On the Twenty First Day of Christmas

On the Twenty First Day of Christmas my mother gave to us


A Christmas School Party

On the Twentieth Day of Christmas

On the Twentieth day of Christmas my mother had us open



A book to read with mom

On the Nineteenth Day of Christmas

On the Nineteenth Day of Christmas my mother had me do


A special service to each person in the Family

On the Eighteenth Day of Christmas

On the Eighteenth Day of Christmas my mother had us drive


And look at Christmas lights in our pajamas

On the Seventeenth Day of Christmas

On the Seventeenth day of Christmas my mother had me go


Get ready for my school teacher's present

On the Sixteenth Day of Christmas

On the Sixteenth Day of Christmas my mother had me make



Homemade Fudge (mmmmm)

On the Fifteenth Day of Christmas

On the Fifteenth Day of Christmas my Mother had me create



Christmas Trees

On the Fourteenth Day of Christmas

On the fourteenth day of Christmas my mother had me sing

Christmas Carols

On the Thirteen Day of Christmas

On the Thirteen day of Christmas my mother had me drink


Another cup of Hot Cocco

On the Twelfth Day of Christmas

On the Twelfth day of Christmas my mother had me build








A SNOWMAN

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas

On the Eleventh Day of Christmas my mother had me do








Decorate Cookies

On the Tenth Day of Christmas

On the Tenth Day of Christmas our Mother had us help



Make cookies

On the Ninth Day of Christmas

On the Ninth Day of Christmas our mother let us go

To the Ward Christmas Party

On the Eight Day of Christmas

On the Eight Day of Christmas our Mother had us write


A letter to Santa

On the Seventh Day of Christmas

On the Seventh Day of Christmas our mother let us drink


A cup of Hot Cocco

On the Sixth Day of Christmas

On the Sixth Day of Christmas our mother gave to us


A Present

On the 5th Day of Christmas

On the 5th day of Christmas our mother had us do


Wrap a present

On the Fourth Day of Christmas

On the Fourth day of Christmas our mother let us do

Watch a Christmas Movie

On the Third Day of Christmas

On the Third Day of Christmas our mother had us make



Christmas Candy - Kylie choose Yule Logs

On the Second Day of Christmas

On the Second day of Christmas our parents gave to us

A pizza party with our cousin Corynn babysitting us.
(We had Marcus' work party that night)

On the First Day of Christmas

On the first day of Christmas my mother had me make



Snowflakes!

24 Days of Christmas

I am getting really addicted to Pinterest. It is a wonderful site pulling ideas off everywhere on the web. I love it. I have gotten some really great ideas, and recipes. I found one that had a Christmas advent calender. Instead of treats everyday she had a fun activity to do for her daughter. But since I am lazy and don't have tons of time for crafting I decided to just let my kids make a count down chain till Christmas and every link that they take off there is an activity for the day. I am trying to make really easy ones on the days they have school. But so far they have loved it. Here is where we are today.


This is Landon's chain hung down the hall


And this is Kylie's chain hung down the hall.

Lots of Random Photos

Very Loose Tooth


Shoulder Rides


Don't worry the tooth came out. She pulled it out herself.


Dancing


Crazy Dancing


Dinner - the most awesome Chicken Enchilada Tortilla Soup.






Brother and sister


Still vacuming


She seems to have a mohawk a lot. I think they are leftover pony tails


Cousins


And he is just so cute!!

Thanksgiving

I don't have pictures from Thanksgiving but aren't these leaves just beautiful for Fall?



