Jammies from Grammie and other fun stuff...

We finally got our package from Grammie (my mom). And the kids all love their new pajamas!! Thankyou Grammie!! We also enjoyed the hot chocolate she made for us and the fun Santa mugs.

Here's our family room on Christmas morning. At our house Santa brings one gift and mom and Dad give 2 gifts. So our kids each get 3 gifts. We also get some things from other family members, and we have a few gifts that are for the whole family. Christmas isn't about the gifts, and so we try to put as little emphasis on presents as possible. We try to make it about the Savior and the gifts he gives us.

Merry Christmas Eve!!

Everyday this week we've been reading a different prophecy of the Savior's birth while we burned a candle down to a notch that I made on the candle for each day. It was sort of like an advent candle.For Family Home Evening earlier this week, we went through some baby things to give to a family who just had a baby. We delivered them to the family along with a tree and some of our toys the kids had chosen to give up to them as well. On Christmas Eve night after dinner, we decorated Gingerbread cookies. We used melted white chocolate because I think it tastes better than frosting. We also did our annual reinactment of the Nativity. The missionaries were at our house for the evening, so we had an audience. This year we set up a little stage with pvc pipes that had a background and everything. Doesn't Sarah look good?

Here we are decorating Gingerbread houses. We actually did this after lunch. They are tiny wooden bird houses I found at JoAnns for $1.00. They make great ginger bread houses.

And here the kids are leaving cookies for Santa before they go to bed.

Welcome Cousin Melody!

A little late in annoucing, but just couldn't go without posting. Thanks to facebook we have some pictures of our new neice and cousin, Melody Kay Ellen McGiffin. Born on December 10th at 8:33 am 7lbs, 14 oz. 19 1/2" long. My brother Mark and his wife Spring are very blessed. Merry Christmas new little one!!

Christmas break Hike

We went hiking at pine " bump in the road" yesterday. (It's actually called pine mountain, but it is not even close to a mountain-,and just for clarification, NO I'm not from Utah, I'm from the Pacific Northwest) Anyway, it was really nice to spend time together as a family outside. I've been working soooo much with my puzzle biz, that I haven't had the time to do anything like that for a while. We had a happy day.

Christmas Dresses!

I tried my hand at making the "pillow case dress" again. Even though I didn't use pillow cases. I found a better pattern, than I had before, and it only took me about 45 minutes per dress. I just love the way they turned out!! Sarah picked the fabric.

I'm terribly inpatient when it comes to sewing, and the things I make almost never turn out looking right, but I was soooo pleased with these. I think it's because they are the first thing I've ever sewn that might not fall apart after just one wear.

Alan's school project.

Alan did a report this week on how some Northwest Indians lived. He built a "log" cabin out of bamboo skewers glude to cardboard, and bark on the top. He says that's how their houses were. They're also very long. We thought you'd like to see it.

Our Trip to Indiana

So, we went to Bloomington, Indiana for Thanksgiving.

We drove 10 hours up to be with my brother and his wife

and their super cute baby, Robby.

They're the closest family we have, and they're

only in Indiana for a few short years

while my brother goes to school there.

While we were there we celebrated William's 2nd

Birthday and Johnny's 32 birthday on the 28th.

Jenette made a cake for Johnny, and I made a

little "2" cake for William. Then , the next day,

on the 29th was Tom and I's 12th anniversary.

Jenette made a yummy dinner for us! We had a lot

of fun and loved being with family. We drove back home

on the 30th, and I came home to dozens of puzzle orders to fill. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!!

We're visiting my brother in Indiana this week. We'll update the blog next week.

Little Men..

Every night at bed time, William loves to go into Alan's room and play on his bed with all his stuffed animals. It's always really hard to get William away from Alan's room, so this particular night, Alan decided to pretend he was going to sleep so that William would want to go to sleep too. It didn't really work because William wanted to sleep in Alan's bed.

William has officially moved to a toddler bed. Being just under 2 yrs old, he is at the youngest age of all our children to move into a "big boy bed". He was climbing out of his crib, even when we put the mattress all the way on the floor, so we decided it was time.

Alan is also very proud of himself for peeling apples for the first time this morning. At first he was afraid he'd peel his fingers, but once he got the hang of it, he peeled enough for a whole apple pie!After he was done peeling, I caught him eating the peels.And, here's William trying some new food as well. Crayons.... always a treat..

Gobble gobble...

Today we made rice krispy turkeys. We used some fruity pebbles too. The pictures don't really show you how much they look like turkeys. Well... some of them look like turkeys. Anyway, we had lot's of fun making them.

Sarah had the most fun. She went crazy making a whole little Thanksgiving scene.

Here's Kaitlyn's turkey:

And of course the most fun was eating them.

Maybe we can make these with Uncle Johnny and Aunt Jenette in Indiana!

Fun with Uncle Mark

My younger brother Mark came to Georgia for an interview with a college in Savannah. He stayed with us for two nights, and took part in the chaos that is our family. The kids had lots of fun with him. We hope to see more of him if he get's accepted to the college in Savannah!!

Popsicles 5 cents...

I'm not sure if this is inspired by me selling puzzles or what, but Sarah decided yesterday that she was going to sell popsicles. She made up a sign and put some of our popsicles and ice cubes in a cooler. Then she sat out on our front lawn and waited for her customers. One person actually did stop to buy four popsicles. Even though said they were only 5 cents each, the lady gave her a dollar and told her to keep the change. Sarah was so excited about her one big sale, that she wants to do her posicle stand again tomorrow. Alan wants to get in on the action too and sell cotton candy. We'll see about that....

Happy Halloweeeeen!!!

It was a rainy Halloween night, but we had fun anyway. It was just a light mist coming down. I love rain and it wasn't even cold-well not compared to the rainy Halloween nights I had growing up. Anyway,..

See if you can guess what we are:Cleaning out the pumpkins is always fun.
Tom's Jack-o-lantern:Kaitlyn's Jack-o-lantern:Alan's Jack-o-lanternJennie's Jack-o-lanternSarah's Jack-o-lanternKaitlyn skipping down the front walk in her fairy costume....And after church today, the sorting of the candy began...

"I am a builder...."

For those of you who work in Primary you know the song "My Eternal Family". We put extra focus on learning that song today, and I built this little peg board and hammer for it. The song starts out, " I am a builder working each day... " and it has a very pronounced beat. So the kids got to hammer in the pegs as we sang the song. I had so much fun making this. I really didn't need to, but I almost never get to do wood projects for fun, so this was a treat. The kids really loved it too-especially William.

Kaitlyn the Cook

So, while I was cleaning up in the kitchen today around lunchtime, Kaitlyn decided to make herself a sandwhich. I looked over and saw that she was making one for William too. And then I took a closer look, because she had something else with the peanut butter between the bread, and it wasn't jelly. I watched as she continued to make the other sandwhich for William, and discovered the secret ingredient: Peanut Butter and Goldfish sandwhiches! Yum!!