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.