Last year, it seems I printed out the pages for 2-3 Christmas-y lapbooks that were circulating for free.  I know for SURE that one of them is the Grinch.  Problem IS, I printed only the minibooks and NOT the directions.  My computer crashed so now I no longer HAVE the directions.  

Does ANYONE remember/have these that could email me the directions?!??!

HELP!!

Paul was able to attend the Marine Birthday Ball in Tashkent. He had a nice time. I wish I coulda been with him.... Didn't he look cute?!

 Devon thought how very "officerish" this pose is, the photographer set him thus.

Paul with Gulya, our dear friend! We all miss her SO much!

 Ah... my lovin' man! I do so miss those grins.

What a delight to spend Thanksgiving with the family! (The only regret was that Paul was not with us!! I tried not to pout too much. Ü )Everyone came over to our place, we had a feast, we chatted, we laughed, we posed for pictures, a movie was watched, games were played, food was packed up and dishes were done.

We have so much to be thankful this year! God is good and his blessings are rich!

We hope your day was full of memories and smiles.

 Dinner was fabby!

Desserts and nibbles are always the best!

 Hanging out.

 Enjoying some down time.

 Uncle Mario & Devon

 Eddie and River

 Bella and Sierra on Milkyway.

 Devon playing us some tunes.

 w/ Grandma Jody

I met my friend Kim and her three kiddos at Disneyland on Monday. Since the boys were occupied with play rehearsals I took just Addison and Ian along for a day of fun.  And did we have some fun!  

The three of us were at the gates well before they opened, so we could be in the front of the line to enter… and we stayed until the place closed. (8am-midnight!) By the time we stumbled to our car in the wee hours of the morning, the three of us were completely exhausted!!

We spent most of the day running around (and I do mean running) from ride to ride with Kim and the kiddos, (since Ian and Addi are older we did duck off every now and then for a big kid ride.) It was so fun watching all 5 of the kiddies as they were amazed at the sights. It was also a lot of fun dragging them all around, our human chains!  Disney really is grand! We said good bye around dinner time as Kim was going to watch the parade, and I think the parade is prime time to get in much shorter lines  on the “good rides” Ü

Once we said good bye it was game on! The three of us were like kids loose in Disneyland, oh wait, we were. (giggle)  I did convince both Ian and Addison that Space Mountain is really the best ride in Disneyland, so the day was a success. lol.

It was a great day, full of fun memories that we were able to share with Kimmy-Kimmy, Zach, Haley and Lindsay. What a treat!

Kim and the Jones Kiddos!

 Ian playing grumpy. Ü

 A grand day for all!! (Kim and I have been friends for 22  years! Yikes, we are getting old!LOl)

On my desk....

The kiddos slept in this morning, and the went right back to the construction zone in the den - the mix of Tinker Toys and Legos made it hard to walk thru there....

I spent the entire day - seriously, with very little time away - working on cleaning out Girl Scout stuff.  I had three binders full and a stack of stuff.  I managed to get thru most of it and get it organized.  I need to get some stuff typed up and loaded to my groups, but i did get a handle on the scout stuff.  I am down to 2 binders - one that is strictly bank stuff and the other that is the rest of the stuff.

Even with all that I did here at the desk, I still managed to get muffins and an apple pie made! 

Since the kiddos got in trouble and had to have dinner then go to bed, it is quiet around here.  I am watching something about Air Force One - different than what I watched Sunday afternoon.  I am about to go to bed and read while I watch the White House thing. It's on the History Channel!

Have a great Turkey Day tomorrow!

They were ready for a break!  They borrowed the Tinker Toys from grandma and they played all day long! I have never seen so much construction from them.  I can't even begin to tell you what all they built.  And to think I thought they were a little old for Tinker Toys.

After lunch, we watched WallE.  Well, they watched WallE.  I tried to but couldn't get into it.  I spent some time searching online for a good bread recipe.  I just want plain simple boring bread.  And I want a recipe to put in my tried and true book for future use. Anyone have one they want to share??  Please send me to one!  When I make bread, I put it in the bread machine and let her mix, knead and rise my dough, then I take it out and bake it in the oven.  This has always worked for two reasons - it hurts my hands to knead and mix and all, and my bread machine burns the bread on one side.  So we work together and make whatever bread.  I have found a successful pizza dough recipe and I thought I had a good cinnamon roll recipe, but looking yesterday I didn't see it.  The recipe I chose wasn't the best - wasn't the wrost, but I have had better.  It came out of the machine very sticky and appeared that it didn't rise very well.  I tossed it in the loaf pan anyways...kinda short, a little dense, but still edible...expecially with enough butter.

