Halloween Book Basket

One of my new favorite things to do is have a seasonal book basket for the kids. We really enjoy it, especially Sam and Mia since really they are mostly board books but that doesn't mean that Jake doesn't enjoy listening. Nothing is better than a snugly soft blanket and a basket full of books to read.


Some of our favorites:

• Where's Baby's Pumpkin?
• Who Said Boo?
• Little Spider - Sam thinks it's hilarious to smush the finger puppet spider back in the book for me to pop out bonking his head.
• Charlie and Lola's Boo! Made You Jump
  No More Monsters for Me - a very easy reader for Jake
• I am a Leaf
• Stellaluna
• A Halloween Mask for Monster
• I Spy A Pumpkin
• The Monster at the End of this Book - my favorite! Who doesn't LOVE Grover?

There are few other favorites in the basket that aren't fall including Sam's favorite Touch and Feel Baby Animals. I would love to add to our collection. Do you have a favorite book to share with us??

I am thankful for my sisters

I just read this article about Stephanie and Christian Nielson. Yes, I am still so completely absorbed with them. Go read it. You will cry. It's a good story.

I am so thankful for my own sisters. VaLynn is wise and willing to work out problems with me. Teryn (poor sore Teryn) is silly and energetic and is fun to talk about her latest projects. Sharmyn is a well rounded vessel of comfort. She can talk about anything and everything and make me laugh too. (Notice how all my sisters have unique names and have 'y's' in the spellings? I haven't gotten over it. I tried to figure out how to put a 'y' in Mia's name but it just didn't work.)

And I can't forget my sister-in-laws too. Debbie has a gift for service and is the only person that I know that could have clean white carpets with six children. And Megan (aka Dee! Dee!) is my giver. She is always willing to paint Mia's fingers and toes (I just joined in too!), gives Mia and I shoes, dresses, jewelry and of course makeup. Mia's favorite!

I love you dear sisters for all that you do for me! I can never repay you enough for your kindness and generosity. I am looking forward to going to Teryn's this week to help her. Ryan is generously keeping the kids with him so I can have my full, undivided attention for her. Full on sister time. Sounds wonderful to me.

A Pumpkin for Nicole

I love how this one turned out Nicole. Lovin' the oranges with t

he coppers, browns and greens. I hope you like it too!

****You can have one too!****

I have one more of these that I can make.

Email me if you are interested!

A Witch for MaryLyn

Marylyn!

I am in love with this one! Check out her cute little fringey skirt. I am too excited to get this to you!


****You can have one too!****

I have two one more hat left that I can make. E-mail me if you are interested! SOLD OUT! Thanks!

"Pumpkin Pouch"

I felt like a last minute, impromptu adventure for some festive pumpkin picking. I rounded up the kids and headed on out to Pack's Pumpkin Patch (or "pouch" as Mia calls it) and the weather was perfect and punkins a plenty. Of course the kids had a grand ol time begging to come back again soon to pick more and BIGGER pumpkins!

Mia found the perfect pumpkin for sitting on. Gotta love the pose and the smile. She is so into that these days.

Samalicious thought that was a great idea and set off to find all the pumpkins that were just his size to sit upon.

We searched all over the patch finding our perfect pumpkins for us. I was in love with the flat wide pumpkins (I think they are called Cinderella pumpkins?) but they were so incredibly heavy and I had a limited budget to work with. I did find a tiny little one way back in the back of the field so I got to claim it for me. Mia picked a perfectly round white pumpkin. She's my girl! I love me some white pumpkins.

Sammy wandered the field following the kids until he found his perfect pumpkin. Just his size and a bit heavy for him. I loved watching him pick it up and declare "heavy!" as it drops only to pick it up again working hard to get it into the stroller. He knew what to do. That pumpkin was his perfect pumpkin! (I am brilliant and took the video sideways. I always do that! But doesn't his gravely voice sound so cute?)

Jacob enthusiastic as always, ran around picking up pumpkins here and there. He found his perfect pumpkin, the biggest in the bunch of course. He's a goofy kid. I like him.

The big kids played in the hay maze while Sammy and I checked out. We ended up with 31 pounds of small pumpkins, the smallest amount by far in that line. The person in front of me had 149 pounds worth of pumpkins!

So even though it was busy at the "pumpkin pouch" it was a perfect night for the kids and I. They can't wait to paint and carve them!

Oh Hai!

Wow, time really flies when you are avoiding the computer so you can't get some of your projects done. If you are expecting me to say that these said projects are actually finished, then you are sorely mistaken. I did finish of a few, but more about that later.

Most pressing news here is that my darling sister Teryn (shown her with her daughter) was involved in a terrible four wheeling accident this past weekend. They were in Moab for UEA weekend and had been out four-wheeling. They were riding back, just minutes away from camp, on a road going at least 40 mph when Teryn saw a dip in the road too late. When she hit it, she catapulted off hitting the ground first with her hands dislocating her elbow and then rolled several times breaking her back. Poor girl was completely aware of every second she was falling and rolling just praying for to stop knowing she was hurt. Her youngest, Landon saw the whole thing too. Not something you want your child to see.

