this will be a fairly quick and painless trip to the mall today. I will share tomorrow.

I do want to share this from yesterday. We were at Walmart (again with half a million people as well) and we were looking around. Jacob decided he wanted a Spiderman Bike (which he is getting a spiderman scooter) and I told him he would have to tell Santa today when we go see him. Then we walk down an isle with some cars and he points to one that he likes and wants right then. I told him no and he would have to talk to Santa. He then says to me...
"But Mommy I want it now, so can't you call Santa on the phone and just tell him and I know he will let you get it for me, please." He is so silly.

Ok off to get in the shower now.

I have to share this...

I must share this real quick. The other day I was getting ready for work and I didn't have my cell phone with me to check what time it was so I asked Jacob (Daddy Jacob) what time it was and my son Jacob turns to me and says, "Time for you to get a watch Mommy". He then laughed so hard at his funny little joke. He cracks me up so much.

Some Christmas Projects

Ok I finally got the pictures taken of some of my projects that I have been working on lately. These are just a small few. I should have taken a picture of the scarf too, but didn't think about it.
Here are the Christmas napkin rings I am working on. They are Red, White and Silver. They have wired ribbons, snowflakes, jingle bells and snowflakes on them, oh and ribbon too. My moms will be red and gold. I don't know if I will put white in there with the red and gold or not. I haven't decided yet. I will just have to play with it and see what color combination I like best.
Here are the jars I made to go with the recipe boxes I am making. I made one for myself from a big jar I had and liked it so much I decided to make the family members one too. I however just now realized that I forgot to take a picture of my own jar. Oh well tomorrow too. These have the same color theme as the napkin rings. I am going to fill them with candy canes (which is what mine has in it right now). Mine has a lid but I couldn't find any jars that I liked that had lids, so I went with no lids. This picture isn't the best at all. I stamped the letters c-a-n-d-y with white paint and a little glossy accents added in. Then as soon as I stamped it on the jar, I poured glitter over it. When it was mostly dry, I wrote the word jar in Christmas Red Stickles. I let it dry overnight and then wiped off the extra glitter that was glinging to the jar. I did the ribbons and pipe cleaners the next morning as well.

These are the Handmade Christmas ornaments that I made this year. I always get a new ornament each year, and this year I decided I would make them each year. So this is this years addition. Again not such a good picture.

I made this box to put the scarf that I am making in. I glimmer misted the box in patina. Then I used a snowflake mask that I cut from our Acc U Cut Die Cut machine at work. I then sprayed a darker blue over it (I can't remember the name of the color). Then I sprayed Pearl all over and Wheatfields and Jingle Bells. (I won a set of glimmer mists on ebay..I was so excited to use them once they came. Thanks a lot Cheryl this is ALL HER FAULT). So then I let it dry all day. Later that night I took my foam stamps and put glossy accents on it and stamped the letters (LET IT SNOW) with that and then poured extra fine glitter on it (each letter was done individually with that process). I took the snowflakes that I got from JoAnns (white, light blue and dark blue)....a whole set of them actually, and I put glossy accents on it and added the glitter to those as well. Then I took an acrylic snowflake and covered one side with glossy accents and again added glitter. Then I let that all dry over night. Then this morning I traced the LET IT SNOW in a white pen so that it stood out better. I added the clear glittery snowflake to the top corner and added smaller snowflakes all around along with some rhinestones in matching colors. I then tied some tealy light blue tueling around it with some matching ribbon. I then added in some silver thin wired ribbon and curled the ends around the end of my pen. I added one of the gift tags that I made (that just happens to match). I did spray the tag with pearl glimmer mist to give it that similar look). I am really happy with how this turned out. I have used glimmer mist before, but this was the first real big project that I have done with it, and mixed the colors together like that. I think I really LOVE glimmer mist now. Oh what is a girl to do. I still only have a few colors compared to how many colors there are. Like I need to start collecting something else. :) It is all good though. I can't even tell you though that these pictures just do not do the glimmer and glitter any justice. It is so shimmery and glittery in real life. Maybe I will try to take it outside tomorrow and photograph it. I think she will really like it and appreciate it, especially since she is a scrapbooker too.

Well today the weather has turned much cooler than it has been lately. I am so ready though. I have enjoyed the long set we have had of nice weather, but I am so ready for the cold weather now. It was really windy today (which I really could do without the wind) and cold. It was a bit overcasty looking today too. I wish it would just pour down rain already. I had the kids bundled up in their big jackets today since they both still have colds. The last two (and only) times it has rained lately were both mostly at night while we were sleeping. I want a huge rain storm during the day, with thunder and lightning. I love it. Hopefully it will, but we will just have to wait and see. Rainy days are best for staying in with some hot chocolate and working on layouts and fun crafty stuff.

Christmas is HOW many days away???

