Christmas Wrap Up!

The house is still a mess, toys still everywherre today we just took it easy and enjoyed our new toys. I have lost my husband to the xbox, the kids to their many games and toys, but that is okay it gives me time to play with my new camera, on the computer or playing with my new Kindle..FUN.

THIS FACE MAKES ALL THE SHOPPING WRAPPING ETC WORTH IT!

We had a white Christmas first one in our area since 1975 so Braden proclaimed it a Christmas miracle.

Braden examining his new toys.

Family snapshot

Hubby and I

The Great Wolf Lodge, Grapevine

We made our first trip to The Great Wolf Lodge in Grapevine, Texas this weekend. It definetly won't be our last trip. It was so much fun. A grat family get away to just enjoy each other. We got there on Friday and we didn't leave till Sunday. It was so nice being in one place not having to drive. We were never bored. They had a game that was called Magiquest that went all thru eight floors of the hotel kids and Matt loved it. The waterpark was really good and had two family waterslides that we all went on together. The kids and I will never get on one of them again...even Braden who is my dare devil said it was super scary. Food was good, fun was wonderful, service was above and beyond, family time was beyond great!

Christmas Fun

Got together for a Christmas party today. I will be posting some fun Christmas foods soon. Had to share the pic of the kids in their hats. More pics in my flickr including some of the fun "santa suit game" which the kids all took turns being santa and getting their suit stuffed with balloons.

I can't even blame anyone else

When Braden was younger he hated loud noises, loud toys because of his sensory issues so we didn't get them often. He has gotten over that but for the most part we just don't have a lot of annoying toys, etc. Well this weekend while Britt and I were in Branson we found a penguin it plays Chistmas Carols, waddles and says Merry Christmas. Braden loves penguins (hence the pajamas he is wearing). We brought it home and oh is it annoying so so annoying and he loves loves loves it. No sensory issues showing here as we heard it again and again and again last night. Just when it is about on my last nerve and I am 2 seconds from telling him to quit playing it he smiles like he did in this picture and I just down my tylenol an let the fun continue. My husband has also pointed out that I am the one that bought it...several times.

Let the countdown begin!

My kids are super excited about December 1st. The reason being they get to start their calendars!
We love advent calendars. The top two have a bible verse and chocolate each day. Braden's has a playmobil pirate calendar each day opens a new toy or accessory for his pirate scene, Brittney has the new littlest pet calendar.
Makes counting down to Christmas lots and lots of fun. We also have one with candy canes in the kitchen, and one with numbers in the living room....Christmas won't get by us we are counting down day by day!

Early early early morning shopping

Up at 1:30 this morning did some online shopping, then headed to WalMart. This was the first year I let Britt go. Really didn't have that much to go after. It was one of the easiest Black Friday's ever for us. But it is a tradition so out we went. People are nuts, I know I am nuts for just going but the real nuts are the ones who were fighting over the $2.00 towels. All in all we got what we went for and it was fun.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Just a few of the things I am thankful for: my family (especially wonderful husband and kids), good friends, my church, my faith, my home, home schooling, good doctors and therapists that care about Braden, so many more people and things that are in my life and last and not lease Black Friday Sales...Yeah....3am tomorrow!

Easy sewing craft for Christmas gift

Brittney is just getting into sewing. With that she wants to make everyone something. That can get time consuming and expensive so we came up with fun project that shows everyone that she is thinking of them at Christmas but can be done quickly and not too expensive.

Supplies: Heat protecting quilting pad (I bought a roll of it at Hobby Lobby for$10 and it made approximately 12 potholders this is with using it doubled for more protection and stronger potholders)
Fabric I either purchased 1/4 yard or 1/2 yards of fabric she liked for certain people, or she was able to find some great deals with scraps and remnants on the clearance racks.

First you cut squares out. They can be whatever size you want just remember you are going to sew around them and turn them inside out so it will be smaller than what you originally cut.

You will have 4 squares the sme size (2 of quiltin pad and 2 of fabric)
you place them in order like the picture below quilting pad, fabric, fabric (make sure your good sides are facing each other) and another layer of quilting.

Then sew around the edges going in enough to make sure you capture all 4 layers. Leave about 2 inch gap. Turn it inside out and close up the gap you left. Basically it is done. However Brittney went thru with embrodery floss in the middle, and sides just tieing little nots to add more to hers.

Here is one she made for my cousin who is known in the family for bringing cupcakes to every gathering. She has made 12 of these for Christmas presents and it is easy to put couples names on them as well.

Thanksgiving Fun Food

I have posted this before, but I figured I would post it again.

