TRADITION!!!

I'm so excited! I love this time of year!!! And it always starts November 1!!! As you can tell, I have put Christmas music on my blog now. Ever since I can remember we have always started listening to Christmas music right after Halloween, Nov. 1!!! We looked forward to it every year, and it was like a sin if you listened to it before that date! :0) It was always a competition who turned it on first. I remember several times my Uncle Wick would call early in the morning and tell us he has his music on, do we? I have to admit, I have sung a few songs during the year, and I did watch a Christmas Elmo and Elf this summer, but I officially started listening to Christmas music this last Sunday and I LOVE IT! Anyways, that's my blurb for the day! Turn your music on!!!

We "FISH" Kade a Happy Birthday!

I've had this draft since Kade's birthday in September, we had computer problems, then the holidays, and so now I'm finally posting it in January. Kade turned BIG 3 Sept. 17, 2009. We "FISHED" him a Happy Birthday! Here's some pictures.

Apricots with pretzels, cream cheese and mini chocolate chips. It was fun to make to go along with the theme.

Our octopuses. Hot dogs with spaghetti noodles.
The kids making their egg carton "tackle boxes."
Fishing from upstairs into our living room.

Kade's 3 blue fingers.

What an excited face!

We love you Kade!

Cute Bryson Pictures

Last month I went out to Amy's house to help her do the brown paper walls in her bathroom. I got a hold of her nice camera and started playing with it. These are the pictures I took and think are such sweet pictures of Bryson.

Annual Jackson Reunion

August 29th we went to the annual Jackson reunion at "the ranch" in Clay Springs. Glen's Uncle Dennis and Aunt Iona always do such an AMAZING job fixing all the meals for the family. It is always GOOD eatin'. Some families come camp on the ranch the night before, but Glen got off work late and was too tired to drive so we did a one day trip. Early morning to late night, but it was worth it. I think it is so important to go to reunions and stay connected to extended family. I've enjoyed visiting and getting to know Glen's extended family every year. Here's a few pictures from the day.
I like this picture of Bryson and Grandpa Lowell.

All the kids took turns riding the horse.

We had lots of fun volleyball games.

With the wind it got pretty cool, but the kids still did a slip n slide.

It is not a Jackson event until there is some random competition. This time it was holding a sledgehammer, about 8 lbs., straight out with your arm. You could do it to the side or in front and hold it however you want. Glen's cousin's husband, Boon, won, Glen got second. This picture does not show all the funny faces Glen started to make towards the end of his time as he was straining to hold it up, it was funny. I did it for 2 minutes, which for not working out I was pretty happy.

Save Your Scraps

I got the idea for these Quilted Notecards on this site,
http://www.dana-made-it.com/2008/06/tutorial-quilted-notecards.html, which I thought was really cute. This is such an easy project for anyone, and what I really love is that there is really no way to mess them up. I knew there was a reason I would save all those little scraps of material when I do my projects. The internet is amazing and people are so creative. You can find ideas to use scraps of almost anything to create something else. I love it.
Here's my first 10 cards I put together for a pack to take to the Jackson family reunion as part of my stuff to contribute for their auction.

Here's an upclose of a couple to show the zigzag.

Here's what the inside looks like.

Cloth Baby Toys

I had made this Cloth Block and Cloth Baby Rings for Dallin's First birthday. Hopefully he's not too old for these yet. It was so hard to figure out what to make for a boy. Girls are so much easier to make for. Anyways, for the Cloth Block I used this website, http://makeitandloveit.blogspot.com/2009/03/as-promisedcloth-blocks.html, and then I also added a couple little rattles in the middle so it would make noise when you shook it. For the Rings I used this site,http://makeitandloveit.blogspot.com/2009/03/cloth-baby-rings.html.

Here's some vegetables I bottled this week. I'm so lucky to live by the Superstition Ranch Market. I got a ton a stuff for only $18. So I bottled them. I always thought the mixed vegetables looked cool in the bottle.

This is Kade waiting for me to cook breakfast. Unfortunately, he wasn't feeling good and ended up throwing up a little later. It was wierd though because it was completely clear, it seemed to be just water, which I guess that's all he had had that morning so far. And then after he threw up, he was completely normal and went off to play.

Organizing our Food Storage

Last week, I was finally able to find space for my food storage where I can actually get to it easily to use it; instead of having to sleep on it as we did in our last apartment. I only needed a couple shelves out of our hall closet to put my bottled food and one of each food in the #10 cans and PETE containers, then I can refill them when necessary.

This picture shows under our staircase. A lot of houses have hall closets under their stairs, which we do, but then our neighbor told us we should knock out the dry wall in that closet right underneath the slant of our stairs. So Glen knocked it out and now we have all this space to store our bulk food storage. I love being able to see and get to everything. So anyone with stairs, you may want to look into that for a cool space to store food.

