MERRY CHRISTMAS!

We're off to NYC! Hope you all have a great Christmas and get everything you want. Remember the reason for the season as you open your gifts, I know we will! We miss and love you all! See you all next year and have a Happy New Year too!

Let's get Crafty

You'll have to forgive me because I am way behind on blogging but some of the stuff we have been doing has been fun so I didn't want to leave it out! I have never been one to be crafty but......when a group of girls gets together and tells me exactly what to do and gives me all the tools to do it I figured I couldn't exactly mess it up! We got together a few weeks ago and made some cute decorations!

You can tell Raquel and I are pretty proud of our handy work!

This was everyone there! Amanda was nice enough to put it all together and let us make a mess of her house. Her hubby cut all the wood so thanks guys for your hard work, it definitely made it easier for me!

Can you believe I actually made these and they turned out ok? I was quite excited. We did pumpkins for Halloween and Thanksgiving and then some firecrackers for July (I can't wait to use them). These actually aren't mine (I had to steal them from anothers blog) I never got around to taking pics of my own, but they look pretty similar.

Party Hardy

I don't know about you all but here in Columbus we partied hard this year for Halloween and had so much fun. Much better from last year when we didn't even see our husbands on Halloween at all.

First up pumpkin carving - We look forward to this every year - well Sherri does anyway :)

We went to the Davis' and had yummy soup (thanks Quel) and watched a movie while we carved

Shayne doesn't love the carving part so much so he scoops out the guts, which Sherri hates anyway, and then Sherri usually does the carving Gutting the pumpkins - Shayne loves to have the baked seeds after

This is where Shayne and James ended up when they were through to finish the movie!

I love this girl (Lexie Heaton) she is so dang cute

ARRRGH Matey! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here they assign different cities days for trick or treating (weird I know) ours was the day before Halloween. Not sure what your neighborhood does for Trick or Treating but ours apparently does this.......................... HOT AIR BALLOONS!

It was really cool, we walked outside and there were 3 balloons that were in the middle of our condo complex. They kept lighting them up and were handing candy out to the kids from the baskets, it was fun - only in Columbus!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Halloween we had a sports themed party. We may have just as well had a spandex party since that seemed to be the popular trend. Shayne went as Lance Armstrong and Sherri went as Alan Iverson (or so she said, she didn't exactly look the part but he is her favorite player) Sherri made a creepy themed dinner and it was lots of fun. Thanks everyone for dressing up, what a great time! THE MENU

THE PEEPS & THEIR COSTUMES

The next day we went to our friend's (the Whipple's) house for another party. They had yummy food and we played some really fun games, we were boring and wore the same costumes!

Raggedy Ann and Andy

Hicks (since some of you don't know these guys FYI that makes this even funnier - their last name really is Hicks)

VISITORS

We FINALLY had visitors from Sherri's family come and visit for the weekend (Shayne's family has already been here a few times). Her brother is in school up at Michigan so they drove down for the game and a quick visit - we had so much fun. This was actually the first time Shayne has met Grant, and Sarah was really small and not even talking last he saw her so it was a much needed visit! We hope there are many more to come since they live so close now!

Yay for apples!

The apples I picked a few weeks ago were so yummy I just had to share it with them so we went again and had so much fun. We had a great time sampling all the different kinds. At one point I think Sarah had 3 or 4 she was eating at once. We ate so much it made us a little sick but it was well worth it. Now just think of all the yummy things that can be made with them

TRICK OR TREAT!!

Since they were missing their ward trick or treat we took the kids to ours and it was so fun to see them all dressed up!! If you have never seen Disney's Enchanted you need to. Like most toddlers Sarah is obsessed with princesses but out of all the one's she could have been she chose to be Giselle from enchanted minus the red hair- so funny!! Grant is her Prince Edward - too cute! Kasey is a woman of many talents. She actually made this whole costume modeling after the one in the movie and it looked so good!

Sarah was so cute, she wore this dress as a flower girl at a wedding so she calls it her "married" dress! She kept telling everyone how pretty she was in her married dress and dancing and twirling around - hey who wouldn't with a gown like that!

Prince Edward and Giselle dancing :) Do you love his cloak?

All tuckered out after - she got a lot of candy! I just loved this pic with her dress all bunched up around her!

Just because - Grant is such a smiley happy boy and has a smile that just melts your heart - I miss them already!

Dressed for church - they just looked so dang cute I couldn't resist. Notice the bow in Sarah's hair? Again one of Kasey's many talents - she actually sells them at etsy.com

Another quilt that I made for Grant - it turned out super cute.

This is just for anyone (probably you mom) that cares but here is what else we did - Steve and Shayne went to the game and Kasey and I had a good time just relaxing and chatting. She doesn't get much time at home to just sit around and do nothing with the kiddos around so it was nice. We also went to dinner one night, had bath time with the kids and even played with the dogs. Sherri was a bit nervous about this because Sarah has said she doesn't like dogs. Well that's not the case now. She may not love them but she sure isn't scared of them anymore and by the end she was feeding them, petting them and even throwing their toys and letting them lick her, it was too cute!

A Picking We Will Go!

This past weekend I went with Ashley and her kids to pick apples at a fruit farm. Apparantly there are a bunch out here and I had been wanting to go for some time, so I finally did!

There are rows and rows of apple trees and you can just go and pick to your hearts content. You pay per bag but don't care how many you have in the bag so you better believe we stuffed it to the brim, some were even falling out!

They have almost every kind of apple available to pick. They let you sample them so you can decide. We went with the suncrisp which were these greenish, yellow ones. They are soooo good!

Just some more apples, the trees are so heavy that they start bending over. Makes them the perfect height (at least for short people like me) for picking

Cambri kept wanting to get the "one's way up high" like us.

As you pick you can eat as many as you want, and that is just what we did. The kids were especially good at it. As you can see at one point Cambri had three she was eating!

We went on a hay ride through the orchard after.

The best part was we were pulled by this beast!

Even though they say the apples will stay good in your fridge until April, we still had so many I had to cook some cause there wasn't enough room. They gave us a card with a bunch of recipes while we were there so I tried the apple crisp! Delicious!

Back to Boring

We have had such a fun summer and are so sad it has come to an end. Now it's back to work, back to school, back to endless nights of studying, back to everyday errands and chores, back to boring nights alone, back to just plain boring. Unfortunately, this means it's back to boring posts that only get 2 comments instead of 25 because I am racking my brain trying to think of something. Hey - let's face it, the fun had to stop at some point. Can't wait for the next school break and more fun. Since Shayne is back to being super busy I have had to find something to occupy my time. I actually finished this project awhile back but just never got around to taking a pic. Don't worry I have plenty more projects in mind to keep me busy!

I have never owned a hand made quilt. I have always wanted one but have never been given one like some of you, and have never known how - UNTIL NOW!! My friend Molly has a really cute rag quilt her mom made her that I always envied. Right after Molly had her baby and her mom was here visiting, she was kind enough to teach Molly and I the art of rag quilting. Although the goal eventually is to make a large one for our living room, I thought I'd better start with "baby steps", so.......what better way than with a baby quilt. Thanks Sherri and Molly they turned out super cute!