I make a centerpiece with my food for Thanksgiving.



Cornicopia ---- THis is really simplier than it looks and is always a talked about item. Instead of a boring veggie plate...take aluminum foil and shape it to a cornicopia, fill it with balled up aluminum foil so it will keep it's shape. Then spray it with cooking spray and using breadsticks wrap around the foil, bake in the oven on 400 till lightly browned. Let cool fill with fresh veggies and put some dip on the side.

Bread Bowl with dip --- Take a round loaf of bread and hollow out place for dip bowl. Then take a small roll attach with toothpick at front for head. Slice a roll for wings (attach with toothpicks) the feathers are zuchini and yellow squash anf carrots cut in feather shapes, for the waddle I cut a piece of red bell pepper, and raisin eyes.



Turkey Cheese Ball - Make my cheese ball as normal, pretzels for the feet, on the back I used pretzel sticks and put on cheese cube, tomato and olive but it might be easier to use long tooth picks or cut down kabob sticks. For the feather appearance half almonds stuck in all over cheeseball, The head is a little trickier you have to cut the craker down and the cut a shape of red bell pepper. I just used black decorating icing for eyes because no one eats that cracker anyway.

Turkey Cookies - I use choc almond bark to attach pieces. I used a almond drop candy for the body (easily found around holidays) attach candy corns to feathers and head.

Happy Halloween

Home from camping

We cut camping short by one night....2 nights was enough! It was cold...brrrr. All in all a good time. The kids had taken scooters and on day 2 we had a scooter accident with Brittney so she was in a sling some of the trip. I don't think it is broken but we will be taking her in tomorrow just to check because she is really favoring the wrist. But we really did have fun. She had her birthday cake Thursday night. She got her hat for her birthday and the next day I got all the kids one of them. So they all had their warm slightly goofy hats on!

This is the view from my chair...LOL...hey at least I had cool rain boots for the trip.

Lots more pics on flickr.

Happy 12th Birthday!!

My girl is 12!

Growing up so fast. I know she loves these birthday posts so even though I have been slacking on the blogging I had to give a post to my girl!

I am loving this age, I hate it because she is growing up so fast but I love going to lunch with her and FINALLY she is into shopping! She loves crafts and she can talk your ear off. Caring does not even begin to describe her and watch out if you make fun of her brother's speech problem or something...ohhhh it is bad...which I love that she stands up for him.

12 WONDERFUL THINGS ABOUT BRITT!
1. She is the best big sister anybody could ever have.
2. She is the best daughter.
3. She willingly helps me around the house without being asked.
4. She is very studious.
5. She wants to learn.
6. Very pretty.
7. Sensitive and caring.
8. Great artist very creative.
9. Doesn't care that other girls her age may not like American Girl anymore she does and that is what she says counts! And yeah for that!
10. Very polite.
11. Not shy...I don't like asking people in the store questions...not her she just goes and does it for me!
12. Learns all about pokemon and bakugan, super heroes etc just so she can play whatever her brother is into.

Of course she chose to go camping for 3 days for her birthday so I told her I wanted a dna test because I wasn't sure she was mine...but if you see us side by side I can't deny it...LOL. So just for her I will go camping for 3 days and freeze my tail off...no one else would I do that for as I detest camping but for Britt I will.

Happy Birthday Sweetie!

I think I may wait

Received my electric bill in the mail today. I just glanced and had to glance again because it says:
Total Amount Due by 01/02/2090
Hmmmm think they would let me wait till it is due in 80 plus years to pay it...LOL.

Taylor Swift!

I still can't get pictures on blogger but I put lots on flickr.

What a great mom daughter outing.

Taylor Swift concert was wonderful we had great seats, then they started putting a rope up and I thought she is going to walk by us we were at an end of an aisle. She did and Brittney got to touch her hand. She has said she is never washing her hand again!

Not cooperating

I have been trying to add pictures but blogger is not being cooperative.

We had a fun outing with friends on Friday to an apple orchard. Pics are in flickr if you click on the flickr box to the right.

Tomorrow morning Britt and I leave for girl fun! Taylor Swift concert tomorrow night. She is so excited and so am I. We are leaving in the morning going to have lunch at Cheesecake Factory and a little shopping before the concert. We are staying the night in Tulsa and will head back some time on Monday. Hopefully blogger will let me post pics tomorrow night. I am looking more forward to this concert than the previous Cheetah Girls, and Hannah Montana concerts that we have went to.

Drama King

I don't really have a drama queen Britt has her moments but she is not NEAR as dramatic as her brother.

This morning we are studying monks in history and we were making a traditional lentil soup from that time.

