Ohhhh... and the pot rack...

It still ROCKS!!!!!

i just really need to get me some better looking pots to put on it. For now it holds our very few pots that are nice enough to be seen out of the cupboards.






And if you look closely, you'll see the wishbone from our thanksgiving turkey drying out. It's killing Daylon to not be able to break it yet! LOL

ETA: we got it from Home Depot for about $65. It was half off and we got the last one at our local store!

and when we thought we were out of the woods...

why is it that when you finally start to breath and think that you are out of the woods, it hits... and hard.

Most of us had made it through the Thanksgiving yuckies that were running wild down here. It had been over a week and nobody had gotten sick (with the exception of Daylon, which we really don't think was the stomach bug after all, and Sam's and my congestion crap). Then yesterday afternoon it hit us. Sam is SO sick. The poor little man can't keep anything down. I've had the washer going non-stop since 1:00pm yesterday afternoon. I get one load of puked on clothes and towels washed, and it's time for the next round. Good news though. He made it through the night without throwing up once. It's offically been 9 hours since my last load of laundry. Hopefully it's just a 24 hour bug and hopefully the rest of us don't get it. Nothing worse that spending the hours puking and just feeling miserably sick to your stomach.

Rianne has been coughing like mad. We've decided it's croup. We've spent the last few nights out on the front porch bench breathing in the cold air. It does wonders while we are out there but the minute she gets back in where it's warm and she starts hacking up a lung again. She spent the day home from school yesterday. She's been coughing so hard that she starts to vomit. Not fun. We've tried the old trick of slathering vapor rub on the soles of her feet. Unfortunately it doesn't work so well with croup. Although, if you catch it just right, get the coughing to calm down and slather her feet it works for a few hours. It's a science i tell you, You've got to catch it all at the right moment or that window slams shut.

Wish us all luck that we all don't get this crap. It seems like we've had our share already, but every time i say that, i end up eating my words.

3BT:
~work day!!! a day out of the house. a day away from the loads of laundry, dirty dishes, and clingy sick children (whom i love dearly, but it'll be nice to be able to go the bathroom alone)
~the wonderful feeling knowing that I've got 90% of my Christmas shopping done!!! If anyone has any ideas on stocking stuffers for my clan, pass them on. I'm at such a loss
~the Christmas lights slowly filling up the house. I love the house in the evening when there are no lights on but Christmas lights. It's just so magical.

new specs

I've had them now for over a week. Love them. Amazing that i never really realized that i needed glasses... headaches are gone for the most part.

Of course now, i need an updated picture. I went from my dirty blond hair to dark brown. I'm still trying to decided whether i like it or not. I'm not too worried though. I seriously need a hair cut and for some odd reason, my hair doesn't take color well, so the color will be mostly gone in a few months anyways.

school pictures and Christmas tree hunting

School pictures are in!!!

Amazingly enough, all three of them turned out wonderfully!!! All three were smiling. No screaming and crying, no goofy smiles, and no crooked glasses. I can't ask for better! WHEW! Now lets just hope for the same for next year!

We went Christmas tree hunting yesterday afternoon. It was such GREAT weather. Warm (almost too warm), no wind, sunny... just beautiful. It seemed kinda weird though. It was September weather in the end of November. It just seems like there NEEDS to be snow on the ground and be all cold for us to go tree hunting. It almost seems so wrong for it to be so warm. Almost.

We found a cute little tree (OK - so it was really tall, we ended up cutting off a couple of feet to make it fit in the tallest part of our vaulted ceiling) in a grove of quake trees.

This is the first year we went for a different type of tree. This year we got a balsam fir rather than a Pinyin pine. I think i really like it... even better than our traditional Pinyin (shhh... don't tell DarRell that, i had said something earlier about screwing up our tradition). I miss the distinct smell of the Pinyin but love the tall sturdy, and skinnier balsam. I think i could get used to it. The kids had a ball looking for one. Just about every tree we passed Rianne would shout out "STOP!!! I found the perfect tree". She was the one that ended up finding the "perfect tree" and thank goodness! I was starting to wonder if we'd find anything we'd like before the day was over.

It's not decorated yet. We've decided that we need to get a few more matching light sets to cover the whole tree. So it looks like tom arrow after i drop Rianne off to school (that is if she makes it due to her hacky cough... why is it always worse at night?) I'll be off shopping for new Christmas lights!

I just can't wait to get all the Christmas stuff up. There is nothing like sitting in a dark room with a big cup of hot chocolate looking up at a big beautiful lit Christmas tree!

3BT:
~being up in the mountains again and seeing how much the kids love being there
~a big beautiful tree sitting in our living room waiting to be decorated
~Sam LOVING the lights. So much even that he sits and jabbers away at us. I like to think he's saying how much he loves the lights!

Thanksgiving

Weird to say that it's over. Oddly enough, it wasn't as stressful as i had first imagined it would be. I might even be able to pull myself together and say that i actually enjoyed it. I could say that i wished i had gone out and played more (our holidays were filled with flag football, basketball, volleyball and theater movies) while everyone was down, but i took advantage of the quiet and took some much needed down time for myself.

