Chocolate Dipping

When I was a kid my mom always had a bunch of her friends over at Christmas time to dip chocolates. I remember this being such a fun event. Last year I had my first chocolate dipping party and my Mom was there to help train me in the ways of chocolate dipping. I wasn't going to do it this year but kind of last minute my friend Becca encouraged me to do it again. We had a great time and walked away with more chocolates than any one human being should eat. Thanks for coming ladies!

A Christmas tree from Oregon

You may remember that last year I was complaining to my Dad that I just couldn't find a decent tree in Texas. He decided to experiment and see if he could ship one to me. The experiment was a success. Well, he's done it again! Yesterday we got our Christmas tree in the mail all the way from Oregon! I think I have decided that this probably isn't the cheapest was to obtain a tree but, the kids think it's super cool that Grandpa sends them a tree. Tyler was so excited when he saw the box sitting on the porch. Of coarse, he knew what it was and he said, "Mom, our tree is here! Oh, I just love Grandpa Bell."



Actually, the box held up a little better this year than it did last year. I was worried that the top might be broken off because that part of the box was in the worst shape but, it wasnt!. It had a definate lean to the right but I don't think it's permanant. The tree looks and smells great. Thanks Dad!

Pies, Pies BEAUTIFUL Pies!

Quite frankly, Thanksgiving dinner is not my favorite thing. I could do without the Turkey, the stuffing, the mashed potatoes, and the yams. I do like the jello though. My favorite thing about Thanksgiving is all the food before and after the meal. The Chex mix, cheese ball with crackers, relish tray and PIES. I really am not in love with pie either but at Thanksgiving I always indulge. We actually went over to some friends house for dinner this year and our assignement was green bean casserole and pies. Everyone was asked to bring something to contribute to the main meal and then a couple of pies. There were 19 pies in all!! I didn't think the green bean casserole was "picture worthy" but these pies? These pies would make my Momma proud. I asked Mike to take a picture of them and he takes this ugly picture of them sitting on my stove top. I said "I don't really like that background, lets take another one of them on the counter." Next thing I know, he has this Thanksgiving sign of mine as a backdrop to the picture. I laughed out loud. What a nerd. These were delicious pies!

A nice surprise

When I got home from the "twilight night" the house was dark and quiet. I turned on the kitchen light and found these beautiful roses on the kitchen counter from my sweet husband. Thanks honey!

TWILIGHT NIGHT

Tonight me and a bunch of my girlfriends went out to dinner at Olive Garden and then to the Twilight movie. We had some shirts made that said "bite me" in honor of the occasion. The line for the movie was crazy and the screaming 16 year olds were hilarious. We had such a good time!

Could it be?

I often wonder if anything I am saying to my kids actually registers. Don't you do that too? Today Grace got home from school, cleaned the windows, swept the patio, picked up dog poop, and watered the garden. I didn't ask her to do any of these things. Could what I have been saying and trying to teach all of these years actually be sinking in? Oh please, please, please!!!

BLOG STRIKE!!

I have decided that I am on a total blog strike. Quite honestly there are plenty of things that I could talk about. Like my sister Beth coming to visit, that was fun. Or, going to Time Out For Women, uplifting. I could post pictures of Halloween or even talk about planting a winter garden. But, I just haven't had the energy. By the end of the day, I just wanna sit in front of the T.V. and do nothing for awhile. Sorry friends. I am still here and I even have lots of fun pictures that I will get around to posting sometime. TTFN

Mother of the year!

Every other Tuesday Grace attends a "Faith in God" activity at the church. It's for the girls ages 8-11. They get together and make goals and have activities. She really enjoys it. This week they got done with their activity early so the girls were just running around in the gym. Appearantly, Grace was racing some of the other girls from one end of the gym to the other and slipped because she was wearing flip flops. She reach out for the wall to stop herself from hitting it and bent her wrist back. My friend LaRae brought her home and explained what happened. Grace could wiggle her fingers and roll her wrist without too much problems so we (Mike, me, Julie and Micah) felt that it was probably bruised or sprained. I sent her to school the next day and the next day and the next (count 'em....that's three days). I even made her do a cartwheel the day that she was supposed to have gymnastics to make sure that she really couldn't participate. She was still really "babying" her arm after THREE days so both Mike and Micah (he is our friend who is a flight doctor) said that I should probably take her into the doctor for an x-ray. So, on Friday after school I took her in. They took the film and WHAT???? A buckle fracture of the radius and ulna. I am probably the best mom on the planet! I made the poor girl walk around with a broken arm for three days. She was super excited to get a cast though.

What am I gonna do with that kid?

