Snow!

It is SNOWING! It is! It Is!

The kids are outside running around having a blast. (It's not sticking, so unless ice comes along later, they'll have to go to school tomorrow!

This and That

These are some swatches of fabric that I chose to bring together our sitting area and kitchen.

The square on the right, on top of the green swatch was my second choice. My first choice was more muted, but they were out of it and if I wanted it I would have to pay for 20 yards!

I needed about 7 yards. We are recovering our favorite chairs. After 6 years of childrens hands and yogurt etc..they are in need of new coverings! These swatches don't show the caramel and browns that are also in the fabrics. I've never been into using a fringe or tassles before, but it seemed to really add to the valances so I decided to go with it this time!

I will post pictures when it's all completed. I did find some drapes for the sitting room that were already done and the chairs will be done in 10 days, however the valances needed to be sewn and it'll be 4-6 weeks before they are completed.

OK...so now I've totally bored you all!

Other news..it might snow here! It hasn't snowed since Isabelle was 9 months old (7 years ago) and Jospeh has never seen snow, so the kids are totally excited!!!

Swimming Lessons

Isabelle and Joseph started swim lessons on Monday. They go on Monday and Wednesdays for 30 min. On the second lesson they were swimming! I really couldn't believe it!

Boars Head Feast

I coordinated this Boars Head Feast. It is an annual tradition at the church. It was alot of work, but alot of fun. The boyscouts served the food and one lady organized the

decorations. The men cooked barbeque from a very very early hour all day.

Other people prepared side dished.

We had a local High School acting group come and do a comedy

about Shakespeare.

Most of the people who attended dressed up in medieval costumes.

It was really fun.

Brendon was so sick that he ended up not being able to attend.

These are pictures of some of the families that came dressed up.

The Smiths
I forget their names! (They don't have kids yet..you know how that is!)

Me and the kids.

Judy, Jennifer and Vince (she makes all those costumes!!!)


Our good friends Peter, Julia, Susanna, Sonja

What's missing?

The Toothfairy is coming tonight!

Our time at th beach!

We left for the beach the day after Christmas for a relaxing time! All the grown ups read their books and the kids swam in the indoor pool and played on the beach! One day the elevators didn't work and were on the 19th floor, so we certainly got our exercise in that day!

blog header

Right now blogger is having a problem with the header and that is why I can't get the Christmas lights off. Hoping it'll change soon!

Dog Days!

Our dogs live outside, but if it's really cold they can come lay on the kitchen floor!

However, Brendon was busy cooking up a delicious stew and didn't notice who snuck

herself into a comfy chair and curled up for a nap!

Who can blame her..right?

Sarah will be 9 years old in February.

She's a good dog!

Christmas lunch and afternoon

I think this is the last of the Christmas pictures. We had a nice lunch with everyone. All my grandparents and Kelley and Lora. Then we relaxed the rest of the day. Joseph got a bugsucker from Mimi and Papa as a gift and he went outside with Uncle Kelley to look for bugs. Isabelle received and electronic diary from Mimi and Papa and Brendon helped her figure out how to use it. The rest of us exchanged books and you can see we were all reading! I finished mine down at the beach.

Presents! Gifts! Santa!

These are pictures are of us opening gifts. If you look at the first picture of the gifts that Santa brought and look to the left you will see a little plate where we left cookies and milk for Santa, and you can see he made a mess and scattered jelly bean on the hearth!

If you put the cursor on the pictures there will be captions.

Aussie Christmas (Eve)

We always open our gifts from Australia on Christmas Eve, because it's Christmas Day over there.

I'm slowly catching up to the blog. I'll be adding along now that I"m home. I'm organizing a Boars Head Feast (like a Madrigal) that is coming up on Saturday, so I've got my hands full starting out the new year!

Happy New Year!

Christmas Eve

Santa Picture

This is a picture of a picture. I don't have a scanner, so the quality is not perfect. However, this is 2007 Santa visit! They were so sweet!

Our Extended family Christmas gathering!

Christmas Parties and Santa Clothes

The last day of school before break the kids had their school Christmas parties! Joseph is in Kindergarten so they still do alot of crafts and singing. Isabelle had a secret book exchange. They drew names and then bought bought a book less than $6 for each other. We went to see Santa after school and it only took 4 hours!!! They dressed up and we took pictures on the front porch and they were goofy in every single one of them!

