Neighbor gifts

I'm going to let you in on a little secret about me:

I am a chips and salsa fanatic.  

I LOVE it.  I eat it all day every day very often.

So I figured since I love it so much, I would use it in my friend gifts! (plus I was already packing on the pounds with all the candy I had been given and salsa is so much more healthy. ha ha!) 

I got the really cute Merry Christmas printables from Jenni at Family of Four. I also stunned and amazed my husband by actually using my Cricut! (I have yet to get any cartages..so I borrowed a few from my friend!)  I made the tags with it and the cute vinyl shapes on the chip bags. 

  

 Wishing you a Warm and Spicy holiday season!

It was so easy and a lot of fun. Maybe I will do it again in a year. :)

A trip to the dentist

We went to the dentist Tuesday afternoon. I think its hilarious because my kids LOVE to go. They were sooo excited and each brought their own little stuffed animal to keep them company. Baby girl was getting extremely impatient waiting for her turn in the chair. "is it my turn? Is it my turn? I want to sit in that chair.."

They all did great. We only ended up with two cavities in The Boys teeth, which isn't surprising since his teeth are so tight together. We haven't been doing so great with flossing I have to admit. So off to the store we went afterward to get some tooth floss. :)

 

                             

You probably can't tell, but Baby Girl was laughing the whole time because it tickled!

So much fun to go to the dentist! :)

Appaloosa Horse Museum

The first weekend in December we went to visit a small little museum (I think it might be the only one) here in town. Its all about the Appaloosa Horse and its origins. The kids love it because they have a little area where they can color, dress up in cowboy clothes, tie knots, reads books and play with horse toys. Its a good place to go if you are looking for something to do on a rainy afternoon. Plus, I LOVE history and museums are one of my favorite places to go.

This weekend, they had a holiday open house. Santa came to visit and the kids got to sit on a real appaloosa! We had to wait in line FOREVER to see santa, but the kids wandered around looking at all the cool stuff while I held our places. We ate cookies as well, which always makes anything worth it! It was a fun morning spent together.

 Someone must have been doing something really weird off to the right.... :)

I wonder what she was laughing about? ha ha!

Flash back Post-Little Girls First Day

So, I was looking through my blog the other day and realized I had totally forgotten to post anything about Little Girls first day of preschool!

Little Girl went to the same school last year and absolutely loved it. I love it too since its every day except Fridays for 3 and a half hours! (last year she was in school longer than my kindergartener! Crazy huh?)

She was super excited at the front door and we took a lot of crazy pictures.

we got to school and she found her very own cubby! but now she was getting a little nervous......

She then found her name tag..which made her feel a little better...
(I blurred out her name for safety purposes...so it really wasn't just blank! ) :)

But she still wanted to sit really close to her teacher.

Thats not an abnormal occurrence. She is very loving and wants to snuggle with everyone. She likes to have all the attention and will perform for you at your request! She had a great day and many many more since. There was a little rough patch for a few weeks where we weren't sure where our happy little girl went. We spoke with her teacher and now things are sooo much better. Its hard to be the center of attention when there are 15 other kids in the class! :)

We love out little girl and couldn't be more proud of how amazing she is!

Track 2

I cannot say enough about this song. I remember the first time I heard it, I bawled my eyes out.

Ugh....love




Glen Hansard ft. Marketa Irglova "falling slowly"

Self portrait

Its not often you see me on this side of the camera! I thought it would be a little more fun to jump on my own bed than to look forlornly out the window or something. :)

For more awesome self portraits head over to I heart Faces!

Christmas comes early....

For those of you who may not know, and for those of you who do and are waiting to hear, my hubby has been spending the last two years trudging through difficult pre-requisit classes to be able to apply for dental school. The last few months of our life was spent waiting around for interview invites and then flying The Man all over the country so he could do an amazing job of selling himself and convincing them all that he would be a great asset to their program. We have been anxiously awaiting this very day, Dec. 1st, when all the schools release their official offers of acceptance and this morning it was literally like waking up on Christmas morning to a huge pile of incredible gifts.