Oh my sweet, mischievious Tyler! That's who I'm talkin' about, who else? My dear friend Julie Bahr is coming to visit next week and I really wanted the upstairs bathroom to be all painted and cute when she got here. But, Mike is out of town enjoying some "man" time. So, I decided to paint the bathroom myself. Jaike was down for a nap and the kids were all in quiet time. Well, of coarse by the time I was about done, all the kids were out of quiet time and Jaike was awake. I was finishing up the second coat of paint on the last wall and Emi says, "Mom, Tyler poured red juice all over Indiana (the dog). I took a deep breath and went downstairs hoping that the red juice incident took place outside. Lucky for Tyler, it did! But, my poor dog was all red as well as Tyler and my back porch. I couldn't really let Tyler in the house because his feet were all red and I couldn't clean him off because I had 75 seconds of painting left. I guess I could have stopped and cleaned him off but I didn't. Anyway, I locked him outside until I could deal with him, which was probably about 5 mintues. He stood at the back window and cried the whole time. I wish I had a picture of the red mess but I was too mad to stop and find the camera. Seriously, Tyler gets into these kinds of messes all of the time, huh Julie (purple glitter glue)? What the heck do I do with this kid? So basically, I have decided that this is all Julie's fault. Don't you think? If she wasn't coming to town and I wasn't so worried about having a cute house for her, none of this would have happened.

Close ups

I need new pictures of all my kids to hang on my family room wall. The one that's up there of Tyler right now is from when he was two and a half. The one's of the girls are from school the year that we lived in Oklahoma and the one of Jaike is from last summer. Mike took these ones for me last weekend. Now I just have to decide if they are "wall worthy." Here's the one problem that I see.....everybody is naked except for Grace. Can you tell? And what the heck is in Jaike's hair? It looks like a piece of rice. When Mike was taking these I didn't notice anything in his hair. I wonder if it's a reflection or something. Of coarse, I am NOT hanging the one of the dog on the wall. That's just dumb.

That darn dog!

As much as I curse our dog, he really is a good dog. Everytime I turn around, someone (usually Jaike) is laying on top of that poor animal. He tolerates it very well. The kids really do love him a lot. So, I guess we'll have to keep that darn dog around for awhile.

Tables

I have been eyeballing these tables out of the Pottery Barn catalog for months but of coarse I couldn't afford to buy them. I asked Mike to make them for me but knew that he probably wouldn't because he doesn't have a ton of spare time on his hands these days. While I was in Oregon Mike went on a rotation that gave him some more time at home than he was used to since his entire family was gone on vacation he used his spare time to make me these tables. There are actually two end tables but I didn't think that you needed to see a picture of both of them since they look exactly the same. Fun huh? Thanks Mike!!

Riley "Ranch"

While on our vacation we were able to spend some time with our cousins on the Neilson side of the family. They live in Eagle Mountain and have horses. Everytime we went over to their house, all the kids wanted to do was ride the horses. Poor Grace, now she's dying to have one and doesn't really understand why they can have horses but we cant. Let's see......I think it's called money and space. Aunt Jennifer and Kirsten were so great about taking the kids for rides. I'm sure it's not the most fun thing for 16 year old Kirsten to ride her 4 & 2 year old cousins around but she was so willing. Thanks Rileys! We had lots of fun visiting with you.

Yellowstone

As a part of our 5 week vacation we went to Yellowstone National Park with most of my siblings, their families and my parents. We all wore matching shirts and as dorky as that may seem, it really did help us keep track of everyone. The kids really liked the "stink pots", old faithful and the waterfalls. We stayed at a place right outside of Island Park called Henry's Lake. It was really beautiful and we had such a great time being with our family.

Garden

I've actually been meaning to blog about our garden since we planted it in March. I know that I took a picture of the garden once everything was grown but I can't find it now. Our tomato plants are actually 9 feet tall! Have you ever heard of such a thing? I would take a picture of it now but it's all starting to die. So, here's the garden in it's beginnings and my family eating the fruits of our labors. Notice, I am not eating the fruit of our labor cause corn on the cob isn't my "fav." What? I know, it's just so messy and all stuck up in my teeth and stuff. I think we've learned that next year we need to plant earlier cause it gets so blasted hot here that everything dies. Maybe by the time we move from Texas we will have it all figured out?

Aunt Pam

I am back from vacation and ready to blog. Lots has happened in the last couple of months and I will try to catch y'all up in the next couple of weeks. Back in June, Aunt Pam flew out from Chicago to take care of my kids so that I could go to girls camp. She is so wonderful. My house was spotless, my laundry was done and my kids were spoiled. The kids had such a great time with her and we are so grateful that she was able to come out and see us. WE LOVE YOU AUNT PAMMY!

Happy Birthday JAIKE!!!

Today is my little Jaike's birthday! He is turing two. What a fun age two is. I'm mean, it's got it's challenges that's for sure but it really is fun. Jaike is trying really hard to talk and can already say lots of stuff. I love the funny stuff he says like "shes" instead of yes. He is so funny and happy. HAPPY BIRTHDAY JAIKE!!

On Vacation

Hey, I'm on vacation, thus the reason for no new posts as of late, and I left the cord that I plug into the computer to get the pictures off the camera in San Antonio. There is probably some other way to do it but that would require knowing anything about computers, which I don't. Ya'll will just have to wait for pictures till I get back in August.

OOPS

We went to the pool with a bunch of girls in my ward last week. It was overcast and we really weren't at the pool that long so I didn't put suncreen on Jaike. OOPS, that was a big mistake!!! Poor kid, everytime I would lay him down to change his diaper he would arch his back and say "owee,back." When I would pick him up to hold him I couldn't touch his back at all. The sunburn is gone now but SHEESH, you think I would know better.