This year Thanksgiving was fun - except we didn't eat any turkey on Thanksgiving. It is the Simons turn and Marcus' parents are on a mission in Poland. Hollie decided to host this year, and since Robert had to work on Thanksgiving we had it on Friday. No new story on the Simons side. We have had it on Friday more than on Thanksgiving. Marcus ended up not feeling great that week. We were hoping to stay a couple of days and do some playing. In hosting, Hollie asked everyone to bring their favorite food except me, I was in charge of the rolls requested by Kara and Kimberly. On Thanksgiving day Marcus and I and the kids just hung out and didn't do much at all. It was actually really fun. I made my rolls - they turned out very nice. And then I decided to make pork and steak fajitas with leftover meat. They were A-MAZING!! I told Marcus it made me want to make out with my food. They didn't need cheese. Just a little sour cream. As a side note Marcus and I usually eat the same amount of food. He isn't a big eater, and I can if I want, eat an insane amount of food. But I ate two fajitas, and Marcus ate THREE!! I couldn't believe it. He told me he was making out with his food.

I decided to try out the Black Friday shopping. I stayed up till 10 and went to Walmart. The parking lot was packed. I had to park in a whole different store parking lot that was a block away. I was in and out so fast. I was to my car by 10:20. I made some awesome buys too. I decided to try the video games first, because that was what I really wanted and I figured they would be gone. And I was right. It was a mad house by the games. I got two, and then I hurried to the toys. There wasn't anymore elbowing at the toys, so I was able to just walk around and grab what I wanted and I got everything on my list. Then Friday morning I woke up and hit a couple of other stores, but just at 9:00. There wasn't anything enticing enough that I thought wouldn't be there later in the morning.

Then Marcus and I packed up the kids and headed on over to Hollie's. We had a great time. The food was fabulous and the kids were good. It was so nice just to relax and eat and let the kids play and eat some more. We got to skype with Marilyn and Floyd. And as a side note. Since everyone brought there favorite foods, there wasn't a green vegetable or carrot to be seen.

Halloween

Trying for a nice picture


But really this is how it is


Aren't they so cute!


My lady bug was able to eat a ton of candy





My cowboy loves candy


I don't know why the kids' faces seem dirty from this shot.


Candy really does make you fly!!


Buzz Lightyear eating candy


Spider Fairy - her face wasn't dirty but it had a ton of sparkles all over it


Cowboy

Well I have a moment, and I thought I would try and update. I finally found the Halloween pictures. The kids had a great time. A couple of days before we had a neighborhood Halloween party at our house outside, and in our garage. There was fun games for the kids - a treasure hunt using our little pumpkins with the clues written on them and glow sticks at the end for the treasure. They came in handy after it got dark. We had a cupcake walk, and a candy corn ring toss. There was lots of great snacks. It was cold, but one of our neighbors brought over a HUGE propane heater and set it up in our garage. So we all stayed warm. There was pumpkin carving, but most adults wanted to visit and most kids wanted to run around and play. I put it together with my neighbor Donna, and everyone had a great time.

On Halloween Landon dressed up as a Cowboy, Kylie as a Spider Fairy, Tannen and Buzz Lightyear, and Aria as a Ladybug. They were so cute. We took them around the neighborhood, and they got to knock on doors. Then we came home and had our Papa Murphy's pumpkin pizza, pop, and candy. Then we went upstairs and watched some Halloween Cartoons.

Birthday, Anniversary, and Fall Harvest

So a couple of weeks ago I had my birthday. I turned 31! Young - Old who knows. All I know is I had no problem turning 30 last year, but then for the rest of the year it hit me that I wasn't getting any younger. I am still young but realized that I really am going to age and hit middle age and old age someday. I think when you are a kid it takes so long to grow up you wonder if you really are and that is how I feel about growing older too.

Aside from that string of random thoughts I got to go up to my Grandparents house in Mackey for my birthday. It was so great. They have only seen Aria once over Easter, and it was good to see them again. I hadn't been up to their house for a couple of years. Justin came up, Candice lives there, and Rochelle came up with her family for the day too. Of course my parents came. It was a great time. I loved watching and hearing my kids do the things that I used to do when I would visit my Grandparents Ranch. There was hay jumping, horse riding, kitten hunting, bbqing, treats - always lots of treats, and unlimited cousin playing. Justin thought we should always go up that weekend every year - and I think it sounds like a great idea too. Plus you can't beat that my Grandpa's birthday is the day before mine and my mom always makes me a treat - I always seem to request Mississippi Mud too.