The Man received an invite to his top choice school via phone call at 6:11 am this morning!! It was funny because his phone alarm was going off and I as complaining about it, since he had decided to stay home from class. As soon as he turned it off, it started up again and I was just about to start getting REALLY cranky when I realized it wasnt the alarm, but his actual ring tone. He jumped out of bed and all I heard was:

"Hello!? Yes, this is he......."as he ran down the stairs.

About five minutes later I hear him skipping up the stairs saying, " dootie doo, doo dootie doo...." I knew it had to be something good, since it was sooooo early in the morning and he was literally jumping up the stairs and singing to himself! :) Needless to say neither of us got much sleep after that since we were way tooo excited (not to mention Little Girl had just decided to wake up and hang out in our bed). Later we found out we had also been accepted to U of Indiana, U of Louisville and Minneapolis! So today has been an amazing day! I am taking the Man Out to dinner tonight to celebrate.

Im so thankful for all of The Man's hard work and dedication. Im am thankful for answered prayers and I am especially thankful for the lesson in patience and long suffering that I have learned, and probably will continue to be learning....for forever... :)

Track 1

I have posted a lot about how music affects me. I love it. It moves me, and depending on the song, it usually moves me to tears. Often when I'm listening to a song, my mind wanders away and I have these great scenes that play out in my head. :) I have a very active imagination, which can get me into trouble, but can also be a great springboard for creativity.

Lately I have been imagining amazing photography shoots set to music. Funny huh? A while ago, before it started to snow so heavily, I was listening to an old skool song by Janet Jackson and I had this cool idea to shoot an urban downtown feel session with a 40's twist in the wardrobe. Crazy right? I had the perfect model too since my beautiful sister is crazy and loves to dress up. She has been inspired by the 40's lately as well. I love her. But alas, when we went home for thanksgiving there was so much snow and it was falling to badly that I chickened out. :)

(she's the one on the left...ha ha!)

So I decided since Im not really doing any incredible photo shoots these days, I would instead pick a song or two each week and post in on here for your enjoyment, and mine. I have been introduced to some amazing artists lately and would love to share them with you! I also would love to hear who you love. 

So here goes Track 1

Mammas Eyes by Justin Townes Earl. When I first came across this video, I totally thought is was from the 50's! Come to find out, he is from 2010! Ha hA! And that is what made me fall so in love with him, he has such an old vibe that I just can't get over. He makes me remember the music loved by my great grandpa and my grandpa, who have both passed away and it somehow connects us. Plus, the lyrics are so relatable to anyone and that live guitar just melts me. Oh and that southern accent.  Amazing.

Press pause on my player (if you are on my actual blog and not in a blog reader) and enjoy!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!'s

Ha ha! Last night I figured out how to import my old blog into my new one. It automatically published all the posts according to their date, so now the beginning of this blog is actually the beginning posts of my other one. As I was reading though all my old posts trying to edit  the names of my children and husband to keep them anonymous, I made a startling discovery. I used A LOT of exclamation points!!!!!!!!! It's like I am yelling the whole time I was typing. Ha ha! I do remember my brother making some remark about the over use of that specific punctuation mark, so I eventually toned it down. Its hilarious to go back and read them now.  It was also a blessing as well, since a lot of the things I wrote down I don't remember now. So Im glad I did. I also decided I may have been slightly depressed at that time, or at least prone to more complaining! :) I believe (and this is just my own opinion) that I may have actually matured a little since I was 24 in 2007...hopefully anyway.  You should check them out and laugh along with me. (and decide for yourself whether or not I have matured any or if I used less of these !!!!!!!!!!)

I heart faces!

It seems like the only posts I do these days are for I heart faces. :) But, I love them...so its ok!

