Thanksgiving 2011

Over Thanksgiving week, we took a trip back North to visit family/friends and so that I could stop by the office for a day. The trip up actually went pretty smooth with the exception of the down pouring rain from Fairmont all the way to Weirton. It wasn't terribly cold when we got there and I got to get my Eat N' Park on and I was all...





The next day (Wednesday) I had to go into the office and I was like...


But I got up, put my big girl panties on and we all headed down to the lobby for breakfast. It was still rainy and super windy, so I asked Paul to go out to the car to get all of our coats. We had left them out there the night before because we didn't really need them that night. So Paul comes back to the lobby and he's all....



So we get all bundled up and head to the office, which doesn't turn out to be that bad. After work we met up with our friends Christina and Jeff at a new restaurant in Steubenville. My mom had picked up Ash, so we just had Addy, Coop, and G. We go to order our drinks and  I ask if they have milk, nope. Juice? Nada. Ummm ok, I guess the kids will have water and G was all...




and was practically in total melt down mode by the end of dinner. She wanted her milk! And this made me totally stressed, so not the best dinner we've had.

After dinner, the kids wanted to stay at Grandma Ginny's too. So we called her up and she said that was fine. We needed milk (like as in yesterday) so we stopped at K-Mart (yeah, don't ask). We go in and Addy now has to use the bathroom. Public bathrooms are totally...


and K-Marts are even worse! So we get everything taken care of and get to the hotel to pack everything up. Please note that irritation levels are at a code red at this point.

We finally get the kids to my moms, bathed and in bed. We make a pit stop at Wal-Mart and then Paul takes me to Eat N'Park again since I am always ...

Thursday was




Mom made a great turkey, Ash thought her finger was the potato when she attempted to peel potatoes, and I mashed the potatoes while hoping not to find a lost finger. We relaxed all day for the most part and had a pretty great Thanksgiving.After dinner,we repacked their suitcase and headed to Grandma Becky's (in Moundsville).

We promised the kids we would drive through Oglebay to see the Christmas lights but it's such a long ride...in the dark...after turkey...so everyone was...



After waking everyone up, we paid our $20, got our Christmas lights CD, and got our light show on. The kids really enjoyed it and so did I. I love Christmas lights!

We got the kids settled at Grandma Becky's and headed back to Weirton. Of course, I was all...





Since it was Thanksgiving, nothing was open but Sheetz! My hero! I got a MTO pizza...yummy! Then we met up with Christina and Jeff to hit the stores for some good old fashioned fun Black Friday shopping! Macy's opened at midnight and we were on it...



I'll admit it, it was fun to make fun of others. We did get some cheap luggage (we had been looking for luggage forever) so it wasn't a total waste of time.

Friday, we headed back down to Grandma Becky's to have dinner. We had turkey,green beans, homemade noodles (which Paul loves) and mashed potatoes that were totally the





I try to make my potatoes like Becky's, but she is the ultimate master and should be on Top Mashed Potatoes or something.  The kids had a great time!

An actual real pic

 

Saturday, we had a small birthday party for Cooper at my Mom's house. Since he turns 6 on 12/8, she thought it would be nice to have a little get together for him.

Weirton was having their first night parade! It turned out to be a beautiful day and wasn't too cold. We bundled everyone up and headed downtown and ran into



Really, it's Weirton people! (Of course I say this when I was part of the crowd attending too LOL)  We finally got parked and walked up to Kroger (the end of the parade). Cons of being at the end of the parade? They run out of candy and they stop dancing/singing/playing instruments way to early :/

Another real pic of us at the parade.

The parade was super fun and the kids had a blast I loved that it was at night and all the floats were decorated. During the parade, Kroger was still open and obviously needed to stock up, so  the delivery guy got to be in the parade...(really, can I just ask if that was really necessary?)



Everything was going well, until Addy had to,of course, use the bathroom. I am totally going to start putting my kids in Depends.  We had a scary incident while using the bathroom, but all is well and no one was hurt,except for my sense of security (which isn't a bad thing). We went back to Mom's house and left early Sunday morning.

Our trip back home consisted of



and more





So needless to say, it wasn't the greatest trip back home (are they ever?) but we made it home by 8PM (another 9 hour trip turned into 12) and could finally relax. As usual,never a dull moment!

