Christmas Eve

Christmas Eve morning, we got up and packed up.  I had a goal of leaving by 9:00 . . .we were on the road by 9:30 which I will say was pretty good.  Trying to get 2 kids and 2 adults out the door by 9:00 is asking alot when you throw in packing and gathering food!! 

My poor parents.  Their sewer system backed up Saturday morning into the basement bathroom.  When we got to their house, Darryl headed to the basement to help my dad try to snake out the problem while the rest of us headed over to my brother's house for lunch.  The one thing on the plan for Saturday afternoon was taking family photos - due to the sewer issue (which did get resolved once the plumber showed up!) it pushed back from 2:00 until 4:00 but we still got them in!  Check out these great photos :-)

This is the whole clan - acting crazy which is what we do best HA! 

This is all of us for real :-) 

 My brother Ken and his family.

 My brother Kel and his family.

 My brother Jeff and his family.

 My brothers and I (and yes, they are all older!!).  They kept trying to do a serious picture but they are such goof balls that at least one of them would smile every time!

My parents with my brothers and I. 

 Josh with Nana

 After finishing up photos, we headed back to my parents house to watch the Lions game before the Christmas Eve Service. 

 After the service, we went back to my parents house for some snacks and fun.  My brother was a little tired - he's the pastor of the church and had to speak at the Christmas Eve Service.  :-)

 We had a contest for the snacks called "Who's the Biggest Dip".  Each family made their favorite dip (or dips) and my parents judged them all.  We were all STARVING and had to watch my parents snack away HA!

 And the biggest dip is . . .. my brother Kelly! HA!  The funny thing is the rest of us were working on our dips for like 30 minutes.  Kel walked in and threw his together in 5 minutes and still won!

 Here comes the judges!! 

 Micah trying to sway the judge :-)

 Breadon trying to get Grandma to make a decision!

It wasn't long after this that we divided and went to our "homes" (some of us at my parents and some at my brothers house).  Time to get ready for Christmas morning!!



Christmas Weekend - Friday, December 23rd

We had a very busy Christmas Weekend.  Our festivities began on Friday with my husband's family.  There was a surprise on Friday; my husband was sent out "West" (Wisconsin) on Thursday and was gone overnight.  Due to that, when he got into the shop at 7:30 AM, they had no work for him so he got to come home Friday morning and had an extra day at home!  The down side was that he was not home on Nate's actual birthday, the 22nd.  The boys and I had a fun day but we didn't actually celebrate Nate's birthday until lunch on the 23rd so Darryl could be home too!

 The birthday boy when I went in to get him on the 22nd - he always wakes up so happy! 

 We had been out shopping/running errands that afternoon so I let the boys pick what they wanted to bring home for dinner.  They picked "'dilla's" from Taco Bell. 

One of the things we did on Nate's birthday was get Josh a haircut.  Now, that might not seem like a big deal but the boy has bad hair.  He has about 5 differant cowlicks that make cutting it difficult.  We have taken him to a barber, a stylist, and to Great Cuts . . all to no avail.  Well, I finally called the lady who cuts my hair and said "HELP!"  She stepped up to the task and did a fantastic job with his hair AND she even put green gel in it for him and spiked it.  Josh loved it :-)

 I learned recently that Nate doesn't really care for frosting so I picked up some mini-muffins - the boys enjoyed them.

Opening gifts!  You'll have to excuse the hair - they had not had baths yet :-) 



We got Nate a Pirate Ship that he can ride around.  He loves it.  (And so does Josh!) and a Match Box Car Carrier.  He is always hauling Josh's around so now he has his own for his own cars! 

Later that afternoon, we headed out to Darryl's family Christmas.  I've mentioned before that his Grandma, who is 91, lives in a nursing home so we have the family Christmas in the Nursing Home so she can participate.  Honestly, it is not our favorite place to gather but we make the best of it!  This  year, my mother-in-law reserved the activity room since it is bigger and right next to a little kitchen.  It seemed like a great idea but no one took into account that the residents wouldn't appreciate being "kicked out" HA!  One whole side of the room had windows facing the hallway so the whole time we were like animals in a zoo - the residents stood and watched us.  This year we decided to do appetizers but none of us communicated what we were bringing so we ended up with Meatballs and BBQed mini hotdogs.  Oops!  It was still fun, very hot, but fun (It's a nursing home - what do you expect? LOL)

 Darryl's Grandma and his mom's husband.

 Our niece Rachel.

 Josh and Nate playing with a new gift - if you look close you can see how red Nate's face is - he was soooo hot!  We rolled up his sleeves and unbuttoned his shirt to try and help him out!

 Rache's Fiance, Rob and Darryl's Sister.

The family - Darryl's mom is in the White Sweater - her husband was taking the photo.

The boys were so tired that they fell fast asleep on the way home.  Darryl and I stopped on the way home to pick up one gift and we treated ourselves to a shake from Steak-and-Shake.  It was a great way to end the day!

I'll share the rest of our weekend in another post or this will get WAY to long :-)



14 Days, 31 things, and 40 Bags

Wow, that is one huge "button" HA!    Guess what time of year it is?  It is time to start thinking about cleaning - January is a great month to get things organized and cleaned for the rest of the year.  Right now there are two cleaning challenges I'm going to be doing plus 1 homeade idea that will carry on all year.

The first one, in case you missed the button above, comes from Ask Anna.  I love that it is only 14 days - because she doesn't do weekends!!   As with any challenge, I'm sure there will be days where I either don't have the item/location she is cleaning or I've already done it (i.e. my Christmas decorations will be down before the first day of the challenge!)  I look forward to finding out what other challenges she brings though!