Neighborhood lights!

The kids and I drove around the neighborhood one night looking at all the houses that were lit up with decorations. The best house wasn't lit up that night, but I hope to get it tonight and I'll add the picture in. It is very hard to take pictures at night. I didn't want to use flash because if you do it's too brights, but you really have to prop your camera so you don't get handshake. The shutter speed slows way down when you don't have flash at night. Anyway, it was fun to see. We have lots of families and they all like to decorate. The one house that is really lit up though is the home of a very older woman!

Mentos and Diet Coke Experiment

The kids have been begging to do this experiment, and when Isabelle saw the mentos at the grocery store check out today she really wanted to do it! So we did! It starts a geyser immediately.

An evening with good Friends!

The Koenig's came over Saturday evening. It's always a treat when we can get together with them. We live on different sides of Atlanta, so it is an accomplishment when we can arrange to get together. We've been friends since we had our first babies and met in baby massage class in Decatur! Wish we knew more wonderful families like them. Brendon had been wanting to cook paella, so he found Emirl's recipe on the food network and went for it. (We figured if it didn't go well we could always order pizza.) But!, it went so so so deliciously! I took several pictures of Tyler, but they didn't come out, but he is in the kids table shot. He is about 18 months and cutie, running around with super energy! Isabelle and Madison are peas in a pod. It is so funny to see the two of them together. And, Abi and Joseph are fun kids to hang out with.

(Push the music button on the snowman to turn off the music if you want.)

Rain!

Well...it is raining!

For those who don't live in GA..we are having a serious drought..it's really a crisis! That is why we all talk about rain all the time.

Sunrises

Yesterday it was very foggy
This morning it was very red..I hope that means rain!

New Paint

We finished painting. It was very foggy this morning

so it was hard to get a good picture.

Can you do this?

http://www.ferryhalim.com/orisinal/g2/puzzler.htm

I can't even do the easy one!!! I get it all except the two top right hair blocks!

I am almost up to 5000 on a dog for all seasons! If my space bar didn't stick all the time I could do that game!

I don't sit around doing this all the time! At breakfast and after I put the kids to bed! It's fun!

The Dog ate my homework kind of afternoon!

Yesterday I had a nice lunch with another Mom. Then I headed off to carpool. While waiting on the kids I found out about bully in the classroom. I had heard about a few things from Isabelle, but now I've found out more! URghh!
Then Isabelle came to the car and all the sudden she's freaking out! Her homework fell out of her backpack..folder, composition book...everything! So, we stay till all the cars leave and go hunting everywhere for it...never could find it, but got some extra off the teacher.
We drive home and I pull in the driveway and see two girls from the neighborhood dragging my Border Collie across the neighbors yard and they are telling me Sarah is running around the neighborhood! Yep! We finally get the dogs in and the gate shut.
After that we are calm for awhile and have snack and do homework. But, later Brendon calls and someone has broken into our cabin and torn down the door, stolen the tv and two of the comforters off the king size beds! Luckily we don't have renters this weekend so we can get it fixed before next weekend.

After all of that, I actually felt ok, but did not cook dinner! You know...any excuse will do to not cook dinner! LOL Bread, and chese and chicken from the deli!!!

Yesterday the kids had a half day of school, so we went bike riding on the greenway with another family after we picked them up! It was fun, and I can't wait to go again!

Did this yesterday morning for the first time. Not too bad!

This is what it looked like our first Christmas as parents! It hasn't snowed at Christmas in GA since then (Dec 2000). Brendon's parents came to visit. It was their first winter Christmas, so it was really neat that the weather gave them White Christmas too!

Whining

I feel like whining today. I'm not up for the holidays yet and just want to relax! I would like to nap until after New Years! So, in honor of napping here are pictures of my favorite nappers!

