Friday, February 27, 2009

Snowboarding Circuit here we come....


For two years now my older kids have taken snowboarding. Jacob seemed to be a natural from the beginning. He quickly advanced through the lessons last year. Again this year he did the same. This year he also received the highest (coveted) lesson sticker..... "THE BLACK DIAMOND" He was so excited!! The black diamond allows you to snowboard on any hill in the resort. From there you learn techniques and earn black pins. He tried on the last lesson to earn one of the pins, but the instructor was not qualified to teach those lessons. Instead Jacob and his friend helped the instructor teach the class.
We wont get to go snowboarding today because it is raining and are expecting thunderstorms....

Thursday, February 19, 2009

My Valentine's Suprise!

My sweetie gave me these roses for Valentine's Day! :)
We really didn't do much, I had to work. as usual But even so, we don't enjoy going out and waiting *forever* to get a table at a restaurant. We normally do something simple at home. This year was no different. We got the kids each a candy heart with chocolates and the girls and Josh got a stuffed animal. I didn't see anything the older boys would be interested in so they got a gift card for that *thing* they have been saving for. now what was that *thing? Anyway they were thrilled to get the gift card! We were going to have a special lunch, but i forgot to buy special food...lol I did find a Valentine cake that we had after lunch, since i had to go to work.

I received another Valentine surprise in the mail that day! My friend Vickie and her girls sent me a package.
This is what is left of it....Josh took off with the candy hearts and the Valentine card. He said it was his! lol I have been protecting the remaining items so Sarah doenst take off with my doll and hearts. :) lol Thank you Vickie and girls!!! :o)

Saturday, February 14, 2009

Time Flies....



My oldest child turned 17 yesterday! I can hardly believe it has been that long already. She had grown to be such a lovely young woman. snif, snif...grabs tissue
We started the day off at snowboarding. The weather/snow was good even though we have had several extremely warm days and then rain. After a long day of snowboarding, we had a short wait at home for dad to get home from work. then we headed off to CC. She invited three friends to come to her party, Which was nice she doesn't get to do stuff with friends too much. It was fun to see her laughing and being goofy with other teens. We stayed at CC as long as dad could stand. lol There were a LOT of kids there last night! Shouldnt kids be HOME onFriday the 13th?? It is a scary night!! lol
Eddie, Robyn, Emily S and Emily C

They did some goofy stuff, unfortunalty i dont think anyone got photos of the real good stuff! lol
HAPPY BIRTHDAY EMILY!!!

Valentine giveaway

Annie Is having a Valentine giveaway! She also has an awesome website!!
I have tried her Wickedly Easy quilt and it really was wickedly easy!! :)
Jump over and check out her blog and website! :)

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Spring is in the Air

Just last week we had 18 inches of snow. I took these pictures yesterday...
There is actually less snow today because it rained all night. The temps today got up into the mid 60's! I hear that some cities have had problems with flooding. Crazy!!

Wednesday, February 04, 2009

Another catch up post....

Whirl into Winter Giveaway!
I participated in the Fall into Fall giveaway, but just didn't have the time to be creative for the Whirl into Winter giveaway. I entered a few of the contest, but didn't have the time to enter them all. I was so excited when Julie from View from the Windshield
emailed me and told me i had won her giveaway!! c: You see i love baskets, I have a small collection of miniature baskets and I have always wanted to own a Longaberger basket. I just cant justify the cost with a family of 7. It is just not practical. So now i am the (very) happy owner of a Longaberger basket!!! :oD She also sent me a wall decal (is that what you call them?) from her Uppercase Living business. I need to ask a crafty friend over to help me find the perfect place for it!! :o)

You should check out Julie's blog! She is celebrating her 50th post with a giveaway! She is giving away a $10 gift certificate from her Uppercase Living business. Winner will be announced Feb 9th, so hurry over and enter! :o)

My basket collection

So while I am at it i decided to share my miniature basket collection with you...
A few summers ago, a friend and i took a day trip to Dresden (home of Longaberger) and toured the factory and looked around all the wonderful shops in the village. I got a basket from from Dresden, but had to understand that even though the basket was from Dresden it was NOT a Longaberger basket. It must be a legal issue that they have to comply to.