The second idea came from Pinterest and it originated from Little Lucy Lu.  The simple concept is to make a list of 40 places to clean out and throw out 40 bags of stuff.  ("Throw Out" is a relative term - it good be just giving stuff to Good Will or, God Forbid, save it for a garage sale HA)  This is really just another way to go through all of the little places and clean stuff out.  There is not a "right" size of a bag - basically you just go through each area and clean out anything you don't need, love, or use OR that is broken or outdated.  Here's my list of 40:

1) Laundry room including shelf and freezer
2) Utensil drawers in kitchen. all of them.
3) "Junk" drawer and recipe shelf in kitchen
4) pantry shelves
5) under the kitchen sink
6) launch pad
7) Refrigerator
8) Spices and Coffee Cupboard
9) Kids cupboards (cups, plates etc)
10) Desk drawers
11) DS3 Closet
12) DS2 Closet
13) My Closet
14) My dresser drawers
15) Boy's Dressers
16) Night stands
17) Tv cabinet
18) Scrapbooking Shelf in Bedroom
19) Bathroom Sink Cabinet
20) Coat Closet
21) Top Bathroom Cabinet
22) Bottom Bathroom Cabinet
23) Towel Cart
24) The Truck
25)Dining Room Bookshelf
26) Toy Cabinet in LR
27) Toys in boys rooms
28) Triangle Cabinet drawers
29) Loveseat room in basement
30) Bookshelves
31) Basement - drafting table.
32) basement - Filing Cabinet
33) basement - pantry/shelves
34) basement - other areas
35) garage - kids toys
36) garage - camping shelves
37) garage - lawn shelves
38) Garage - work bench
39) Cabinets in the kitchen
40) Filing Cabinet by desk

The last idea is one I want to carry on with all year and it is the concept of "Do One Thing".  I created this all on my own!  The idea is to do one thing a day and in 31 days (or 28 . .29. . .or 30 HA) the house is always deep cleaned.  This list includes everything from washing windows, to steam cleaning the carpet to cleaning baseboards.  Some of the tasks are 5 minutes items and some are 30 minute items.  I'm not going to post the huge list right now - I may after I've worked it for one month and made changes.  I started this process back in about September but it fell on the wayside during November and December with all of the other stuff going on :-) 


I think, that at least by the end of January, my house will be clean.  Now the rest of the year, well, it is questionable :-) hahaha

The Final Simplify Post - For Real

I started 2011 with a key theme word of Simplify  I really feel like having this key word helped me focus on accomplishing many things for our family and for our home.  It helped me not get side tracked by other things that come along.  Did I accomplish every single item on my lists?  Absolutely not!  There are still a few items left to finish with the bathroom - nothing major, just items I would like done.  The kitchen project got put on hold and my scrapbooking goals did not get completed.  There are things that I have completed, though, that I love - my gift wrapping station that is stored under my bed, my recipe binder which has become a huge blessing when it is time to plan our menu, my desk organization system, picture organization and more. 

Even though I have a new word picked for 2012 that I will share later this week, I will continue to work on keeping things simple.  I will update my scrapbooking goals in order to get caught up and current (I'm so close I can almost see it!!), and we have some house projects to complete this year including painting the kitchen. 

I had the opportunity earlier this month to share this concept of a yearly Theme Word at a Calendar Planning Meeting and so many people have thanked me for it - it is not my original idea but I'm so thankful that I have been able to encourage others with this idea. 



Too Cute Not To Toot

I wasn't sure if I would get this post out this week or if I would have many ideas but there were some final Christmas ideas out there that I really wanted to save!

When we were doing our advent ideas, I was looking for a Christmas Tree activity and couldn't find one that I loved but I found this one after the fact over at Meet the Dubiens and will have to remember it for next year.

Also, Meet the Dubiens is as great site to get fun lunch ideas.  Here is just one example!

I've already made a note to make this next year in December - it is the most adorable, edible nativity scene.  I found the idea over at Dukes and Duchesses.

I'm going to throw a recipe in this time more because it sounds really good and I'd like to try it but right now I have papers and ideas EVERY WHERE and I need to just not print anything HA!  So this recipe comes from Real Mom Kitchen for Chicken Caesar Sandwiches.  They really do look yummy!

I saw this cute idea for a Christmas Countdown over at Ginger Snap Crafts and adore it.  It is super simple and would be fun for kids and adults alike.

Can you believe that this is the last "Too Cute not to Toot" post of 2011?  I can't!  I'm looking forward to actually accomplishing some of these things this year.  I'm putting together a plan to accomplish the things I love including making the trip to town to get supplies as needed.  I can't wait!

Enjoy!

Pinterest Challenge - Christmas Style

To think, I didn't think I would have anything to post about this week but, I completely forgot that one of my gifts was actually a Pinterest Inspiration!!!  I couldn't post it before Christmas in case one of my nephews HAPPENED to read my blog (which they never ever ever would HA) 

Here is the original idea from some one's Photobucket account.  Really, that's all I have -someone posted a link to this photo but it is more than enough inspiration.  I even ran into someone else at a planning session who was making this same idea for her nieces and nephews. 

And . . . .here is a photo of what my final product looked like!

Obviously, the inspiration photo has a lot more money in the bag then I do but, it is still fun!  I also threw in one of those finger cuffs (you stick your fingers in it and PANIC because you can't get them out !!) .  I attached the bag to a favorite snack/drink of each nephew (i.e. Mountain Dew) .  I will say that I had trouble finding Gingerbread stickers so two of the boys had gingerbread GIRL stickers - I hope they get over it :-) 

Merry Christmas!!!

Merry Christmas!!

I will be enjoyling lots of family time over the next few days so . . . I'm taking a holiday break!  Don't worry, I will return on Tuesday, December 27th!

I hope you all have a wonderful Christmas with friends and family.