House redo

My friend Joyce always offers new perspectives on things and I invited her over before lunch the other day to give me some ideas on Grace's room. She did allot more than that and we may have a new look by the time summer rolls along.  The girls have been at my mom's for a few days and we got busy.  We clean out their rooms about twice a year and they were messy to begin with.  Between their rooms (not even finished) and ours,  we got rid of 3 trash bags of trash and 2 for donations.  Lots more to do.  Millie's room- get rid of baby bed and change table, over the door shoe hanger in closet. Bins on top shelf of closet, use the corner shelf as her desk and get a taller chair.
Grace's room- over the door shoe organizer for craft and doll stuff, angle the bed, rearrange.
Our room- stack the bookshelves and put the tv in the top,  put books in top of scott's closet, make a sitting area, console table or buffet along side wall, paint walls and rearrange wall hangings.

Whew. Sounds like a lot of work  ;)

Star wars Rogue One

Scott won tickets to see the movie at a city movie showing this fall, so we scheduled it for the Christmas holidays. My last-minute idea was for Scott and I to wear matching Star Wars onesies, but Walmart didn't have any. Grace and I found these ugly Christmas sweaters instead. Too bad it's 70 degrees today :(

Friends and kids party

This boy wanted to open that present for 2 hours. 

My haul

With the boys

Newest addition

All PJ'ed up for 70 degree weather. 

Every year my sister and her friends have gotten together for the holiday season. It used to be a friends party, but now it's a friends and kids party.  It was a big deal to me when I was finally brought into the friends group,  complete with my "friends" Brighton bracelet. 
Finally the last of us had a baby, but he doesn't like people,  unfortunately.  But I think it was our best one yet.  Lots of kid fun.  Lots of baby cuddles. 

Grace's annual winter blast

Sunday was Grace's annual friends party. Her friends Cleah, Emma and Charisma came. Emma's mom stayed to help. My mom came to help the girls paint an ornament. They could make a nativity, gingerbread house or a moose. Ginny was a little overwhelmed. She snarled and snapped at some kids who didn't listen.
They roasted weinnies and made smores. Scott was super dad, for sure. The girls had a great time, but I'm finding that I don't like people in my house.  Grace was a total brat leading up to the event because she didn't want to clean. She was grounded for a few days afterward.

Edited: Her friend's brother died a few days after this, so we're giving her a break to grieve. One of these girls lost her 18-year-old brother to a quick, unexpected illness. God bless us all. 

Church Christmas parties

Sunday was a busy day for us. First we had a congregational Christmas potluck party. It was really nice. It was a joint party with the Hispanic church that shares our campus.  We did crafts and sang songs. And ate - ate great food. They did a cute present game with the kids and they had good gifts.

Then Grace had her annual party, which was a bit of a nightmare. She ended up grounded for several days.

Our women's group had our potluck on Monday. We always do a stealing gift game and we came home with a beautiful sculpture of carolers, a fluffy snowman and a bucket with sugar cookie mix and a snowflake cookie cutter.

The girls were super good and it was fun. 

More Christmas fun to come!

Christmas presents

I had an idea during the summer to give Kimberbell pillow forms and pillows to people for Christmas. It's my favorite kind of sewing - assembly line style. I started this summer gathering the fabrics, cutting and assembling. I ended up with 5 long ones and 5 short ones. I think they turned out really well.

The big ones went to my sister and our group of friends. The smaller ones I'm not sure. Something will come up. 

Family and Cousin pictures

We did our family pictures this year at a pumpkin patch. We had never done that before. They turned out well, but I had to take the pics and have them enlarged to put them on the wall. The lady we used wasn't knowledgeable. My mom wanted my sister and me to have pictures of the kids done again, so we did that. It was an event for Scott and me to go shopping for their clothes. They all turned out well too. They both looked like models, Millie especially.