How I spent my 4th of July...

Fireworks with my little pyros in the front yard...

Fireworks with the rest of the valley in town...

I usually take pictures of the fireworks, but decided I would rather just sit and enjoy them this year. So I did.

A completely uneventful day. Nothing wrong with that, right?

One really long really fantastic Christmas...

Christmas Eve is always spent next door at the in-laws house. It's a tradition we actually enjoy and don't normally complain about, until we saw this horrific puzzle my father in law insisted we put together. Or was it the mother in law? I never can tell anymore. It was awful. And still not done, and probably never will be.
Since the father in law tortured us with the puzzle, we tortured him by insisting he sit with the grandkids and let us take his picture. Oh, the humanity.
Did I mention grandma and grandpa were here, just to add to the excitement? First picture EVAH with all the grandkids and grand and great grandparents. Sad, I know.
So...

The boy got a sparkly shirt... and lots of other stuff...
The girl got a hat... and lots of other stuff...
Cousin B got a super cute skirt made by her awesome aunt... and lots of other stuff...
The Ish got jammies that were way too big... and lots of other stuff...
Eventually, all good things must come to an end, so we went home and got ready for Santy Clause. Since nobody at our house believes in the big fat guy anymore, we surprised the kids by having everything that was already wrapped under the tree before bed. Ishee thought it was just a tad wierd.
Kids were up around 7ish. Not bad for them. I could have used a couple more hours of sleep, however. The girls breath smelled worse than a dog and I told her she couldn't unwrap anything until she brushed her teeth, and well, she can't do anything without making a mess. That explains the water spot on her new Christmas jammies great grandma gave her. Just in case you were wondering and all.
Toby's favorite present was a plastic bag we let her play in for a few minutes. Heaven.
The super cute husband loved his new DVD's... The boy got a new driver...
And loves loves loves the Sports Resort Wii game.
The girl was in heaven to see a popcorn maker...
And a new DSi... which she hasn't set down for more than about two minutes, and that was only long enough to make another batch of popcorn. I'm sure her phone is feeling very neglected about now.
Ishee was most tickled by an SD card for the DSi she got for her birthday back in August. She didn't know why she wanted one, she just wanted one.
Combine that with a new fuzzy pillow... she was also in heaven.
I.... got some super cute boots...
some super cute cabinets to keep myself (or get myself) organized...
The super cute husband put trim up around the entry way after the boy overheard me telling my visiting teachers I would love it if the super cute husband would finish the trim...
And lastly and most fantastically... I got a NOOK, and I LOVE IT! I am so super spoiled. Seriously.
Mom and dad came over for a quick visit and I showed dad my Nook and he said something along the lines of "how the h#ll am I supposed to borrow a book from you now?" Well, dad, get your own Nook and then we'll talk. Then he dove into a thirty minute lecture on how the world is making things like landlines and post offices obsolete, which I would know if I read any of the 900 emails he sent me every day.

Christmas dinner was spent back with the inlaws and grandma and grandpa. We played a round of Phase 10, came home and pried our eyelids open long enough to almost pay attention to our new movie, Despicable Me. We're going to have to watch it again another day when we are awake enough to actually watch it. The husband and I were in bed by 9 pm and slept for almost 12 hours.

Finally, the day after Christmas, we had a nice peaceful dinner with some of the siblings. It was so perfect, I think we'll stick with this tradition. Sorry nieces and nephews, we love you and all, but with 102 members of the family, a nice little dinner with just us siblings is kind of nice.

The most fantastic part of Christmas was getting to spend this time with the super cute husband, something I plan to do for the rest of eternity.
And now that Christmas is over, it's time for returns...

The peacoat the girl didn't like (cuz she's a turd - if it had been my size, I would have just kept it myself! We found her a different one at Aeropostale),

The boots the girl didn't like (cuz she wanted fancy slippers to wear to school cuz nobody wears shoes anymore, they all wear slippers - TEENAGERS!!),

An Aeropostale sweatshirt the Ish insisted upon having and was disappointed to discover that not even the smallest size will fit her so she swapped it for a couple of too big Aeropostale t-shirts,

And uh, a sparkly shirt, cuz my super smart boy don't wear sparkles, which he swapped for a book. Any super awesome boy of mine who scores a 28 on his ACT's shouldn't been seen in sparkles anyway.

Am I right or am I right?

Now I'm off to make homemake corndogs in our snappy new corndog maker. What? You didn't get a corndog maker for Christmas? To heck with my Nook, I know you are all jealous that I got one and you didn't, admit it.

Mish Mash and Hodgepodgery...

I believe life is a tad chaotic right now... but I still took time to take a few pictures...
If I didn't see them with my own eyes, I wouldn't believe the beautiful sunrises we've been having lately. I wish I wasn't seeing them at all, but until I convince the school that they don't need to start until 10 a.m. or so... that's life.
We went sledding (and by "we", I mean, the husband took the kids and the super cute next door niece sledding) ...
Ummmm....