Company started showing up on the Friday before Thanksgiving, with a few yuckies in tow (stomach bug and a nasty feverish cold like bug. Even now it's hitting us person by person). By Thanksgiving day, all but one of DarRell's brothers and sisters were in the general area, although we were lucky enough to get Micky and Derick in place of Lyla and Land (we missed you tons though!). At the last moment, Thanksgiving plans changed. Instead of having dinner at DarRell's parents house, it was moved to our house. Not so bad. I had most of the house picked up already from people staying at our house. We had to find a few more chairs and tables and we were pretty much ready to go. Of all of DarRell's 8 siblings, their families and his parents, we ended up with a total of 22 people here for dinner. DarRell's 4 older siblings had families of their own down so they all had their own individual dinners. It was nice, really nice. I actually enjoyed having everyone around. I'd almost go to say that it'd be fun to host it again in 2009 (next year we hit my side of the family).


I wish i had gotten more pictures but sadly, most of my pictures were taken by Daylon so most were blurry. What weren't blurry were either with heads are cut off, super close ups, or someone with a mouthful. So needless to say i won't be sharing those wonderful pictures. This is a GREAT one that did turn out though!



Yesterday afternoon the rest of the family headed off back to California. We were so sad to see them leave. We don't get to see much of the family that are moved away so having them around is quite the treat. And, i'm tickled pink to have someone Sam's age that he can hang out with.

I'm not sure where Kristin was for the picture but she was around somewhere!

So, now that we have a empty quiet house again, i guess we will be spending our time getting over the sickies that came with the rush. I think we are on the mend (knock on wood), but only time will tell. Till then, we are just going to veg out.

3BT:
~thankful for family... and for those who weren't there
~the WONDERFUL pot rack that DarRell agreed to buy... LOVE IT!
~the warm beautiful fall day today

I finished two of my three layouts i have set out for Halloween this year. The three of them should finish up Halloween for this year! Wow! I'm so excited be be mostly up to date on layouts this year. I have a few pictures so far in 2007 that i have yet to scrap but I'd say that I've done 80% of them! YAY for me! I've been doing my DT stuff for TSoS. Here are a couple that i've finished:

Happy Halloween 2007:
I've been into using up my stash i have sitting around lately. I've been grabbing the stuff that is closest to me and just somehow incorporating it into my work. So far it's been working great! It so happens that most of what i had laying around at this time was DT stuff. I used my Tie One OnTie One On ribbons here from the October kit. LOVED the last few kits. What am i saying? I love them all actually... well, except for the purples. NOT a fan of purple. I had some backing left from some Magic Mesh i had used on a older layout so i grabbed that and inked over it and got that cool dotti background over my journaling. Found some OLD alpha stickers that i thought would look great with this, and the did! I haven't pulled out those stickers in so long. Time to keep them out for a while so i use them up. Not much to brag about on this layout except that i used a ton of pictures. And i used products that i normally wouldn't use except that they were in a kit i got in September and i thought i should probably use them (the daisy D's Halloween stickers).

Halloween 2007:
I used some PP i got in a kit in September. I LOVE this paper. It's got flocked spiderwebs all over it over print (i think it's from the Ichabod crane and the headless horseman story). I couldn't bear to use up all the paper so i cut it up so i had some for later to use on something! LOL
Slowly using up all my Heidi Swapp chipboard letters. I really don't want to but nothing seems complete without them. I think i need to stock up on them again. Threw on a sampling of ribbon i have sitting in my window seal. Found some awesome orange fibers in my ribbon jar. I haven't used fibers in, well, forever! Used some of my DT goodies, the Magic Mesh! LOVE that stuff! Definitely something i love having in my stash at all times. And lately my layouts haven't been complete if i haven't gotten some kind of sewing on them. This one is no exception! And the distressing has been a big thing in my scrapping style lately. Inking on everything, sandpaper, tearing..... ya, all that. Seems like it's on everything i do. It fits so well with the Halloween theme though.

what's up for today?
definatly cleaning some more. Catch up on backed up laundry. Vacuuming. Making a decent meal for dinner tonight. Cleaning up my scraproom so that it stays somewhat clean and not overwhelmingly messy. Clean and put away more stuff from the basement. Pack up the van with DI donations. Clean the laundry room so that i can see the floor. Clean up my room/closet/washroom.

3BT:
~ a $1 raise AND a bonus. I love work. I love the people i work for. They are genuine people and i Love them so much. I'd take this "shit-y" job (yes, it is shit-y. For those who don't know, i work at a livestock auction. That should say it all) over any other job any day and it's all thanks to the great people i work for/with.
~ Sam's big big big smile so early in the morning. Even after T*E*R*R*I*B*L*E nights, he's a ray of sunshine in the morning

~ Kim's blog post this moring. So incredibly uplifting. It's no wonder i stalk her! LOL

So fitting for today

Because, after all, it is auction day. And he IS hilarious!



3BT:
~the quiet around me while the kids are in bed "starting the day over". Wishing i was there doing the same thing but thankful that i'm able to do a bit while they are not underfoot
~today is auction day. A day full of conversation with grown adults (although at times they act like children! LOL). Here's hoping that it'll be enought to last me another whole week.
~my extra long hot shower last night. I actually got bored,got out and still hot water. This double water heater thing just may work out. Now to get the jets in our jetted tub cleaned out and we'll actually have enough hot water to fill it and relax.