Seriously I cannot believe that Christmas is really less than 3 weeks away. 2 weeks from this coming Thursday. OH MY GOSH. I am not done shopping and now that I realize it I really don't have much time to finish either. Every year I say I want to be done by Thanksgiving, and it NEVER happens. I try to start early too, and then in the end it just catches up with me before I realize it. I am going to start SUPER early next year. (yeah we will see how that works out). I want to make my list at the begining of the year of what I want to buy everyone and start buying as soon as I see those things. Maybe then I will be done before Christmas eve. lol. We will see. Plus I still have to wrap ALL of it. I will start that as soon as we get our tree this next weekend though. If I wrap a few things everyday I think I can manage to get it all done.
Wow though, I can't believe it is so soon.
I made a glimmer misted box today to fit the scarf in that I am making for Jacob's sisters girlfriend. I love how it turned out. The glitter is drying on it and then I will add the snowflakes and then I will take a photo.
I didn't get around to taking photos of my other projects today, but will have time to do it tomorrow and then I will post them tomorrow night.
We got in some paper and stickers at work that are for 2009. The stickers say "Goals for 2009". It got me thinking of some of that. I don't usually make New Years Resolutions, because I don't keep them. But things I want to accomplish and get done are things that I can do. So I want to write these things down and see what I can get accomplished from the list for this coming year. I also have some scrapbooking goals that I want to see to. First I want to print up all of my photos that need to be printed, I want to make a list of ALL the layouts I want to do with those photos, and the page layout ideas that I have in my head and go from there for my layouts. That is a start and I will start working on my list this week I think.
Off to bed with my little ones (I leave them in bed with my when Jacob is at work at night. He gets off at 3 am today and then I will move them to their beds. I just sleep better with them in there if Jacob is not home)

Catch Up (sorry it is a real long post)

The last time I posted was right before Thanksgiving. WOW. I have just been really busy lately.

So lets play catch up...
Thanksgiving was nice. I made the napkin rings the night before. I was really pleased with how they turned out. I made 24, so that my mom could keep 12 and I could keep 12. However my grandma liked them so much that I let her take my 12 home. Here is the only picture I got of them.

The napkin rings.

The table.

Here are some more shots from the day.

Jacob hanging out in the kitchen at my moms.

Ryan with his double peace signs.

Caleb looking mischievious.

Jacob not wanting me to take his picture.

My mom and Don.

Mamaw and Grandpa Jim.
My cousins Kodi and Shannon.

My aunt Kathy (my real dads sister) and her boyfriend Hector and my mom in the middle.

The kids were all hungry so they decided that they were going to just get up at the table and wait for dinner to get done.

Just before we were ready to leave my moms, my aunt had a game for all of us to play. She took 24 new and old magazine articles and cut out the brand name of what they were and you had to write down what the brand was just by looking at the ad. I am glad to say that I won getting 22 out of the 24 correct. She even had prizes for us. I won this pretty blanket. I took the picture with my cousin Shannon, since she corrected my game paper. (I am so going on a diet...yuck me in the picture...) After my moms house we went to Jacob's moms house for a bit. We didn't really eat over there, but the kids had some pie and we just hung out for a bit. Jacob and Jacob played pool, of course.

Jacob playing pool at Jacob's moms house.

Jacob and two of his sisters, and neice Hailee.
Jamie and I attempted to get a shot of all of the cousins at Jacob's moms house. Getting one good photo of all of the kids looking in the same direction was not easy at all. This was the best one out of several several attempts. Oh well, you just gotta take what you can get. It doesn't help when most of the children don't want to be taking this picture anyways.

(Jacob, Savannah, Hailee, Marcus holding Hannah, Elizabeth, Ryan, Caleb

Brandon, Travis)

Our 4 boys, which again was not an easy thing.
Me and Jacob (with Jacobs sisters butt too)

I got a picture of Hannah smiling which was just by great timing.

I got this picture of Elizabeth. When I took them I knew that we had paper at the store that toally matched her sweater, and bought some the next day. lol.I can't wait to get those printed out and a layout done. I got some bling cardstock to go with it.

Elizabeth.

Right before Thanksgiving I took Jacob lunch and we could see this bridge on our way home, so we finally pulled over and took a few pictures of it. I think it is so pretty with all of the fall leaves around it in their pretty orange shades. Really makes me think of fall.

Just the other day we were taking Jacob dinner and on our way home was this beautiful sunset. I of course had to pull over and take a picture of it too. I really love sunsets and always take pictures of them.

The weather has been so nice lately and the kids have enjoyed a few of the nice days playing outside. Jacob has been enjoying cousin Savannah's skateboard so he wanted to ride it outside the other day. He was having so much fun on it.

We then finally broke out the Christmas decorations and hung them all up. We are getting our tree next weekend and will be decorating that. I collect Santa's and tried to put them all together this year. I got these new Santa plates at the .99 cent store a few weeks back. I try to buy a new santa something every year. I love the Santa on the bench. I got that back in 1994 at Jacobs Christmas party (which they no longer have each year). Our fireplace is pretty packed with stockings too, and I love it.

