Cards I've Made

I can finally post these cards! I made several cards for my secret sister at MOPS and as a Christmas gift for my mom. For an early Christmas gift, my mom bought me a Silhouette Machine and I have been putting it to good use. As you have seen in some of my previous posts, I made some things for the Thanksgiving dinner at church and also for the bulletin board.

My mom mentioned that I might even try to sell these and I am highly considering it. I have a few friends that throw botiques around Christmas time and so if I decide to make these, I have a year to put them together. I also just ordered some stamps with the cutest sayings for my cards. For example, the squirrel would say "I'm Nuts About You!" or "Awwwe, Nuts!"

Check out my cards and let me know if you think people (or you) would buy these.

From our home to yours

We wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Meeting Santa

Monday, after Thanksgiving, we went to go see Santa Claus. Elsie talked about meeting him ALL day long and even insisted that we dress up in our Christmas clothes. She kept watching him while we were in line and couldn't wait to see the big elf himself....until she got up there! While her brother and sister were giving him hugs and telling him what they wanted for Christmas, she was running back to me. Even with me holding her, she still had that terrified look on her face. But when it was time to leave she was waving and saying good-bye in her biggest voice. Maybe next year....

Leadership Christmas Party

I am blessed to a part of the BEST MOPS group ever! And am even more blessed to be able to serve along side with some of the best leaders too. Last night we celebrated our friendship and all the hard work we have done so far with a Christmas Cookie Exchange.

One of our mentor mom's, Melanie, was kind enough to open her home to all 20 of us women and we were warmly welcomed by her decorated house and poinsettia plants.
Once inside, you also had the distinct feeling of warmth and love with the tree, decorations and table settings. This was going to be a fun party!
We started off our evening with lots of conversations, some homemade appetizers and hot apple cider.

We three ladies worked great together as at team. Cassie (Coordinator) was responsible for 2 appetizers and drinks, Karma (Table Leader) brought all the super cute decorations from her own home and Me (Table Leader Coordinator) made 4 of the appetizers.

This table spent most of the evening discussing the power of prayer and how wonderful our God is. I love being a part of a group filled with such strong Christian women.

The next few pictures are of some of the great ladies I get to work with on a regular basis. These are the woman that pray for me, laugh with me, cry with me and just over all understand and support me. We are the ladies of MOPS!

Susanne (Hospitality) and Michelle (Fundraiser)

Carla (Table Leader) and Cassie

Michelle and Nell (Mentor Mom & awesome prayer warrior)

Nell and Lorraine (Mentor Mom) gathering their cookies. We went home with a TON of yummy cookies!

Susanne showing off her stash!

Thanksgiving Feast!

Our church holds a Thanksgiving dinner every year for the members and their families. This year, the lady who usually organizes it no longer attends the church and so they asked me if I would head it up. The first two times (yes, twice) they asked me, I turned them down. One, because we have only been attending this church for 10 months and therefore, I had never seen how it was done. Actually, I had never even been inside the church kitchen before! Well, the third time I was asked, it was by the Senior Pastor. He asked me to pray about it and get back to him two days later, on Sunday. I prayed and felt that this was something pretty important to the church and I was actually getting excited about it. Scared, but excited. So on Sunday, I told my pastor I would head it up if we could get a team of 5 people to help set up, cook and tear down. He presented it to the church congregation that morning and I had over 20 volunteers! Yes, it is good to listen to God!!!

Now, I only had 7 days to plan this feast for 150 to 200 people. Yikes! I had a meeting with everyone who volunteered after church and was able to get 6 people to cook turkeys at home and then bring them in already carved. I had several others scheduled to come in on Saturday to set up the room and several ladies to come in early on Sunday to help me in the kitchen. During the week, the kids and I shopped at 6 different stores to get the best deals, as I was working under a very tight budget.

It turned out that we had 152 people show up to eat and God really did wonders in that room that night. I am so glad I listened to Him, as many were blessed because of it.

One of the good things about me having never been apart of the Thanksgiving feast, was that I had free reign to do what I wanted with it. In the past, it had always been catered and served buffet style. Well, I decided to have us all eat family style. This way we could all eat together at the same time and pretty much finish eating together. Eating family style also meant that there had to be more communication among everyone at the table in order to pass the food around. Also, being a mommy to 3 small ones, I know how bored kids can get at these things. So instead of using cloth table linens, I decided to use craft paper. This way the parents didn't have to worry about the kids messing up the linens and the kids could color right on the paper after they had finished eating. Win, win! Now on to the pictures!

Now, remember I only had 7 days to plan this and I was on a very limited budget. I also wanted to keep it kid friendly. Here is a picture of part of the room. We had six rows that held aprox. 3o people.
I decided to make these thankful trees. I bought the vases at Dollar Tree and lined each one with a sheet of moss. Then I cut some branches off of a tree and had our youth trace/cut out their hands and then wright something they were thankful for. The tag around the vase says *Give Thanks*.

Because we were using craft paper for table cloths, I thought it would be cute to draw on placemats and use bright colored plates/cups/napkins. This was actually a bigger hit than I could have realized and so easy.

To keep with the Thanksgiving theme, I and the youth group made these pilgrim hats and filled them with crayons. The kids LOVED them!