This weeks theme is "scenic black and white."
We went fishing with the kids a little while back (and when I say "we" it really means The Man went fishing and the kids ran around and played while I took pics, hee hee) and I took a lot of great shots with some awesome scenic views. I loved this one, along with one more of The Man himself, who rarely gets featured on here since he doesn't like me to take pictures of him. :) So the first picture is my entry for I heart Faces and the next one is just for my own pleasure! :)

Be sure to head over to I Heart Faces for more amazing scenic black and white photographs!

What a beautiful sillhouette!

So....I came across a new amazing blog today. Love stitched is sooo cute and every thing Brittany makes I want! :) You should go and check her out...right now...go! Oh, and did I mention she is hosting a give away? Thats right, today you can enter to win a brand spankin new Silhouette! Plus, a ton of other stuff included. Its awesome!

Did you go yet!? What are you waiting for!?

P.S.

There are a few other awesome blogs out there giving away a silhouette! I can't believe all the amazing craftiness out there these days! I love them all. :)

Be different, Act normal
How does she?
Make it and Love it
Sew dang cute
Shanty 2 Chic
Ucreate
The Idea room

I Heart Faces!

Yay! Another week means another photo challenge from I heart Faces. This weeks theme is Orange, which is perfect since its the dead center of fall and that color, along with a million other gorgeous hues, is everywhere to be found!

We went on a little mini vacation this past weekend to visit family and The Man's parent's house has a few sparse trees that were beautiful with all sorts of colors. There is one in particular in the back that is bigger than the rest that had just begun to drop all of it leaves into a nice neat pile that all the kids thought was amazing! They got to work raking them all up and throwing them everywhere, even on me as I was trying to take some pics! :) My entry this week is of my little nephew, who instead of throwing the leaves, decided he just wanted to keep them all!

Enjoy and be sure to head over to I Heart faces for more amazing Orange photos!

Halloweenies-2010

This years halloween was crazy! The whole week before, I was sooo busy getting ready for the craft fair I felt I barely had time to put together the kids costumes! But in the end it worked out and they looked so cute! Normally I just buy costumes because Im not super great at sewing, but The Girl wanted to be a bunny and I couldn't find one anywhere! (except online and they were like 50 bucks...um really!?) So I did make her bunny suit. The ears I found at good will for 50 cents. (thats more like it!)

We found the boys costume at good will as well, but couldn't figure out what it was supposed to be! :) It looked like The Hulk, but it was hairy. So I figured it was a werewolf. I didn't want him to wear a full on mask, so in the end I found some awesome horns a Shopko and he ended up as a monster. Since I waited so long to put these together I couldn't find ANY scary wolf teeth or green makeup or black hair spray! So I used green food coloring on his face and in his hair, along with my mascara to tip the ends of his hair black. He was the scariest monster with the nicest teeth I have ever seen!

Baby girl was a kitty cat, which also came from Goodwill (LOVE that place!) It was a kitty cat costume that was originally from Old Navy, so it was a warm jacket type thing that was poofy and had a hood. It also had a little tail in the back that she kept wagging around all night. sooo cute! On the hood it had ears and whiskers and a little fish! :) I was going to make some white pants to match the jacket, but I ran out of time, so we just bought pink sweatpants. She looked adorable.

Since Halloween ended up being on a Sunday this year, we celebrated on Sat. night by going to our churches Chili cook off and trunk or treat. (we park all the cars in the church parking lot and kids trick or treat around to each cars trunk!) :) I made our favorite chili and ended up winning 2nd place in the meat lovers category. I was quite excited, and validated. I can cook! Yay! My friend Jen (who also won second place in her "traditional" category!) and I dressed up in a few super capes I had made for the kids and it was a fun night. Next year we are hoping to be in a normal neighborhood and we can take the kids door to door.

Here are the pics (it was really dark in there, so I had to use my flash! :(  ), but enjoy!:

Nice hair Ash, nice hair....... :)