She had to go alone in the ambulance from Moab to Salt Lake because her family needed to pack up the camp. I can't imagine how scary that would be for her and her family! So back to the same hospital that Papa just came out of, she was x-rayed and cleaned up and fortunately, she didn't need any surgery, but unfortunately, she is in a back brace for three months, the first month, being on 24-hours a day and complete bed rest. That has to be the worst part of it. If you know Teryn, she is so energetic and works hard and long. Just being bound to the bed now and the future pain she might have with her back will be so frustrating for her. Please keep her in your prayers for her recovery and sanity. She's home from the hospital tonight, happy to be in her own home and bed and have a chance to rest. I can't wait to go and see her to pat her head, hear her story and give her lots of good sympathy and love.

Baby it's cold INSIDE!

Our furnace is not agreeing with us. I guess it's too tired and sleepy to wake up from it's summers rest. It just doesn't want to stay lit no matter how many times we light it, he just poops out. And ya know what, it's COLD! Ya know why?? Baby, it's SNOWING outside!

Brrr.....

For now, we are huddling around our tiny space heater, planning on cooking lots of warm food today to eat all snuggled up in our blankets. Now I really, really wish that I would have bought those $15 fireplace logs so we could at least have a fire downstairs but thankful for the gigantic hot chocolate I bought this week.

Update on Papa

Papa is doing good. I wasn't able to go to down to the hospital until after work Friday night. I was anxious to be there and thankful that they let visitors in that late. It was good to see Mom, although she was very sleepy. She was planning on going home with Teryn so she could get some good rest. Since I was the last one to be there with him, I stayed for quite awhile just wanting to be with him. I was grateful to go and visit him for the first time by myself so no one would see me cry. It's hard to see him in pain with all of his wires and tubes but he looked much better than I thought he would. Memories of seeing my Mom after her surgery were swirling in my head. She was very bloated and swollen it was shocking. Papa wasn't and it was a relief.

Understandably, he was very sleepy after the surgery. So sleepy that he couldn't wake up enough to be ex-tubated. Hours passed and visitors came and went without much luck. Many jokes were cracked of course. Everything from Sleepy Beauty - Sleepy, but not beautiful (a la James) to the fact that he is just so tired because he never gets enough sleep so he was making up for it. The darling nurse Linda teased that he was a cheap date - a little went a long way for him.

I watched Linda as she fussed over him making sure his wires were all tidy, rubbing his back to get the circulation going, washing his hair and combing it for him, fluffing pillows, readjusting his position and tidying up the room all the while humming "I Need Thee Every Hour" which was Papa's mom Grandma Reta's favorite him. She was such a southern doll. Born in Georgia and had the accent and mannerisms that are so charming to me.

They fussed and fussed trying to help him to wake up. I stayed through three attempts before I worried that I would be too tired to get home safely. It was hard to leave him without family being so close to finally waking up. Thankfully, Teryn lives the closest and was there when he was ex-tubated after 3am. One of the first things he asked for was Mom.

By the end of today, he was released from ICU, had most of his wires and tubes pulled out, was sitting up and had even gone for a walk and was talking more coherently. All is looking good!

The next few weeks will be hard for him as he heals. Hard for Mom to help take care of him and NOT ask him to do things. That I think, would be next to impossible because he is always doing things for her. It's just how he is, always serving. :)

I am so grateful for prayers answered, faith renewed, skills of the doctor and fantastic nurses. I am grateful for my family for pulling together to let everyone know updates and visiting him as often as they could. And most of all, I am grateful for my Papa.

Witch

To keep my hands busy and my mind off worrying about my Papa, I whipped up my witch tassel and I think it's soooooo stinkin' cute! I am in love!

Purples, greens, black and polka-dots decorate this fat tassel now hanging off my kitchen shelf. The cute ribbon adorned metal hat complete with spider is just making me happy! The pictures just don't do it justice. It's darling!

Papa

My sweet Dad is having open heart surgery this morning. I feel blessed that he was able to find out and have his heart fixed before the heart sustained any damage. He's in a wonderful hospital with the best doctors. I still can't help but worry about him. It's a very difficult and painful surgery to recover from. He's in our prayers. Please feel free to keep him in yours too.

*update: He's out of surgery and everything went beautiful. Now we just have to get him through the recovery.

Festive Fall Decorations

Last week, I felt that I needed a project. So I went to Hobby Lobby and picked up myself a project. Three projects to be exact.

• First up, I got a cute little candle ring to hang on my shelf hooks like Nicole did. It didn't really work, so I layered three smaller wreaths, added a ribbon and hung the too small wreath on my front door for a short while until I changed it out to a Halloween wreath concoction. An old garland, an old witch which I think is cute (however, her arms are looking a bit awkward aren't they), layered on top of a new wreath made something festive. We will see how long I leave it up there before I tweak it.

• Then I decided that I needed to make a tassel and ended up making three with one more in the works. The first one, I made to hang on my front room armoire. I think that I want to tweak this one a bit.

• Then I needed some festive ones for Fall. I like the first one the best.

The third project needs paper to finish it. I am having a surprisingly hard time figuring it out. I am determined to get it done so hopefully, it will all work out.

Aww shucks.

Lucky me got some love from Young House today for my new front room. Aww shucks. They are so nice. *blush*

Go check them out and leave them some love.