Here are some that are in my kitchen, also on that shelf is a salt/pepper shaker that i found at a church rummage sale. I paid .25 for it! I really love it!


These are on a shelf in my dining room. The basket on the right is the one i got in Dresden, that is NOT a longaberger. lol
This shelf is also in my dining room. It has an apple basket that I got years ago at an apple orchard. I think i originally got it for a teacher gift (school days) but decided i couldn't part with it. lol
This is my smallest basket. You can see it is about the size of a key. c:
And this is one of my first baskets. I got it years ago when we lived in Va. I was at a craft show and this woman was selling her handmade baskets. It remember it was kinda expensive, but I know a lot of work went into making it. One day i will have to post pictures of the baskets *i* made. The local park used to hold monthly class. I took several of them, but that got expensive...The teacher is now famous and has moved on to a bigger venue.

Life....


It seems that we have been very busy again...I actually enjoyed sitting home last night and reading. Of course that was after taking Sarah to dance and stopping for milk. Emily got me reading "The Host" by Stephanie Meyer. (Twilight) It is more of a slow read for me (currently) I hear it gets better. But right now it is difficult to follow who is talking. And the description is even more strange than a human falling in love with a vampire. This book is about alien *souls* that are implanted into humans and are taking over. The main characters are a human girl that was implanted with a much looked up to soul or Host. Normally the Host takes over the human body and the human soul no longer exists. This human is different and still exists in her body along with the Host. I told you it was strange....

Our own version of LOL cats

I happened to walk into the kitchen and thought it was funny seeing Tippy (kitty) watching Emily doing the dishes. lol (Really, she was wanting dinner)
Then Emily discovered i was taking pictures and did the old bunny ears trick on the cat. lol
Tippy is NOT amused!!! (Emily you better sleep with one eye open!) lol
Flowers....

This is the latest installment of Liturgical flowers for church. A friend and i had this great idea of redoing the altar flowers. The flowers we had were probably 30+ years old. In our planning we decided to make arrangements using the colors of the church year. This is the "green" arrangement. We recently got flowers for Purple and white. We made the Red back in August.
Being sick
Here is Timothy attempting to do school while sick. The poor kid didn't think he could take a sick day i guess...lol he later ended up going to bed because school work was too exhausting!

I am happy to say that we are all feeling better now! Some of us have a lingering cough, but that's it.
Snow!!!

These pictures are for Lyn :o)

she is in Australia and currently suffering from excessive heat. I told her i would be happy to send her our snow!! :o) I think we broke the record for snowfall in the month of Jan. It all fell during the same week.
Last night the news was saying we would get 2" overnight. When shoveling my path to the bird feeder i measured 7" of fresh snow! (just a little off) with a total i our yard of 18".
I wonder how expensive it would be to heat a driveway?? lol wouldn't that be the best thing? lol

Rascal enjoyed playing in the snow this morning. He loves snow. When i was shoveling my path he would come and attack my shovel so i would throw snow on him. Thanks for reading!! I will try to post more often than i have been. :o)

Sunday, February 01, 2009

Pine Wood Derby Champ take 2



For the second year in a row Timothy won 1st place for his den and 3rd place in the pack. He was super excited even though he doesn't look it. I think he was worried about missing the Superbowl.
Here are the top 3 winners...This is an awesome shot! Timothy's car is in the far lane under the #1

I am so proud of Timothy and his dad for the work they put into the car "together" Timothy designed the car and dad helped with the cutting, but it was up to Timothy to do the rest. We have discovered in Pine Wood Derby events, that you can tell which cars the dads made and a which cars the boys made. Even though Timothy's car doesn't look like a professional wood worker built the car, it still was fast enough to blow past the other cars.
Now i need to get him a shelf to store all his trophies. :o)

I had to go look at the pics from last year. I was surprised to see how much Timothy has changed, and surprised to see the same boys and dads in the pics. lol The boy that won last year won again this year. We think he used the same car too. lol We had joked about using the same car next year. lol

Another Birthday Boy!!!

Yesterday was dh's birthday! We did a low key family thing here at home. We ordered pizza and played Wii. (i have pics from playing Wii on New Years Eve but dd stole them) Speaking of dd...she has some really nice birthday photos on (one of) her blogs. At the end of the day the birthday boy was exhausted. It either means he had a fun day or he is getting old....lol!