Our Thanksgiving Day...

Our day dawned bright and early with the exciting hum of the Nebulizer. Yes, Sophia was wheezing like an 80year old chain smoking asthmatic. We started the treatments and are doing the 5am, 1pm, and 9pm routine for now reserving the right to change and do the 5-11-5-11 plan. After her treatment and subsequent buzz wore off, I accidently (oh, who am I kidding?) fell asleep.lol My Thanksgiving day restarted at the ripe hour of 10am. Yikes! That got me in gear.lol I got dinner started and set the older kids to bringing in the Christmas tree and decorations. The littles were overexcited and my living room can attest to that.lol

I made the executive decision to have the kids begin the annual Gingerbread house assembly. Nothing says gingerbread like the sound of a hair dryer...feel the fun folks...

Jon was an expert roof holder togetherer...

He also made a great model...

Here they are decorating the house while my younger ones look on in a candy induced stupor...

Here's Jon showing the proper way to adhere the candy to the house...

I'm breaking up the excitment into two parts because I don't want to overwhelm you all with our exciting day...

Happy Thanksgiving!

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday! We've got all our prep work completed and plan on just enjoying tomorrow. I love the fact that everything is closed tomorrow. It's so nice to have a day with nothing to do but spend time together. If you all could pray that we begin to feel better, that'd be a real blessing.

Take care,

Christmas Calendar layouts 2008

Here is what Allison has been working on for the past few weeks. We finished the calendar today and ordered it from Snapfish. I think Allison did a great job this year! Well done!

January


February


March


April


May


June


July


August


September


October


November


December



What a huge undertaking this is! Allison worked until 12:30 last night and then got up and did the finishing touches this morning. I love the backgrounds and her collages!

Blessings,

My Daily Ramblings...

I live with a bunch of sickos!LOL We've all been battling illness this week and we are worn out. I can't wait until we're feeling better. Until then, here's a collection of photos...

My baby wearing hubby...


My soda swilling girly...


Here's a new trick...


What a sweet baby!


She just learned to stand and now this...















TaDa!!! Look at that proud face...


I can't believe how fast she's growing up! She's only almost 9 months old and she's really getting around. Eric said she tried to walk to him yesterday and she's already trying to talk! She's getting good at Uh-oh. (She must hear that a lot.lol) Well, I must go and wipe more snot. Really, it's a never ending job.LOL

Blessings,

My Daily Ramblings...

Here are some photos from the last few days...


Jon knitted some socks for the coming winter...



He is so creative! I'm proud of him!



Here is Allison and Isaac feeding Sophia. I LOVE the look of pure joy on Isaac's face! I know this photo is blurry but I still love it.



Here's the little stinker right now...right after a bath. After a whole day of temper tantrums, it's nice to have a nice photo to gaze upon.LOL




Here is the mess that the littles can make in 5 minutes time. I still can't believe it and I'm the one who will have to clean it up! They're cute though...lol


A puzzle, a ball for each hand and life is good!







I have some bad news for you all.



I'm a Ramen Noodle Flunky. On Tuesday, I made Ramen for Evie and Isaac since they are sick. Isaac wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole, but Evie ate her bowl and asked for Isaac's too. I thought, "Wow! How great that she's hungry!" While I was washing the bowls, I realized that I forgot to put the bouillon cubes in it. Yep, you guessed it. Evie ate two bowls of noodles and water.lol

Not to be deterred, I tried again on Wednesday. This time, I made sure to put the cubes in FIRST so I wouldn't forget. A half-hour later I hear this sizzling sound and go to check it out. Yep, totally forgot about the Ramen and all the water boiled out leaving this wonderfully hard crust to scrub off. At this point, I decided to hand the job to Jon. HE had no trouble.LOL



Blessings,

My Menu for this week...

I know I haven't been posting my menu lately. The past few weeks have been very stressful and overwhelming for me. I'm thankful that I took last week off and was able to just enjoy my family and get the house ready for the holidays.

Here's the list for this week...

Dinner

Taco Stuff (I'm making Kristine's shredded beef tonight)
Pork Roast with noodles and steamed veggies
Black beans and rice with salad
Chicken and dumplings
Split pea soup with homemade bread
Leftovers


I'm working on a list for Thanksgiving dinner this week also.

