Weekend Update!

Friday night Tyler's youngest Brother Jordan was playing a soccer game right across the street from our house so we went over to watch him play. His team won of course!


I didn't get any good pictures of him playing, everything I took came out blurry.

Saturday morning we were getting ready to go out and do some last minute Christmas shopping and Shay came running out of the bathroom saying Mom, would it be OK if I wore my makeup today.


Unfortunately I had to tell her that even though I thought she looked beautiful she better not wear it out of the house. So after we got her face cleaned and changed into something more appropriate we took her to get her hair cut.



We went to cookie cutters. This place is so cute, they have video games and a little playground area while you wait, then you can choose what you want to sit in and you pick out a movie to watch while you get your hair done. She chose Barbie's Rapunzel.

Later that night we ended up at my parents house and the kids made Christmas chocolate. And we ate dinner.




As you can see they ate more chocolate then they made. Don't worry, none of this chocolate was given away!

Pictures with Santa!

I'm finally getting around to posting our pictures with Santa. This was done a couple of weeks ago and they turned out pretty cute!

Britton and Shayna made their wish lists and drew some pictures for Santa. In this picture they are showing him what they want.

Kids and Santa. They both LOVED visiting him this year!

And for the picture of the year!!!! This picture is sure to put a smile on your face. It cracks me up anyway!

Shane was so excited to see Santa and Santa was so good to him. I can't believe he let him sit on his lap. I was laughing so hard......cutest thing ever!!

Gingerbread house made of.......foam!

My parents watched the kids for us while we finished up shopping and wrapped all of the presents. This is what they worked on while we were away.


I think it turned out very cute....Good job kids!
Thanks Mom and Dad for keeping the kids for us...it was a HUGE help!!

Finally! A house of order.

We finally got all of the walls painted. I think they turned out really nice. The last thing we need to have done is carpet cleaning. But at this point I could really care less if they don't get done. I am so sick of people coming in and out of the house and putting up and taking down Christmas decorations. When the painters left Tyler was at work and I was out grocery shopping and picking up kids from school so they said they would lock up for us. When I got home our front door was wide open. I couldn't find our cat anywhere after searching for her with no luck Britton started shaking her treats and she came running, and our house was FREEZING!!

Here is my bedroom. The colors match my bedspread perfectly.

Shayna's bedroom. They couldn't find the lavender color that she previously had so she had to pick a new color. She wanted yellow...I HATE!!!! yellow. I actually called my Mom in hysterics saying Shayna wants a yellow wall...what am I going to do. She of course told me to give her what she wants. I should have known she would be of no help. Funny thing is, she hates yellow too. So I told the painters to only paint the wall that needed it and leave the rest of her walls lavender. She was excited to get the yellow and I was excited that you can't actually see the yellow unless you are in her room. But I actually think it turned out really cute! I definitely don't hate it like I thought I would. I actually kind of love it....weird.

The hallway.

My sitting room. It turned out more yellow then I expected. The color is called inviting ivory and in no way did it look yellow on the swatch so I was kind of surprised when I saw it but again, I think it looks nice. It's kind of calming.

And last but not least the living. It's amazing what a fresh coat of paint can do.

And just because I think it is cute. Here is a picture of the cat!

Hilda likes to hide behind the presents. She thinks no one can find her there.

Living in Chaos!

Last Friday the painters were at our house. They were not able to get everything finished so they left most of their equipment so they could return to finish up....problem is they wouldn't return for three days so this is how our house looked all weekend. It drove me CRAZY!!!

We had to take down all of our Christmas decorations and everything hanging on the walls and scoot all of the furniture to the middle of the room. Britton's bedroom and the kids bathroom are the only rooms in the house that didn't get any damage so we had to pile every thing into those two rooms. Britton has been so good about it too. He's so nice to let his room turn into this...


And the bathtub is full of junk.

I didn't think to take a picture of my kitchen before I started to clean it up. It needed a major overhaul before I could get dinner on the table for our guest. Tyler's brother Jordan was in town and we had invited him to stay for dinner......had we known. All of the painting should be finished by Monday then we will get the carpets cleaned, I'm not sure what we are going to do with everything then, could be interesting. But after that we will be back to normal...YIPEE!

Saturday we went to see Santa Claus. More to come on that later....Saturday night Jordan (Tyler's brother) needed help with Soccer registration. Jordan is the head soccer coach at Iowa Western Community College and was in town for recruiting. We went over to the soccer facility and took registration forms and money and handed out shirts. We even made some money off of it. Jordan was nice enough to give each of the kids a dollar for helping out. They thought that was the coolest. Jordan got back to our house at 11:30 that night and we stayed up until 4:00am visiting. That made for a very long Sunday.

In other news we got our Christmas cards sent out. I got them out a little later then I wanted but at least they are done. This is the picture we used for the card. I don't love it but it was the best one we could get. I hate using the timer on the camera but it works I guess. I'm sure both of my blog readers have gotten theirs already so this shouldn't be a spoiler.

I had to add this picture just because it makes me laugh. We took several pictures trying to get Shayna to cooperate. She was upset because I didn't want her stuffed animal in the picture. She reminds me so much of me! She's the best!!

Thanksgiving!

We had Thanksgiving (as usual) with the Carver's. We had dinner at Jim and Merilyn's (Tyler's parents) then we went to the church for basketball and soccer. It was a fun night with lot's of playing. Britton and Shayna really enjoyed playing with all of their cousins, especially Shayna, there are lot's of little girls her age. I took my camera with me but never got it out of the car....sometimes I really annoy myself.

We got all of our Christmas decorations up inside and out. The kids are so excited for Christmas, as am I. It's by far my most favorite holiday. Every year seems to be more fun with the kids......I can't wait!

Orbiting

We got to watch the space shuttle orbit in space from our kitchen window last night at 7 PM. It was a neat experience for the kids. I don't think they really grasped the consept that the moving light was an actual space ship orbiting around in space. Britton is learning about all of the planets and moons in school right now so he thought it was pretty cool. When they start learning more I'm glad that they can look back on this night and realize just how neat that really is!