Take a Breath

I was making lunch for Addison the other day and she was rambling on as usual. This girl has major conversations with anyone willing to listen, possibly even those that aren't actively listening. I may have mentioned this before. Hmmm, come to think of it, I wonder what I have agreed to that I have no idea about.

Anyways, she was talking about how much one of Ashleigh's friends like Genevieve. Then all of a sudden, she bursts into:

Genna's 1!
NOT 12! Baby (our cat) is 12.
NOT 20! She would be as big as you!
NOT 80! 80 is old. Like, I can't even count to 80 yet.
Baby can't count to 80 either....cause she's a CAT!!!! (laughing)
I don't want Baby to die! (Sad face)



Ummm ok. She said all of that so fast, without even taking a breath and she went from laughing to pouting in milli seconds I actually had to replay it in my head once I had realized she stopped talking and was looking at me for some sort of response. My response? I burst out laughing and told her I had to write all that down to blog about it. Then I addressed her fear of Baby dying...poor thing is always worried about the cats!

This girl cracks me up!

Self Delivery

A few weekends ago, I convinced Paul to go to the furniture store to "browse". We went with all of the kids, which is always fun and in no way stressful. ;) After browsing and discussing all the living room sets we might consider, I ran into a set that I instantly fell in love with!

It turns out that it was a set that had been discontinued, so while we saved money, delivery wasn't an option. These are the moments Paul looks at me with the "this is why I should have a truck" look. We decided we would buy them and figure out a way to get them home over lunch. Paul went in to the closet U-Haul place to see how much it was for one-way (so we wouldn't have to drive back to Raleigh to drop it off). He also wanted to see how much another place would charge, so we drove over there to check it out but they ended up being closed. So instead of going back to the U-Haul store we had just come from, Paul called the U-Haul # and told them which store. We headed back towards the U-Haul store while waiting for our e-mail confirm and when we got it I realized that they had booked the truck at another location. We turned around and went to pick the truck back up.

After what seemed like driving around all day, we got our couches loaded up and brought them home. This is when I give Paul the "where are your brother's at when you need them" look. With 4 kids running amuck, I helped Paul unload the couches from the truck and into the living room. These are NOT light couches by the way.

Paul pulled out the paper work to call the nearest U-Haul drop off to us, but there were already closed, so we had to drive all the way back to Raleigh.YAY! When we finally got back to the house, I had the pleasure of helping Paul carry the old couch, love seat and over sized chair upstairs to the bonus room. Just for reference, Paul and I should never attempt to be on any shows like Amazing Race. We may get the job done, but it is not pretty!

So by the end of the night, we finally had our new living room set up. No one can sit in these unless they ask permission first LOL

Cloth Teething Guard

I never had many issues with our first 3 children chewing on the crib rails. Of course, they'd chew on them every once and a while but G must be part baby girl and part beaver. We bought the plastic/rubber rail guards but she just takes them off and beats her crib with them. Never mind the fact that the guards don't fit particularly well to begin with.

Here's a picture of the area she chewed on the back rail...



I had pretty much given up on saving the crib. I figured it would just have to be sanded down and re-stained anyway. While on pinterest, I came across this teething guard. I seriously wasn't even looking! It looked simple enough, so I ran out and grabbed the material.

My crib rail is 51.5", so I bought:

• 1.5 yards of single face quilted fabric (so I wouldn't have to sew 2 pieces together)
• 3 yards of fabric ( I bought 1 in one pattern and 2 in another)
• Spool of ribbon (so I wouldn't have to make ties)

SN: I did not need that much fabric and have a ton left over.

1. I cut my fabric to size. Since I was using 2 different patterns, I added a few inches to allow for room to sew them all together. My pieces were 18" x 6". I cut my quilted fabric to 51.5" X 5". Then I sewed the 3 pieces of fabric together.

2. I put the fabric face down and placed the quilted fabric on top. Then I folded the edges and pinned into place. I did not iron...just folded and pinned.

3. Instead of making the ties, I just used ribbon. I think the ties would have been stronger, but only time will tell:) I cut the ribbon in 5" strips and pinned them into place. I used shorter ties so that they wouldn't hang down. I put the guard on G's crib and marked where I wanted the ties placed, just like the website said to do.