Braden all of a sudden drops to his knees and hands raised goes "Why Why Why"
I am like what are you doing?
He looks at me and says "I was asking God why I am allergic to so many things but I can't be allergic to this soup!".

I am making him eat the soup or at least 4 bites of it as that is the rule around here but he is just so amusing!

Trying to do less

I have been missing in action.

It has been on my mental to do list to throw a post up but the mental list has been a swirl of things.

I had a crying meltdown over just having too much this past weekend. I actually felt better after it. I have given up girl scout leader position. After talking to Brittney she didn't really care about it either, talked to her best friend she didn't care either so why was I killing myself. So that is off the list now. That helps.

I have also cut down a little on the free lance paralegal work I have one attorney that pays very well and I get the most work for him but then I have another attorney who doesn't pay as well but he was one of the ones to start my free lance work and has always been there so I felt obligation to him. However it was just becoming to overwhelming so I went into talk to him. Of course started crying and he was like why didn't you say something sooner no problem. So we worked out a compromise he wants me to do certain tasks because he has known me 15 years and trusts me but other tasks are being delegated out. Which leaves the other attorney who pays well but is harder to work for. I am just going to have to put boundaries with that work.

I have lots of upcoming appointments for Brae I have bypassed some doctors and am just doing what I feel needs to be done. I know I will step on some toes but have decided it has to be done. So hopefully will have some answers soon. If you follow me on facebook you know about the weird episodes he has been having here and there with his heart rate dropping. It has now been 7 days since he had an episode so who knows.

Our home school coop has started and I do enjoy being director of that and I think I have it organized enough that the next 5 weeks should go smoothly so I don't get too overwhelmed. Home school is going good. I have started a new program with Brae working with his auditory and visual disorders I will let you know further into it how it goes. So far so good. We are actually seeing a vision therapist tomorrow interested to see what she has to say.

I have lots of recipes and crafts to share just have to have time to get them typed out and put up. Also going to share some of our favorite new books this school year. We are loving our art book and I need to share pics and more about some of the latest painters we have tried.

So basically I hope to get things into general order soon leaving mroe time to do things I enjoy like posting. Learning to say no to some things it is either that or really lose my mind.

Crock Pot Kinda week

I have 4 days this week I am using the crock pot for dinner.

I am loving layered dinners in the crock pot. Yum. Last night we had steak, baked potatoes, and corn on the cob all in the crockpot done at the same time and the steak was so tender. Tonight is a summer soup.

I get tons of recipes from crockpot365

She goes into details on the layered cooking as a bonus her recipes are gluten free, and if you don't have to eat gluten free then you just substitute your regular pasta, etc.

I do still take the lazy way out and buy the crock pot liners from Reynolds not cost efficient but makes clean up SO easy.

studying michelangelo

We started our book "Discovering Great Artists" today. We read about Michelangelo and his painting of the chapel ceiling, etc.

After reading about it I used masking tape and taped large paper under a table in the garage and let the kids lay on their backs and paint. They had fun and I think will remember more about Michelangelo than they would have just by reading it.

Ignore the messy garage in the background of the pics community yard sales are this weekend so trying to get ready for that.

Too much juggling

I have had several balls in the air lately. My freelance paralegal work is booming which money wise that is great time wise not so great since I end up doing most of my work at 4 am and then running it by the offices after the kids are done with school.

Adding to that Brae's appointments, Britt's basketball, horseback lessons, girl scouts, Brae's soccer, being co-op director, and school for both I was dropping balls left and right.

I had asked Britt about girl scouts and she was like I don't mind if we do it or not yet I still kept being the leader. Finally as I was in tears last week I knew something had to go. Girl Scout meetings themselves weren't too time consuming but prep for them, and organization of all the paperwork the organization requires was just too much. I realized I was keeping it up because I felt I needed to and yet my own child didn't even care about it. I asked other moms to step up and everyone was to busy and I understand that but I also realize I am too busy to. So no more girl scouts. That frees up some time and stress. Maybe that will help somewhat.

I know work won't stay this busy I just have to get the case load manageable again. Co-op director is a big job for the home school group but I really enjoy it and my kids benefit greatly so that is staying. Trying to find horseback riding closer to eliminate that taking 3 hours at a chunk. Basketball will just stay crazy but she loves it and it is good for her. Same with soccer. Of course school stays even though Braden tried to convince me that they could take a break from school "for a year or two"...his words. Obviously not going to happen but he is cute when he is trying to get out of school...which means he is cute all the time!

A pic from this weekends first soccer game. I didn't get any pics of Braden being goalie...oops.