Exactly two weeks after my birthday is my Anniversary. We celebrated 11 years this year!!! Go us. I was able to get my niece up here and babysit my kids. Marcus and I were able to go out to eat and then do some shopping. It was so much fun. She said that the kids were great. And they were so excited to have their cousin come over and play with them. Now I just need to figure out how to get another date soon.

At the beginning of the growing season we just bought our house. So we didn't have much time to plant anything in our garden. I was given 8 tomato plants so I thought I better do salsa. I got some pepper plants and onions. Then because they are easy and I was low on time we got three different pumpkins and planted those. Now it is harvest time and boy have we harvested and worked hard. We ended up with a ginormous pumpkin patch. The kids were so excited. I had 4 huge pumpkins that the seed could have gotten up to 100lbs. They didn't but were big. Then we got 25 jack o lantern sized pumpkins and grow well over 100 small mini pumpkins for decoration. I picked one of the medium size pumpkins and baked it and made pumpkin butter, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin cream cheese, pumpkin bread and even froze extra pumpkin. Then since we had so many we set up a table and had the kids sell pumpkins. We sold the huge ones for $2 the regular ones for $1 and the mini's for $.50. I told the kids that they could use the money for Christmas presents and if there was any left they could just split it. They earned $34!! I was very impressed. We still have over 100 mini ones left though.

Then I have had tons of tomatoes and have done several batches of salsa. I have made over 80 pints of salsa. I made 28 pints of spaghetti sauce (and need to do another batch). We had so many tomatoes that last week we decided to pick all the red/orange ones, all the white ones, and even tons of the green ones. We picked so many we filled up our entire wheel barrel full of tomatoes. I even heard if you hang a plant upside down in a cool place that the tomatoes will turn red well. So we even have a plant hanging in our garage. We still have green tomatoes out in the garden. And tomatoes strung across my shelves in the kitchen.

Just this last week I have been doing gobs of canning. I bought 60 lbs of grapes down in Brigham City and made 10 gallons of grape juice and grape cocktail. 7 Cups of grape jelly, 11 pints of applesauce, 44 pints of salsa, about 8 dozen chocolate chip oatmeal cookies, and 4 gallons of potato soup that I freeze. It has been tons of work, but I love looking at the bottles and seeing all my hard work. Fall really is my favorite season, and you can see why.

Just the Two of Us

Sometimes when it is just you two you must find something to entertain yourselves with. So you sit here and I will push you around.

We have gotten into a great routine around here. Tannen and Aria have really started playing together. I still get a lot of Tannen sitting on Aria too, but maybe I always will. Somedays they seem to get tired of it, and Tannen doesn't know what to do. But then school gets out and if we are lucky Kylie will take him in her room, or upstairs and play with him until bed time. I love days like that. Especially since Tannen has really gotten more naughty since he doesn't have bigger playmates for most of the day.

Meet My Newest Niece

Here is Jayna Faith and the rag flannel blanket I made for her. Aren't they both adorable!!


And the little burp cloth I made to go with it.

Hollie got to FINALLY adopt her little girl that she had been waiting FOREVER to get. It was an emotional journey for her. And I enjoyed following along with the parts that she shared with me. Jayna came along in August and about two weeks later I got to meet her over Labor Day. She was so teeny tiney!! Of course the Aunties stole her and we let our inner Anne Geddes free. Jayna is adorable. We tried putting her in a bowl and taking pictures. But the bowl was too big because we could fit a pillow, and the blanket I made for her. So we were on the hunt and got the bowl my sister in law keeps her keys in. It was perfect. We fit her little 6 lbs (she started out 5lbs 5 oz) into the bowl.