I'm thinking...

Turkey with homemade stuffing and gravy
mashed potatoes
homemade rolls
maybe asparagus or some other yummy green
Salad
Cranberry relish
maybe a small sweet potato casserole


Dessert will consist of...

Homemade pumpkin pie with cool whip
Cookies!!! Maybe 5 different kinds.LOL
I'd also really like some pecan pie tarts. I LOVE those things!lol I'll have to see if I can make them Dairy free. Probably can.


I'm getting excited about that turkey! I'm going to cook the carcass overnight in my Rival Roaster with water to make really good broth. I plan on freezing it for lunches and dinners. I've found that this is the very best tasting broth AND it's pretty much free! Just add the carcass, an onion, a few carrots, a few celery stalks and let cook on 200 degrees overnight and in the morning you have a rich yummy broth. Good stuff!

Blessings,

My Daily Ramblings...

What a nice week! I took the week off all computer stuff last week in order to get some much needed work done around the house. Now my house is ready for Thanksgiving and my cabinets are overflowing with good things to eat.LOL

In kid news, Allison is finally ready to begin driving again. She'll start over this weekend.

Jon has been sick but is getting better and has begun the winter garden. I'm hoping we have better luck with this one. We didn't get much from the summer garden. It was too hot and we were in a drought.

Evie is currently sick with whatever Jon had. She's a tough cookie though and driving us batty anyway.LOL

Isaac is STILL TWO and the tantrums are getting old.lol He's still not fully potty trained and it's getting cold. I don't know WHAT I'm going to do. It's hard to have him walking around pant-less in the cold weather. We may have to suspend training for the winter. Maybe he'll be more mature or maybe he'll get tired of being wet and figure this all out soon.

Sophia is already standing! I worked on baby proofing all week and got most things picked up. It's hard with two littles around though. They are good at dividing and conquering.lol Sophia also finally got and kept a new tooth. She had her tooth break through a few weeks ago but it healed up and sat there until two days ago. Looks like she'll be biting me in no time.lol

Here are two cute photos of Sophia...

Peace, yo.


Future video game junky...


Blessings,

The Sophia Chronicles...

Here is the new hat I made today. I went to Michaels and they were having a big sale on their yarn. I picked out a bunch of different colors and will start making things to give for Christmas gifts. This is fun!

Sophia and her hat...

What a sweetie!





Blessings,

My Daily Ramblings...

Now it says on Photobucket that I reduced the size of the photos but on here it's showing them fullsized.LOL Oh well, enjoy them anyway.

Here is Evie in her halloween costume. What a ham.LOL



Isaac decided to be Santa Claus. Everyone got a kick out of him. They kept saying he was a little early.LOL We don't even celebrate Santa but he loved the costume.


Isaac decided not to wear the hat and Sophia was a good sport and hung on to it for him...

Here is the new door! Yay! You wouldn't believe how many people in the neighborhood came by to ask what in the world happened. Some, just checked my blog.lol We were boring and chose close to what we orginally had. I like it though and it goes well with the house.

Debbie mentioned the Knifty Knitter on her blog when she met up with Lisa from Maine. Well, I went to Michaels and they had the whole set for half off! Here are my first creations---two hats! I had to bribe Isaac with gum to pose for me. I guess you get what you pay for.LOL

This photo of Evie is probably the best photo I've gotten of her in a long while! It'll definitely be on the calendar this year! She's so beautiful.


Well, I've been frantically running around all day today. Jon is leaving for a middle school youth gathering in Orlando with our church at 4:15 today. Yikes! I've got the last load of his clothes in the dryer right now. I went to the store to buy appropriate traveling food. I baked granola bars. I've packed his lunch and snacks for the whole weekend. I've gathered up all the odds and ends he needs and just need to shove it all in his bag once all the clothes are dry. How's that for waiting until the last minute?lol I think my brain went on strike and just didn't compute that I'd actually have to DO stuff to get him out the door today.lol Luckily, I figured it out this morning and have most of it done now. I hope this trip is a blessing for Jon and that he makes like minded friends from our church.

Blessings,