Joseph 1st day home

Isabelle's 1st day home

Decorate..paint first

Well...we could not live with the yellow in the kitchen and keeping area anymore. The yellow is fine as a color, but definitely not in this room. I forgot to take a picture of the cabinets, but I will and you can see why it's just blah blah blah with yellow. So, we tried a neutral terracotta color and several greens. We chose shagreen by sherwin williams for the walls. For the keeping room I plan to paint the ceiling cottage cream also by SW. We are going to put bead board up on the bar and paint it the cottage cream too. Oh, I have got to post a picture of the cabinets, because there's on section of them I think I'd like to paint cream too...but that's kinda scary!!!! One day (that'll be when we sell the other house) I want to get custom slip covers for the couch and chairs in the keeping room and some sort of window treatments...roman or something shades for the windows. That mantle, seems like it would be great, but it is a real real pain to decorate and because the mantle is rock everything sits wobbly. Urghh! So, this is a beginning to decorating and as the weeks (months) go by I hope there will be yummy, delicious and pretty progress!

Some pics from last week

I'm sorry to say I did not step up and do my usual job of photography over Thanksgiving! I just have had a lull with blogging and I will get back into it now!

Substitute teaching!

I was a sub today. Oh my goodness I do need a massage! Blork!

Thanksgiving

We have been eating so I haven't had time to post!
Soon, I will get some pictures off of my camera and there will be something to see.
Kelley and Lora were married last weekend. You can see pictures on Mimisusans blog.
Then we had school functions on Tuesday. It was Grandparents day.
Extended family is in town for the holiday and we have all been visiting and the kids have had much fun playing together.

Rehersal Dinner

Look at MimiSusans blog. You'll find her blog on my sidebar!

What happened the year you were born?

In 1970 (the year you were born)

Richard Nixon is president of the US A federal jury finds the "Chicago 7" innocent of conspiring to incite riots during the 1968 Democratic National Convention The lunar spacecraft Apollo 13 splashes down in the Pacific after near catastrophe The first Earth Day is marked by millions of Americans participating in anti-pollution demonstrations At Kent State University, National Guardsmen fire into a crowd killing four student antiwar demonstrators A powerful earthquake claims 50,000 lives in Peru 18 year olds are given the right to vote in federal elections Tidal wave driven by cyclone from Bay of Bengal hits East Pakistan, killing hundreds of thousands An anti-war rally is held at Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, attended by John Kerry, Jane Fonda and Donald Sutherland Queen Latifah, Mariah Carey, Andre Agassi, Uma Thurman, Jennifer Lopez, and Matt Damon are born Baltimore Orioles win the World Series Kansas City Chiefs win Superbowl IV Boston Bruins win the Stanley Cup Tearjerker Love Story is the top grossing film I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou is published "The Long and Winding Road" becomes the Beatles' last Number 1 song

What Happened the Year You Were Born?

Well...at least Matt Damon was born! One good thing happened...other than me!

A Dog for all Seasons

If you click on the games link I have in the sidebar there is a game called A dog for all seasons. It's the the fourth game across in the top row. I've gotten up to 2300, but it's a tricky little game. It seems really easy at first, but then..ahhh..it gets tricky. Give it a try! These are fun little games that even your kids can play.

Kids and Psalm 23

The kids learned Psalm 23 this past month. Each night we learned an additional line. They learned the traditional King James version, but picked this for our blog. I said I would post it once they learned it. I also like the traditional hymn.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HndQZlmJPpc&mode=related&search=

Which way is she turning?

This is wierd. Brendon can see both ways. I can only see clockwise. Which way do you see her? Leave a comment. This is wierd, but fun!

http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,22556281-661,00.html

ASO and Chorus

Last night Brendon and I went to the Symphony. We have half year season tickets, but we had trouble finding a sitter this week. In the end one of them came through and we headed out.
They preformed Ein Deutches Requiem after intermission. It was really awesome and the orchestra and chorus did an amazing job. This piece took them 70 minutes to perform. I can't wait to go to the next performance.

Isabelle as St. Lucia
Joseph as St. Luke

I made him a Dr. kit with black poster board, but you can't see it.

Since the kids attend a Catholic school they had All Saints day the day after Halloween.

They had to dress up as a "Saint" and tell about them.

I am Joseph's room mom so I had to organize a party for his class.

I was about zonked after that.

Well, anyway the kids thought it was fun.

You can do a lot with a pillowcase and poster board for costumes!

HALLOWEEN

The kid had a great time trick or treating last night. Deally's came over to trick or treat too. The Mommies sat on the front porch and passed out candy, while the Dad's took the kids around the neighborhood! I have a candy hangover today!