We used these partitions to hide anything we would not be using that night, but of course they are also kind of plain. Any easy fix, print out these letters (GIVE THANKS) I found on the Internet, hang them on a ribbon and adorn with leaf cut outs we had on hand from our October bulletin board.

I also found the next three print outs online, put them in picture frames (from my house) and added them to each table.

There were two of these. One in cranberry and the other in green.

This fun one, another that said Keep Calm and Cranberry On and a third in brown that said Gather Here with Thankful Hearts.

And lastly this one.

Afterwards; Waynes band, Southland, played in the sanctuary. It was a fantastic night and I have heard nothing but compliments and how everyone can't wait for next year. Oy Vey! lol

Thanksgiving 2010

Hope you all had a happy and blessed Thanksgiving. We spent our Thanksgiving with Wayne's brother and family. This was the only picture we were able to get. Enjoy!

Halloween Weekend

We started our Halloween weekend on Friday afternoon, carving out our pumpkins. The kids decided on the shape of the pumpkins eyes, nose and mouth leaving the parents to do the drawing and carving.
Everyone helped removed the guts and seeds, although it took some convincing to get Elsie to touch that slimy stuff.

Kya and Seth supervised my cutting skills.

Our finished pumpkins with some might proud kids. Just as I was snapping this picture, all three kids decided at the same time to lean forward making for this cute shot.

After we carved the pumpkin and cleaned up, we set the table for a festive meal of Costco pizza followed by ice cream!

On Saturday, Wayne and his band were playing about an hour away at a church's harvest festival. We decided to tag along for the fun.

Introducing Princess Cinderella! (her hair is wet which is why it is stuck to her forehead)

Introducing Sheriff Woody!

Introducing Princess Cinderella!

At the harvest festival, we played lots of games, the girls got their faces painted and we ate free hot dogs and nachos while listening to the band.

And of course, we were on a major SUGAR HIGH! Two fisted Elsie!

Sunday was a long day for all of us. We started off the day going to church where Wayne preached and I taught the kids. Then we headed down to Long Beach to attend my cousins going away party. After that we went to my parents house hoping the kids would nap/rest, but they were way too excited for the nights festivities. Finally, we headed over to my brother's house for our 2nd annual Halloween party with all the cousins and family. We ate mummy dogs and jack-o-lantern burgers before posing for pictures and heading out to go trick or treating.

All the cousins. We had Woody, a Wolf, Cinderella, a Puppy, Cinderella, Minnie Mouse and Thomas the Train.

Trick or Treat!

There were more adults than kids! 10 adults vs. 7 kids

Then tonight, we headed out in costume one more time for our annual NICU Reunion. It is always lots of fun to reconnect with our special nurses and see how much the kids roommates have grown. No pictures this year.

And in case your wondering........YES, we are all very tired!

Pumpkin Patch

On October 16, Cal Poly Pomona had their annual pumpkin festival. How on earth did we not know about this before? It is by far the best pumpkin patch we have ever been to. We arrived around 11am and still had to park about 1 1/2 miles away. This is one popular place!


Walking the long walk from our van to the festival.

Once we got all the way to the corn maze, we realized we didn't have any cash and they didn't take credit cards. So I left the kids with Wayne and ran all the way back to the van to get our atm card. While I was at it, I was able to move the van to a much closer spot in the parking lot.

I told Wayne to take some pictures of the kids while I was gone and he was able to get this cool shot of them in the corn.

Then we had lots of fun getting lost in the corn maze. The kids had lots of fun trying to find their way out. Each child took a turn being the leader and we all had to follow them without complaint. Elsie was pretty tired at first, as she hadn't eaten lunch yet and it was close to her nap time. But, once it was her turn to be the leader, she perked right up and took charge. (she loves being in charge! LOL)
After the corn maze, we got some lunch from the vendors. We ended up getting a sausage sandwich that the students at Cal Poly made themselves. YUM! Kya took this picture of the four of us. She is actually a very good photographer. One day she got hold of my camera and took all sorts of pictures of her room and outside her windows. I should post them someday. Then we headed over to the grassy area to listen to some music and taste some food/drinks in the student store.
Inside the store, they let the kids decorate some flat pretzels to look like jack-o-lanterns. These pretzels were sooo good and I will be making a trip back there some day to buy them.
Finally, we made our way over to the pumpkin patch! This picture of Seth does not do justice to how many pumpkins there were. This is only about 1/8 of them!
This kids kept asking me to take their pictures. Total cuteness!
I love how the pumpkins were laid out on this thick long grass and not dirt. Made posing for pictures that much easier and fun. Kya decided to just lay down in it for a while and I was able to capture this picture without her even knowing it.
We found a corner of the pumpkin patch on the other side of the hill that didn't have too many people and these big sunflowers. Cute family eh?
I love this picture of Wayne. I think I am going to print it out and frame it, then put it on my nightstand.

We tried to pose the kids for some pictures, but it didn't work out well. The best pictures were ones I capture while they were playing.

Caught the two of them having a deep father/son discussion. These sisters were in love with each other this day!
Playing tag in the patch!

I think we may have just found ourselves a new family tradition! Won't it be fun to take pictures of the kids year after year in the same place and see how they grow.