Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving has been great. We cooked a big turkey, made mashed potatoes, fruit salad, and homemade pies. We ate ourselves silly.
Hubby supervised Jon and Epic taking the ac pump off Matt's car. The stupid piece still hasn't come in ( it was ordered Monday, it was in Billings, MT). Supposedly it will be here by Tuesday I asked the parts guy if it was coming snail mail, because you could drive to Billings in12-14 hours.
We bought new Christmas lights and a set of 8 candy canes that light up. Jon helped me set up the candy canes, Ryan and Andrew went jup on the roof and hung up the lights.
We took the kids swimming this afternoon. The two foster kiddos had a great time. Hubby worked with them on swimming in the shallow end. The other boys were in the deep end. Jon did a fabulous (OUCH) be.ly flop. I hurt from it. Ryan and his friend Nelson did not dive off the board. Ryan said he doesn't trust his swimming ability.
I got an email from Ryan's basketball coach. He and his friend Nelson are on the same team. They are excited. They are great buds.

pics from our roadtrip

Here are some pics from the road trip we took to pick up our puppy. In Idaho.

This was still the Washington side.

That was in Eastern Washington, somewhere...

 

We liked the clouds on the hillside.

We were gone almost 12 hours that day.
One of these days we will make it back and check out Wallace, Idaho.
It seemed to be a cool town.

 

This weekend

Was busy. Got all the laundry washed,folded and put away. Trimmed one of my dogs nails and expressed his anal glands. That was GROSS. Epic helped. He will never go into the medical field. I thought he was going to puke. It was smelly. We did it in the bathroom. I refuse to pay the vet $30 for both services.
It's been old here, the last three morning have been 24 degrees, this morning was 26. At least it's been sunny. It's nice to look and see blue sky. The sunrises have been gorgeous to watch.
I made homemade bread yesterday. It made the whole house smell good.
The boys have spent the last couple days playing monopoly. It's been funny to listen to them play.
We are preparing for Thanksgiving. It's been hard to find decorations. Thank goodness for Pinterest. I found some really cool things I am going to make.
Hubby will be home Wednesday, so here's to hoping that the house stays clean  is in one piece.

Random pics

My mom, Matt, and TJ on Matt's Bday.

Me, my 3 1/2 month old niece, and my 3 year old nephew. Aren't they cute!

My nephew being silly.

Jon and Matt used to play with that helicopter when they were his age..

Jon getting ready to drive my car. Its a manuel ( 5-speed). He does better than my other son that HAS his license...

 

 

 

 

 





 

 

 

 

 

 

bedroom re-do

Several years ago, my older two boys picked a horrible bright shade of yellow for their bedroom walls. At the time, they liked yugi oh and the color matched their comforters.

They older boys have since moved downstairs, and Andrew and Ryan moved into this room. They have been asking me to repaint it. They have been trying to find a color they both like.
They finally picked one.
I began the process of painting their room.

I wasn't too sure at first how I felt about the grey, I really like it!

 

Now the room should not be so bright. I found some cream color curtains at Target ( what is up with stores selling one panel for curtains, I mean really?  Who honestly buys one panel?)
I painted the closet door a bright white. I think we will have to replace the trim, as it is pretty trashed. I was going to paint it, but stopped. Why waste the paint if I am going to just replace it?
I will post more pics later in the week once the room is done. The lighting is better when done in the morning.

thankful

I noticed that several of my friends on facebook everyday put on their status what they are thankful for. I was going to do it, but I don't post things on there everyday.
I will post several things on here I am thankful for.
-That I have a home.
- My yard is big enough to have a garden, chickens and room for my kids to play.
- My parents live a block up the street, and my kids get to see them almost everyday.
- That my husband will be retiring from the National Guard in 7 months. We will be able to enjoy the summer together!
- That my kids are healthy.
- My job has decent benefits, and allows me to take care of my family while my husband works on his bachelor's degree
- My husband wants to complete his degree and make decent money to care for our family!
- My husband is willing to do almost all of our remodeling, and teach our kids what he knows.
- To have friends of other faiths and cultures. I feel it makes life interesting!
- I have friends that I have kept in contact with since elementary. I trust them with my life.
- To have a loving family.

birthday

My oldest son will be turning 18 next week.
 I wonder, where has the time gone?
I have been looking pinterest to see if I see anything interesting.
I like this idea from this website.

Matt is hard to do anything for. He really doesn't get excited about anything. He did say he would be ok to do something for dinner. I am still waiting on ideas.

Cub Scout Den flags..

I created something similar to this several years ago for our daycamp.
Every year the boys would have to chose, who gets the den flag.
One day it came to me to give each boy a piece of fabric, and join them together to create a flag. The idea was at the end of camp, each scout could take their part of the flag home.
It was a huge hit, with the boys and with parents.
A couple months ago, I was asked to help create den flags for each of our dens. I used a similar idea as with daycamp, except I made a generic flag for the dens to each pin their piece to. In our pack, the boys move up on their birthday, so the kids are always moving in or out of dens.
The scout store sells big patches of the wolf, bear and webelos ( they also have the tiger rank as well).

I then cut the fabric ( made a front and back), and used fusible interfacing to give them a stiff appearance. I used twill as the fabric, since it is kinda stiff..

I joined the sides and tops together on the wolf flag. On the bear and webelos flag, I just used the interfacing to join the sides. I trimmed the sides with my pinking shears to prevent raveling. It was easier than sewing the sides. I used the interfacing to hold the badges, and then sewed around those edges.

 I then cut pieces of some ivory twill. The scouts will use felt pens to decorate the pieces.

 

The only thing left is to get the doweling for the flags, and then to make a holder ( #10 can with some pvc to hold them and cement )
These only took me a couple hours, and that was with interuptions (trick or treaters, making snacks for the boys to eat).