While my bread was baking, I pulled out a notebook that I had started writing recipes in and copied a few more.  I went thru the stack I have - it was a mile high!  I seperated them in to tried and true to be put in my book and need to try, which will be my goal in the new year.  How do you keep your family recipes?  I am thinking that I will make each of the kiddos (I am counting 4 here - My two and Em and Chunk) a handwritten family favorites book. The only problem is I need to get them all together!

I also made a batch of haystacks for Scouts tonight.  We had our November pack meeting, complete with Thanksgiving dinner! Riley got his popcorn award, consisting of a new multi-tool pocket knife! He was pretty excited about that - funny thing- he even had his totin chip on him...LOL

Roger is working late, so I am off to search for more bread recipes.

Today was a chilly rainy day. It was perfect! I stayed home all day long; Addi and I had a jammie day! (The boys had things to do and places to be, so they had to get dressed. smile)

We spent the day getting things ready for tomorrows Thanksgiving get together. We arranged and set all the tables, listened to some instrumental music all day long, had steaming cups of tea, decorated the place and baked! What a treat it was to spend to spend the day baking at home, and with the weather cooperating outside… it was heavenly.

We baked up a storm!

Today we made five types of cookies: Ginger Cookies, Maple Cookies, Sugar Cookies shaped like leaves, White Chocolate & Cranberry Cookies and last but not least Pumpkin & Chocolate Chip Cookies.

We made two pies: a Chocolate Chip Pie and Great Gramp’s Thanksgiving Pie! (Paul’s grandpa made it every Thanksgiving we spent with them. Yummy)

We made three loaves of quick bread: Poppy Seed, Egg Nog and Cranberry.  

We made up our dinner rolls for tomorrow.

We made a Harvest Cake.

We finished our day in the kitchen off with a batch of Pumpkin Fudge and Dylan’s Salami Rolls.

Tomorrow will be an easy day in the kitchen for me. All I have left to do is make the mashed potatoes, the sweet potato casserole, the deviled eggs, and the ham.  

Everyone will come over early in the afternoon for games, chatting, some nibbles and just to be together. Dad and Michelle have to work tomorrow, so we will eat our Thanksgiving dinner at 4:00, that’s late for us on Thanksgiving.

We hate being away from Paul everyday… but it is harder when there is a holiday. Thankfully, there is a family that is still in Tashkent (there aren’t many of them left!)  that have invited Paul over for the day! Thank the Lord for the blessing of friends- to keep Paul company and make him feel welcomed!  (Thank you Denise!!) We have always been so blessed with each and every one of you...being a part of our lives! What we would do without you and our time together??!!

Prayers that your day is chocker’s of thanks!!!!  

Love from all of us!

We did have a lot to catch up on today.  I didn't realize how much we really needed to make up.  They fussed a little about it, but they worked hard and we got all caught up.  I think it helped that I read a couple of silly Thanksgiving books while the worked on their handwriting and math.

I decided to go to the fire station with Roger and do some of the work down there, the kiddos went with us.  That was fine because another set of kiddos were there also and they all get along.  I managed to get caught up on what I work on and offered to help dad get other stuff straightened out.  We worked for a little, but mainly ended up with a list of things we need at Office Depot...lol...

We stayed longer than we had planned, and it is late. Nite folks....

to church that is...

I got up when Roger left, and tried to stay up, but it didn't happen.  I rolled over 10 minutes before church started.

I hung around the house, did some chores and read the book I need to review.  Dinner was at mom's so I went early to get Riley and we went on over.  Daddy made fried chicken~ yum! ~ with all the fixin's.  Nobody was up to a game tonight, so we watched The Gaurdian -with Ashton and Kevin...can I just say TEAR JERKER!!  Loved it!!

The kiddos are in bed, and I am headed there myself.  We have to finish up last week's work tomorrow, then we are free from school for the week!

When we moved in here, we had just started collecting 'rubber duckies' for the bathroom.  We made the main bathroom a pale yellow and continued to collect.  As the kiddos are getting older, I am beginning to think it may be time to 'rethink' the batchroom choices.  I haven't done a lot of looking to see what is out there, but having a girl and a boy, that is going to make it tough!  We have the Old Fashioned Faucets in our master bath, and while we like it, it doesn't seem 'fun' for the kiddos!

How is your bathroom decorated?  I would love some ideas!

We have a normal size bathroom, with a regular tub (which we will exchange for a bigger tub if/when we redo the bathroom!).  We have a bathroom sink vanity, a normal toilet and a pretty good sized linen closet.  It woul dbe nice if there were more bathroom furniture, and maybe we can adjust when we change things.

The vanity we have in there now is one that was a discounted model, we weren't sure why, until it overflowed!! There is no drain hole!!  One thing we will do is a new vanity!  Perferably one with 2 sinks...