 4. I used my sewing machine to straight stitch the entire thing together. Placed it on the crib and tied the ribbon.

I think it turned out really cute. I am still working on the back rail. I had to rush through the front rails gaurd since she has really been going to town on it LOL

Update: I ended up adding actual ties to the guard because G proved to be too strong for the ribbon I used.

Halloween 2011

This year I was determine to make the kids their Halloween costumes. For some reason, the idea of making them cave kids had popped into my mind. I figured felt would be super easy to work with and I convinced Paul to buy me a sewing machine.

I started out with Addy's outfit. I traced the outline of a dress she had, cut it out, sewed up the sides and hot glued black triangles onto the dress. After I finished hers, I decided that we should all dress up as the flinestones. I bought the bone hair piece at a Halloween store to complete her "Pebbles" look. It was cold out, so she wore a turtle neck and leggings underneath.

After going through the list of characters on the Flintstones, we decided Ashleigh would be "Betty". 

  

Cooper was of course "Bam Bam".

 

Next came "Fred" .... 

Then "Wilma"....(my necklace was foil that I made into balls and wrapped with felt)

And we couldn't have the Flintstone's without Dino.... I made G's out of fleece (so she was nice and warm) and it was more stretchy than the felt, so she was able to move around easily. I added a zipper for easy access and hand sewed on the tail.



I made everyone go out to our annual festival, Hollyfest, even though it was freezing and wet. It was a huge mud hole and even though there were a TON of people there, I am pretty sure we were the only ones there in a costume. LOL At least we were awesome! 

We came home and headed over to our neighbors for an awesome Halloween Party. I made "witch's brew" and it was delicious. I'll post pics and the recipe later (I forgot pics today but am making again tomorrow).

This by far was our best Halloween and I am already looking forward to next year.

G's First year

Ancestry.com gave us a promo for a free photo book from Shutterfly. All we had to do was pay shipping and add the photos. Here is G's first year all wrapped up in a photo album for her. I am hoping to get this done for the older children as well.

The book arrived today and I love it! We will cherish it for years to come! Enjoy

Click here to view this photo book larger

Build your own high-quality photo books at Shutterfly.com.

Pumpkin Costume

This Friday, Cooper will be in a book character parade. Everytime I asked what charater he wanted to be, he would tell me Mario. Since we don't have any books with Mario in them, that wasn't going to work.

Since it is pumpkin time, we've been reading the book Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White and he has been learning about pumpkins in school. Even though it's not technically a "character" in the book, I figured a pumpkin would still represent the book and also go along with his current school theme.

Using some left over orange, I cut out the pumpkin shape and sewed it together. I left openings for the arms and the bottom open so he can just slip it on. We cut out green leaves and he told me what shapes he wanted the face. We just hot glued the face and leaves on to make it super easy.

Tada...a pumpkin costume in 20 minutes

 Paul thinks the face looks like Cooper LOL

Homemade Lawn Spider

I was really excited about decorating for Halloween thanks to Pinterest. I found these awesome spiders (at least I thought they looked cute) and was determined to make them. I couldn't find black 260 balloons anywhere, so I ordered them online. They arrived yesterday and I set out to make the spiders.

The directions say not to be timid, but the first 2 I tried busted :( The remaining ones were either too short or I had a leftover skinny section that just hung from bottom of one of the legs. Paul promised he would figure out something else, so we tossed a few ideas around today.We ended up buying some corrugated pipe from Lowe's and Paul figured out the rest as he went.

First, Paul cut the pipe to the size he wanted using a utility knife. Then he staked them into the yard (originally was suppose to be up on the roof, maybe next year)...

We had a black garbage can that we never used in our garage, so we used that for the body. Paul just placed the can directly on the tubes. We may secure it later, but for right now it's staying in place. He placed more tubing inside the can in a U shape for the eyes and placed white Christmas lights in the tube, then covered the tube with some orange felt scrapes (orange eyes). Then he added the insides of a green air filter we had hanging around to the lid opening to cover the tube eyes. Some white felt fangs were added for a finishing touch. 

Finished product...

It turned out super cute and wasn't hard (for the most part). We just used some random stuff we had around the house and the pipe.

SN: Our neighbor has agreed to allow everyone to believe that there were no frustrating moments/cursing and everything went as planned. That's her story and we are all sticking to it!  LOL;)

If anyone has some cool, fun decorations...feel free to share. I love making my husband do things! Thanks Babe!