Two Firsts!

Salt Dough Ornaments are a first in our family.  I am 34 years old and have never made them...that I can remember.  The recipe that I found online was very simple.  You really should try it.  This kids had a blast decorating them! 1/2 cup salt 1/2 cup water 1 cup flour I doubled the recipe just so that I made sure I had enough ornaments for the kids to decorate.  I didn't count, but I think it was the perfect amount.  Mix the above together and then knead together for about 7-10 minutes on a floured counter.  Roll out to 1/4 inch thickness and cut with cookie cutters.  I have some old fashioned cookie cutters that we used that worked perfectly.  Bake at 200 degrees for 4-6 hours or overnight.  You are just trying to get all the moisture out of them. We are going to be giving some these away so I let the kids draw on them with marker.  If you have polyurethane you can coat them in that to make sure that they last for years to come.  I didn't.  I'm not sure how long mine will last.  I'll have to get back with you on that one next year.

Make your own free scrapbook

My second first is, sharing our photos through a virtual scrapbook.  I'm not sure how this is going to work and, most importantly, if my readers are going to like it.  I LOVE taking pics of things that my kids do and can easily take a kabillion in one sitting.  Of course I want to show them all to you but posting them on a blog post can take forever and you know, just might not be very appealing to the eye.  So I opted to make a virtual scrapbook.  Hopefully you will click the link and check out the pics.  If you don't like it this way, please tell me and I'll go back to the old way of posting pics.  If you do like it, tell me that too.

I also like the fact that I am not only sharing my scrapbook pages with you, but when I create them, I can print them out and insert them into our "actual" scrapbook.  Maybe doing it this way will help me get caught up on my scrapbooking.  If I am only scrabooking a couple of things at a time to show you, it may not make the task seem so insurmountable.

Too Cute!

I'm going to brag a little...

I HAVE THE MOST ADORABLE BOY EVER!!!

Friday Morning Fun

I can't let Parker sit and eat by himself anymore.

Sure, he's old enough.

And he does great with silverware.

If I'm not sitting next to him though -

He destroys his food and doesn't eat.

AND - he destroys my table.

I have little nicks all over it!!

From silverware, cups, you name it being banged on it.

Anyways - I decided to get a few shot this morning while we ate our FAV meal.

Rice, with sugar and milk.

My hubby thinks it's disgusting.

Mmmmmm.....good.

Now for some ornery ones...

Finally smiling...

I'm gonna be framing this one!!

HAPPY FRIDAY ALL!

Our Mighty Throne

For our little man!

Costco boxes make all kinds of things.

Stuffed with a pillow...

It's Parker's throne!

He love to sit and watch "Wow Wow Wubbzy" in his throne!

 Thank you Costco for big, study boxes that entertain my children. 

He has been in and out of this box a million times since yesterday and it is still in one piece.

I'm thinking my "small" Christmas budget might have to include getting a few more for some imaginative play with my little ones.

This Was LOOONNNNNG Overdue!

I must say that this was probably the simplest project that only took about two hours but it was put off for such a long time.  One year to be exact. 

Let me preface before you see the first HORRID picture!  REALLY....it is horrid and I didn't even realize it until I saw it in pics!  When we moved in to the house one year ago this Saturday there was some touch up to be done.  The house is only five years old but it still needed it.  I found an old can of paint and so I took it to the hardware store so that they could match it.  I came home, painted and it didn't match.  Wrong finish.  So I got the same color in the finish I thought it was.  Now it was the wrong color?  REALLY??  It seems that the same color looks different depending on if it's flat, eggshell, matte, etc.  So....thinking that it was five year old paint I cut a swatch out of the wall and tried to get the match again.  Wrong finish again!  I knew it was either eggshell or flat and the eggshell was too shiny.  The color matched perfectly, just a tad to shiny.  So I go back a fourth time and get it in flat.  You guessed it....color didn't match.

This really is how the rest of the walls look in the main living area of my house.  No kidding...YUCK!

I give up I buy a totally different color paint and plan to paint at least the hallway and will attempt to do the rest of my home with it's 12 foot ceilings some other time when I had LOTS of time.  It is going to take a lot of work. 

I finally got a wild hair today and decided to paint the hallway.  It took about two hours to do and that was with Parker "helping" me.  I decided to do the hallway so that my hubby could decide if he liked the color enough to apply it in the rest of the house.  I don't know why I put it off for so long!

I LOVE IT!  I can't beleive I waited soooooo long with those hideous walls in my hallway.  And the color...I don't think I could have picked a better one! 

Isn't it PURDY!!

Pumpkin Carving!

