Traditions

Every family has traditions. One of our traditions came to be because I insisted that we have plain matching stockings. Mike hates them. So to compromise, a few years ago we started buying a new ornament to hang on our stocking to make them more personal.

We bought this year's ornaments at Old Town Pottery (one of my all time favorite stores!) over the weekend. Ashlyn picked out several ornaments before she finally settled on the glass angel.

She did demand a new stocking this year. I bought these 4 stockings when she was just a baby. Braden decided which color went each person. Ashlyn has had the green stocking the past 3 years but she was not happy this year when I unpacked it. She threw it down and demanded a pink one. Since we didn't have a pink one she settled with the white.
Mike hasn't changed his ornament in several years. He likes his charger Santa so he's been hanging on to it.

I picked out a new clay Santa. I like clay Santa ornaments. The first year Mike and I were married we had no ornaments and no money. I found some packs of ornaments at a dollar store and that's where the collection began. I try to pick up a few every year and of course I always pick out a clay Santa for my stocking ornament every year.

As much as I love clay Santa, Braden love nutcrackers! He begs for new ones to play with every year. So I was not surprised at all when he picked out this nutcracker for his stocking ornament.

Oh Christmas Tree!

Earlier this week we broke our normal tradition and put our Christmas tree up before Thanksgiving. Our tradition has been to decorate the Friday after Thanksgiving but we just couldn't wait it out this year.

It was a pretty quick process this year. Our tree has been set up with it's 1100 lights in the corner of our garage all year. We covered it with this blue moving blanket thingies to keep it somewhat clean. I was so scared that a strand of lights would not light after a year in the garage but each little light is twinkling.

Our tree has the same assortment of clay Santas, homemade gingerbread men, white plastic snowflakes and red balls every year. We lost a lot of our red ornaments last year so I replaced them. Braden decided to do a little extra decorating on his own. He added batman stickers to each red ball and all kinds of pictures and toys to it.

Fall Fest Fun

This was our first weekend without soccer. We didn't have a hard time finding something to do. Braden's school had a fall fest Saturday afternoon that entertained us for a few hours.

I think it's safe to say that the bouncy houses was the afternoon favorite since we did that twice. We also went on a hay ride, played some games, dug for treasure in a hay pile, and checked out the police car.

Hope y'all had a good weekend too.

Feathered Friends

We had some feathered friends visit us today. I'm not even going to pretend to know what kind of bird they are. I do know that they were huge! They were way taller than Ashlyn.

November Kit and FREE SHIPPING

Here is this months kit at MBI. I love love love this kit. I bought a few sheet of the star paper when it first came in. It's double sided so it would make a great one sheet mini album.

The kit includes:
2 sheets of Star Spray textured cardstock by Daisy Bucket Designs
1 dark tawny Prismatics cardstock
1 light tawny Prismatics cardstock
1 Heidi Swapp Bling Circle Frames,
1 Star Kissed paper tag elements by Daisy Bucket Designs,
1 yard blue rik rak,
1 yard blue/brown stripe ribbon
one bag of coordinating embellishments including flowers and brads.

It's only $8.99 and since it's Friday it's Free Shipping!!! To get the free shipping type in the code FSF112108 at checkout. Even if the kit isn't your style you can still take advantage of the free shipping.

Kelly's Great Crayons

Happy Friday!!!! I'm so glad the weekend is finally here. This week has seemed to drag on and on and on.

My scrappy friend Kelly from MBI made these great crayons with her kids recently. I love this picture! If you have a bunch of broken crayon pieces around this may be a great little project. It's also a great way to help the kids practice sorting and colors.

This is the link if you want to see the instructions and some more photos!

Well Hog Dog!!!

I didn't have anything to post today (or this whole week really). It's been cold this week so we have been snuggled down on the couch.

I still wanted to post something though so I went back a few folders and HOT DOG! I found a picture that I don't remember taking and it made me chuckle. I wonder at what age hot dogs become a less exciting meal option. I know I don't dig into mine like that anymore. Maybe I should experiment with new toppings.

3-2-1 Blast OFF!!

A few nights ago the shuttle launched. I love night launches! The sky turns all shades of red and orange. It's very cool to watch.

One vote for Ojama

Braden's school voted on election day. They had these cute little voter registration cards and polling booths with curtains. (I've never voted in a booth with curtains.)

A few nights before the vote we asked Braden who he was going to vote for. He asked us which one was McCain and which one was Ojama. Mike and I didn't even try to keep the giggles in. It was too cute.

Then we had the strangest conversation. We told him that Obama was the African American. He had no clue what that meant. I was totally taken aback. It was a conversation that I never saw myself having. I'm glad that Braden has such a diverse group of friends that he doesn't notice skin color. Everyone's color is the same in his eyes.

During the parent/teach conference, his teacher mentioned that the class discussed the importance of the election and that Obama was the first African American president. Mrs. Sudhoff said no one in the class knew what an African American was. Shocking since there are African American students in the class. She said she got answers like "it means he wears brown shoes" and "he doesn't eat candy".... Gotta love kids!

At the end of the day Braden cast one vote for Ojama!

Still here!

We are still here! We were without Internet for a whole week. I was shocked at how much extra time I had without the net. (hmmmm may be a new year resolution coming to be).

While we were out of touch.....

Mike and I went to our first parent/teacher conference. Mrs. Sudhoff said Braden was "head and shoulders above the rest" when talking about imagination and creativity. We knew that already. I'm pretty sure Braden lives in an animated musical! You know like Marry Poppins.

She also said he's very emotional. Yup! We knew that too. We came up with a calm down corner for him and he has a chart to reward him for staying calm instead of melting down to a blubbering cry when a certain someone says "I'm not your friend anymore!" (which happens at least once a day sometimes a lot more.)

He's doing well in class. "E" for excellent in everything except Math. He only has a S+ in Math because his geometry score is lower. At least once a week he forgets to the do the work because he's busy drawing monsters and zombies out of the shapes. They're really great monsters and zombies but he ends up with a 0 for the day.

This is a picture from the Halloween party. They had play-doh that smelled like pumpkin pie. I don't know how many times I caught kids trying to sneak a taste. Braden didn't try it. Now if it had smelled liked pizza....it might have been a different story.

Cinderella's Castle

How many different colors can Cinderella's castle be? The fireworks were awesome on Halloween and the lighting was even cooler. For each villains song the colors changed. Sometimes there would be creepy eyes on the side of the castle, sometimes pumpkins would flash onto it. It was really neat!

Mickeys Not So Scary Halloween Party

We decided to do something new this year for Mike's birthday. We went to the Magic Kingdom to Mickey's Not So Scary Halloween Party. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!! I was afraid that we would have some melt downs since it was so late (7-midnight)but everyone was on a happy sugar high!

We didn't do many rides (only 3) and we only stood in line to see the Drizella and Anastasia. There were more villains out and about but we just didn't have time to see them. Their lines were pretty long. It's not easy finding villains on regular Disney days.

There were several parades, an amazing firework and light show (more pics of that later!!!) and a villain music show that we went too. All of them were fun and the kids loved them!

One of the rides we did ride was the Haunted Mansion. How could we not ride the Haunted Mansion on HALLOWEEN!!! As we were leaving the ride we saw this couple sitting on a bench next to the ghost hearse. They were not Disney employees but their costumes were GREAT and they had a Zero! So Mike ask them if we could take a picture with them since Jack Skellington is one of Braden's all time favorite characters (if you couldn't tell by his choice of costume). The couple was nice enough to do so and we got the photo of the night!

We also started a big buzz and people were lining up behind us to take a picture with them.