My Christmas tree has yet to be knocked over by the cat because she has moved on to bigger and better things...
Such as sleeping in the top of my closet. We're not sure how she gets up there, but lets just say my husbands suit coats show evidence of claw marks. *sigh*
I had to rearrange some of my decor after she kept trying to climb on top of the curio cabinet to eat the fake grass in my nativity scene.
I found (and purchased - obviously) a super cute star shaped snowflake on one of my many trips to the craftstore... I went to our formerly known as Enrichment Relief Society meeting where the super cute Holly of Scatter Sunshine taught us how to make these super cute hair bows. My girls are not huge fans of hair bows, but I made some anyway and I even wore one to school this week. It got rave reviews from a couple of fourth graders and made my whole day.
We also put together these awesome vinyl on tile nativities that another super talented lady came up with ...
I finished the rag quilt I was making. I could tell you who it's for, but then I'd have to kill you. My mother in law decided that she wanted to make one and bought all the supplies and I keep waiting for her to ask me to sew it together for her like she keeps hinting. If I wanted to save my father in laws life (and probably hers), I'd just offer. I think I'll let her sweat it out for a few more days first.
And lastly... I finished the skirts for my girls for Christmas. I had this hair-brained idea to make a stripedy skirt out of some of my super cute husbands old jeans, and I think it turned out so cute, especially after I appliqued on a couple of flowers for some color.
Tried something new with Ishee's skirt, too... ricrac... which is kind of a pain, but super cute...
And I even tried out one of the super cute stitches that my sewing machine does (and yes, those are pleats because I would way rather do pleats than gathers any day!).
And that's just this week.

Now just need to make one more skirt for my niece, some matching hairbows for all the girls, hairbows for my girls friends, painting a "Merry Christmas" sign from Relief Society meeting, put together and deliver visiting teaching/teacher/boss gifts, load pictures on a digital photo frame, mail Christmas cards, finish Christmas shopping, wrap presents, make caramels and... I will almost be ready for Christmas. I think.


Hosted by Cecily and Lolli

Hollow-ween

Since when did Halloween become a weeklong event instead of a one nighter? It's exhausting!

The girl carved pumpkins at Young Womens on Tuesday night. Our pumpkins didn't amount to much this year so when the super cute husband offered to buy bigger pumpkins for the girls to carve, they totally took him up on the offer. He's such a pushover.

Abby lent her a dress.
McKenna did her hair.
I did her makeup.
The boy bought her a crown.
Then she destroyed the office looking for this stuffed poodle because every princess has to carry around her poodle in her purse, right? This was just for the trunk or treat on Thursday.

Halloween (eve)? She spent most of the afternoon being carted around by her 16 year old friend Abby, who also took her trick or treating at their YW leaders houses in their foot jammies. Then she had a fit for an hour because she couldn't decide what to wear trick or treating and I totally forgot to take a picture of what she ended up dressing up as. I called it "my mothers worst nightmare" but she said she was a looney bin escapee. She only dressed up and went with us in the first place because Ishee had a fit for an hour and wasn't going trick or treating if her sister didn't come AND wear a costume, too. After this night was over, I felt like I needed to be IN the looney bin.

Ishee went as an old lady that smelled like a babies butt. In a good way. She never really could decide what the costume should look like exactly, so it changed every time she put it on... her friend Emma's party, the daddy daughter party, the trunk or treat, and finally, trick or treating.

One thing she did learn was how much she hates washing her hair out in the bathroom sink when she decides five minutes before time to go to school that she doesn't want it to be blackish/baby powdered afterall. Because that's just how we do things around here.

Friday was the biggest event of the school year, the annual costume parade. It's my favorite day, mostly because I don't have to participate and I get paid to stand there and watch and wave to all my favorite cute kids. This year was even better when niece and nephew "Jessie" and "Woodie" came to hang out with their awesome great aunt (me, in case you were confused by the whole "awesome" term) while we watched for kindergartner big sister "Lil Bo Peep" to wander down the hallway with her class.


Cute 1st grade "queen of hearts" niece doesn't like Halloween and was NOT dressing up this year. Not only did she let me help her put her cute costume on for the parade, but she came trick or treating to my house, too. She was my only trick or treater.

And there was niece "I'm not going to even look in your general direction even when you call my name cause I'm just plain MAD at the world right now and that includes you". Oh wait, she didn't get a picture. Stinker. She did give me a hug today, though, so it's all good.

The 4th and 5th graders didn't get to participate in the costume parade, so that meant the Ish and her cousin "T" (just plain mad's big brother) got to party hard and stuff their faces with all the candy they could eat instead of toodle around the halls in their costumes. Ish was highly offended and begged me to change the principals mind (I didn't even try), but cousin "T" was so excited for no work and all the candy he could eat, he wouldn't even eat his lunch to "save room".

Of course it did help that we were eating his least favorite meal in the world.

School lunch burritos or candy?

Who could blame him?

I'm exhausted.

And I'm sure it has everything to do with five plates of cookies or the other 15+ pounds of candy I've drooled over and nothing to do with the sugar cookies (thanks Wendy and Nima), pumpkin cookies (thanks RA), chocolate chip cookies (thanks Bro. Webb), ding dongs (thanks Jaquelynn), sweet roasted pumpkin seeds (thanks Martha Stewart), snickers (thanks Ish), and gummy sour lifesavers (thanks super cute husband) I may or may not have eaten this weekend.

Pass the pepto, please!