It's that time of year..for almost everyone.

This was old hat to Alysia and James.

Parker on the other hand, this was all new to him.

He loved it!

Without further ado...

Randomness

I have a pretty uneventful weekend but it seemed to be full of "stuff".  I know that doesn't make any sense but you know, that's how it is sometimes.

-- First off, I have been getting my migraines again and let me just tell you that sucks!  There's no nice way to put that.  Every night around the same time I get them and they just kill me.  I have meds but I hate the side affects so I put it off until I can't stand the migraine anymore.  It's just all around not good.  I can't really function although I try.  My kids hate it -- I'm just darn right grouchy.  Brian swears that the headaches are from lack of sleep.  Could be possible?!  Who knows.  All I know is that I am getting tired of getting them every day and I'm going to have to make another trip to the doc so they can change my meds of something.

-- Friday night Alysia was at the high school football game, Dad was at work, Parker went to bed and I got to spend the evening with James.  I "needed" to work but was soooo tired I didn't.  I even had plans to go to a friends house and I passed that up too.  James and I snuggled on the couch and watched Pirates of the Caribbean.  I fell asleep on the couch at 9:30 and when Alysia got home around 11:00 I went to bed.  It was a much needed night of rest! {even though I did stand my friends up} 

-- Saturday my friends tried to attempt another get together and they weren't going to let me get away with passing this one.  I conceded just because I'm such a loner and I have to say that it was a GREAT night.  We have spaghetti night at my house and played WII.  It was a night that didn't end until 2:00 which wasn't good for me trying catching up on my sleep the night before.  But all in all, it was worth it.

Angie and Beth trying out some archery!  I'm not bragging {okay, maybe I am}, but I'm the bomb at this!  So was Beth.  We should have competed against each other, but we didn't.  Don't know why...

The two cutest kids on the face of the earth!  Admit it :)

My beautiful baby girl!

My handsome fella {by the way, I MADE him shave TODAY}.  All that hair on his face -- YUCK!  Love my man clean shaven.  In his defense he has been working his butt off and has not been able to spend anytime at home.  I was thankful he was able to be at home last night with us! 

In case you forgot what the cutest kids look like!

Chet and Angie getting into the Sword fighting!

Mr. Man showing his dance moves..he soooooo does not get into it like me and yet he still gets AWESOME points.  Really chaps my hide!

Alysia and Jennifer dancing!  Let me just tell you, Just Dance will kick your butt if you do more than two songs.

--  Today we went and visited my momma!  She had her hip replacement surgery about a week and a half ago and it is so good to see her in good spirits.  She was supposed to be on the walker for four weeks but she is already on her cane.  I never realized how much she sounded "down" before the surgery but seeing her in good spirits and not in pain makes me realize what she was really going through.  I am so glad that she is almost back to where she wanted to be.

You got have a cool sunglasses when eating dinner...right?!

-- Now I'm off to work :(  I had every intention of working last night since I didn't Friday night but my friends "made" me hang out with them so that didn't happen.  {It really was nice to do though}.  But now I am paying for it tonight and will be up all night in order to meet my deadline in the morning.  If I miss it my whole week will be screwed and I'll miss all kinds of deadlines.  Not good...it's 9:00 and I have about 5 hours worth of work ahead of me.

With that being said...I'm going to work.  With coffee in hand....

OHHHH....go enter my giveaway!  When you see the box of goodies you'll be disappointed if you didn't!!  Click the link at the top of the page!

Our Little Photo Shoot

I loaded the kids up in the car today and took them out to do a photo shoot.  I wanted to capture some of the autumn scenery at it's best.  Unfortunately, there were a lot of trees that had already lost their leaves which surprises me.

Alysia was ready to go.

James was as ready as he was going to be.

Parker...not so much.

I took along a chair, two pumpkins and a wagon for props.  Parker had more fun with the pumpkins and the wagon so we decided to ditch those and move to another location.  At one point the pumpkins were rolling down the hill and Alysia and James were running to get them and Parker was crying hysterically because he couldn't get to them.  I was laughing so hard I couldn't get a pic!

Here are some of my favs from the day.

This is one of the {very} few that I got Parker smiling.

 This is my beauty!!

Alysia and James got along very well without any prodding from me!

That is a rarity!

 Parker would NOT look at the camera unless I told him there was a "bug" on the lens...then he wanted to touch it!

 This is one of my favs of Alysia!

 Adorable...I couldn't get him to smile at me so he was laughing at his sister!

 Where is that DARN BUG???

 This tree was B E A U T I F U L!!  There was every color imaginable on it!!