Some of my Santas.

Over the fireplace.
The santa plates that I just got.


I am enjoying this tree this year. Last year for Christmas my mom gave us a set of ornaments. They are the twelve days of Christmas. Each one is hand painted. They are really cool. Well I was going to hang them on our tree, but was thinking they would just get lost among with the rest of the ornaments. Well when I got out all of the decorations I forgot that I bought this little mini tree at Walmart on after Christmas clearance. Well I decided that it would be perfect for these ornaments. I put a set of 100 white lights all over the tree and then hung the 12 ornaments. I have to say that I really like the way it turned out. The ornaments are really pretty and hand painted. It is now our official 12 days of Christmas tree.

(I really like red for my Christmas decorations can you tell?)

I had to work the day after Thanksgiving this year. Just from 1-7, but left at 6 becuase it was slow. I did get a few things that we had on sale at the store too, but mostly just stocking stuffers. Jacob barbequed our turkey that night. Neither of us has ever had one cooked that was and it was good. It was really moist. Jacob said he didn't like the taste as much as he thought he would. It had a smokey taste to it, but it was still good. I wanted to get a picture of it, but never got a chance to take one, and then I forgot. Oh well. I want to get him a turkey fryer, because that is how he wants to try it next. The day before Thanksgiving I got the Quickutz Jolly Set (well this is what Jacob got me for Christmas, but it was on sale so he just had me buy it). I am SO excited about this and can't wait to use it. I also had to work two days last week. I usually don't work during the week, but since Jacob was on vacation I went ahead and worked so that I could have those few extra hours on my paycheck before Christmas.

We were supposed to go out to dinner with my mom and stepdad on Thursday night, but Jacob ended up having to go to work. So the kids and I went with them. My brother and his wife came into town earlier that day so they were there too. We just ended up going to John's Incredible Pizza. Now we have to find another day when Jacob is off to go (it is for his birthday that my mom is taking us out. We all just haven't had a day to go that worked out since September).

Today was the Christmas parade. The weather was beautiful again for it. It lasted about an hour and a half and the kids enjoyed it. Well I know the little ones did and the older ones, who knows. Daddy didn't get to go this year because he had to go to work early this afternoon, so he was home resting for that. (His $%$%## work keeps changing his schedule and he had to go in to work on his last two days of vacation, and they changed Christmas on him and it is crap!!!).

The 4 boys

TXI was in the parade (Jacobs work)

Mommy and Caleb.
A Charlie Brown float. It was cute. (I think it was boy scouts)

Mommy and Jacob

In the end came Santa.

After the parade we came home with Subway and the kids enjoyed a little more outside time in the nice weather. Ryan on the phone as usual with his girlfriend. (This is how he spends much of his time at home these days. lol I know it is just the beginning).

Marcus doing skateboard tricks.

Ryan on the phone.

Caleb just happy to be outside.

Wednesday the kids are having a world feast at school and I have to make chips and salsa. (Thank you Ryan for picking something quick and easy for me to make). I think it will be cool though. Each Language Arts class is bringing food from around the world and then they all come together and have a giant feast. Ryans class got Mexican food. Marcus' class has European food and his recipe was for mutton pie (yuck), but since he is staying to help set up he doesn't have to bring any food thankgoodness. Mutton pie just sounds sick and I don't really think I could have made it either. There were so many strange ingredients in it too. I want them to take some pictures while they are there too and have them write down what they thought for a layout.

I have been working on so many projects too. Since my grandma liked my napkin rings so much I made her some Christmas ones, in red, white and silver. I am LOVING that color combination this year. So my mom decided that she wanted some too but in gold and red. So I need to work on those. I decorated a candy jar. I made an ornament for the ornament exchange between the girls at work, working on on a box decorated in blues and snowflakes, working on a scarf I am making as a gift for my persons name (Jacob's family drew names this year again), I made the boys girlfriends some gifts, I am making some displays and examples for the store from the Paper Crafts Gourmet book. I still need to finish Christmas shopping and start wrapping all of it or it will never get done. I need to finish up my recipe boxes, I need to get a few more still too. I then decided that I was going to make the candy jars to go along with the recipe boxes as well, because you know I have nothing else to do. I found some jars at the dollar store last night. I also made the kids and me and Jacob our yearly Christmas ornament. I want to make a mini album to put a picture of each years Christmas ornament, but think I will work on that after the holidays. I did make some photo holder ornaments for my family as well. I bought 4 new books at the used book store and finished 2 of them already. I have started the third one and just haven't been reading as fast. The fourth book was a hard back and the kids want to wrap it up for me for Christmas, so I told them that was fine. I made a few Christmas CD's to have playing in the car, and another cd of some current songs that I really like. Man I am tired just typing all of this stuff out. I need to take photos of most of this last stuff and am going to try to get to that tonight. I have to work all day tomorrow, so maybe I can get some stuff done while I am at work too. Well since I have so much to do I should not be playing here on the computer... lol.