Also under our stairs we filled up our water barrels and tucked them in there. It feels so good to finally have them full. I don't know if you can tell, but the barrels are on furniture movers with the wheels. Tim and Cara gave us the idea, which is brilliant because otherwise once you fill them up with water there's no way you can move them, this way they seriously come out so easy. So just an idea for anyone who wants to fill up barrels. Just don't make our same mistake and leave your barrels while filling it up. Long story short, here we just had the flood in our home, from the empty townhouse we share a wall with, back in June, then we were filling these barrels up inside the house, sometime in July, and not just once but twice it flooded. The first time, it was near the kitchen and living room on the tile, I got distracted, luckily Cara was at our house and she asked how the barrel was going. I panicked and ran in and started yelling "TURN OFF THE WATER!" While Cara went to turn off the water, Glen grabs the hose and kinks it and throws it in kitchen sink...while the water is still on...therefore, the hose unkinks and water starts spraying everywhere in the kitchen. I could not believe it. We all tried to hurry and soak up all the water and tried to save the new baseboards we have put in, and finally had that barrel done and pushed back in the closet. Then for the second barrel, we tucked it in the closet first and then started to fill it up. I didn't want the flood to happen again so I sat there for a minute or so and then decided it was going to take a little while and so I went to help my kids and Cara's kids get some food, and guess what happened? Yep, overflowing water all in our stairs closet. Again, we had to find more towels and clean up, take both barrels back out to put several fans to let it dry completely in there. Oh, Glen was sooo frustrated. We were exhausted after that and had a million towels to wash. It gives me a really good laugh now. I think for our emergency preparedness list we need to add "Build Noah's Ark!" Anyways, that wasn't a short story at all, but it was fun to write down that great moment!

After putting all the food storage away and other house stuff from moving, we had a ton of boxes. So last Friday when I had eight kids under 4 yrs. old, I thought I'd let the boxes keep them busy. I tried helping them make a house, which Caylin enjoyed and colored a box for a TV. But Dayson, Konnor, and Kade were more interested in stacking the boxes and knocking them down! Boys will be boys!

Here's just a few random pictures from last week. Glen was holding Bryson while getting in the freezer and Bryson reached in the door and pulled out a popsicle! The camera just happened to be right there, I had to take a picture! He's so stinkin' cute!

Glen was with the 12 yr. old scouts and they had to practice on a bar of soap for wood carving. This is what Glen created. We have no clue who it's supposed to be, but I thought it turned out really good.

Toad

We were leaving Amy's house late Sunday night, and just a little bit down the street a big toad was in the road. So Glen had to pull over, pick it up and take it back to Amy's to show the rest of the fam that was there. I used to see these all the time in Ajo growing up, and our wonderfully smart dog, Hooch, would eat them and get really sick. We would find his throw up everywhere. Ok, you didn't need to know all of that. Anyways, I haven't seen them in ages, so it was kind of fun. As you can tell below, Kade was not too thrilled.

Scherenschnitte

For Amy's birthday I decided to try a scherenschnitte, or in my terms paper cutting. This is the website I've been looking at about it, http://papercutting.blogspot.com/. I've been into silhouette pictures lately and so I thought I would try something new, and especially since Dave is leaving for a year, I thought she might like it. I first took the following picture of Amy and Dave, printed it out, traced them, and then cut them out with a x-acto knife on black cardstock. Then, I put their picture on top of the second picture below to get the whole floral design, and then added "Love" in the middle. I cut it all out and then put it on scrapbook paper for the background. Sorry my picture turned out a little dark. If you're an artist you can really make up a lot of cool designs of your own, but I'll probably stick with templates.

Arizona Natural History Museum

I'm a Cub Scout leader now, so on Saturday Glen and the boys joined the scouts and I at the Arizona Natural History Museum. http://www.azmnh.org/Home.aspx. Unfortunately, we only took a couple pictures, and they didn't turn out very good. But we did have fun. They have an exhibit of Mars, Indians, panning for gold, a couple other things, but the main one was the dinosaurs.

Cloth Baby Shoes

I made my first pair of cloth baby shoes for my cousin's baby shower this past Saturday. This is the tutorial I used http://www.michaelmillerfabrics.com/blog/cloth_shoe.pdf. It was really fun, easy, and a cheap way to get baby shoes. I'll post the picture of the pair I made as soon as I have it.

Bryson's First Haircut

After the birthday party, we decided to give Bryson his first haircut. The kids didn't get to bed until midnight. I felt bad, but we had to get it done.

BEFORE SHOTS

MIDDLE SHOT

AFTER SHOT- although by this time it was late and he doesn't look too happy!

He's really not happy! He has a green tongue from a sucker we had to give him to keep him happy while cutting his hair.

These next few are after his bath. He was being so cute and cuddly with these pillows.

I love his teethy smiles! Isn't he cute?!