All of my Christmas presents are ready. I take that back, I have two more to finish. BUT all of the big stuff is out of the way! All I have left is to sew the playhouse walls and roof together and cut out the door! It looks so unbelievably awesome!! I will be posting pictures soon! I also have to get Grandma's pictures together, but that is not that big of a deal. It is just some scrappin' that needs to be done.

The In-Laws are going to be spending the night tonight. It will be our first Christmas morning at home since we got married. We usually go to Mom's house and help her be Santa. This year, because everyone has little ones, we thought it would be better to spend Christmas in our own houses and then come together for the afternoon / evening. I am looking forward to the change, but missing the excitement of the morning filled with kids. I am sure I will be filled to the hilt with kid Christmas joy by the end of the day though!

Mom is going to have a full house. The kids are: Kaine, Lilly, Landon, Jordan and Grace. Adults are: Grandma, Neil (?), George, Mom, Matt, Loren (that's me! :) ), Kristen, Brent, Lee and Allana. When I write it down like that it doesn't look that bad. But the count is: 15! That is a lot!

Merry Christmas to all of my family that are not with us.  To my friends that live too far away to see.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!

Christmas is coming!

I am still trying to finish all of my Christmas gifts. I hope I will have time to do it. I still have 3 small cross stitches to do. Then I have to finish Kaine's Felt Playhouse. I am hoping he is going to like it. He has been hiding under his high chair and saying "Hey! Boo!" which is giving me a lot of hope that he is going to love it! I think he is getting to the age when little houses and caves that he can make his own are going to be really fun.
We went to the Winter Wonderland 2009 in St. Augustine and they made an elf village and there were about 15 little houses and Kaine and Jordan went and they were playing in all of the houses. Kaine and Jordan were having a blast. I am hoping he feels the same way about his fun new dinosaur cave! Hopefully I will have pictures up soon. I am going to try and see if I can take pictures of the whole process. It is actually kinda easy, it is just time consuming because it is so big.
I will try and post pictures of the things I have made for this Christmas too. I will probably post them after Christmas because some of the people that I have made them for read this.

Update on Dad: He is doing well. Talked to him this morning. He will be home for Christmas. At Aunt Deb's at least. I am hoping to get up there the day after Christmas and will probably stay for a week or so. I have not heard anything else about Grandpa Joe, so I am assuming that everything is still the same. We are not getting updated to well from that side.

Bad News

Hey guys. SO, I have received some not-great news! My dad went in for surgery today on his right upper lung. He had a spot on it. They thought it was not cancerous in the previous test. WELL, it turns out that they went in like they planned. Came out like they didn't.
He was suppose to go in threw the ribs and take out the tumor (?) or whatever it was. The surgeon and pathologist were looking at it when they opened him up. The pathologist thought it looked cancerous so they took out the entire upper right lobe. They should know by Friday if it truly is cancerous. So, we do not yet know for sure. They did say that it did not spread anywhere outside of the upper lobe. They are positive that they caught it in time. I will be updating this more as soon as I know more.
As of right now, he is awake and on a morphine drip and, of course, asking for sweet tea! They did not sound too worried. But, of course, they are and have not yet let it out themselves. I hope they are really coping okay and are able to handle what comes next.

Love you guys!

More Christmas stuff

IMAGE FROM: http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://witchdoctor.files.wordpress.com/2007/08/christmas-tree.jpg&imgrefurl=http://witchdoctor.wordpress.com/2007/08/04/christmas-trees-will-save-the-nhs/&usg=__D3j8pQodTJAvsbuHCVNLA-eM40s=&h=800&w=800&sz=358&hl=en&start=7&tbnid=tZRvUWqy1MxluM:&tbnh=143&tbnw=143&prev=/images%3Fq%3DChristmas%2Btrees%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den


           I am putting together Christmas presents still. Not having any money to do so. I am still making most or all of them. I did end up going to the dollar store and looking around for some stuff. It ended up with me buying all of the kids some sort of toy because they had name brand toys (Name Brand!) for $5 dollars. I don't care what you say, living in the boonies has it's rewards!
          I hope I get everything done in time. I am almost finished with my sister's stuff. I will be moving on to the rest. So far this is who I have left:
Grandma, Neil, Patty, Douglas, Lee, Brent and his kids.
          Most of the gifts I already have figured out. Oh yeah! I still have to finish Kaine's "Santa" gift also. The felt playhouse. I just have not been motivated to get it together. I do have most of the pieces ready, it's the sewing part that I am stalling on. Plus, Matt still needs to make the house frame, or should I say cave? It IS going to be awesome when it is done. I think I just need to get all of these other little projects done before I move on to the Grand Finale. Plus, I work MUCH better under pressure. Yes, that makes me a procrastinator! But, in my defense, I am doing other things. Not just putting this thing off, kinda. HeeHee!
Short tonight, just wanted to update anyone who follows this. Leave me a comment if you do follow this.

Kaine and his Greatness!

SO, my stupid camera has decided to stop working again. I might actually have to take it in to get it fixed...boo!

But that is not what I wanted to talk about. Kaine, this is what I want to talk about. What has he been up to? Well, we put up some Christmas stuff (by we, I mean me). I have a Nutcracker count-down-to-Christmas thing. What does he do? He comes up to it, after I showed him how it worked, touches the mouth (making it move up and down) and says, "Ha, ha, ha!". SO UNBELIEVIBLY FUNNY! 

Next. I bought him a potty. I read somewhere that it was a good idea to get one before you would need one, to let them get used to it. Now he takes it and says, "Potty?". Then goes to back up to sit on it. Sits for a minute, smiles and says, "Potty". Then gets up. Takes the blue squishy ring out of it and places it on his head like a hat. Then closes the lid. It really is TOO cute.

We too him to see Santa at the mall today. I was sure, SURE I tell you (!), that I wasn't going to do this this year. I did NOT want to tourture him. So, what happens? We find ourselves standing by the Santa place. No one is in line. Santa comes over and says, "Hi big boy!". I look at Matt and say, "He (Kaine) is smiling! Maybe we should just try it and see?" So we do, after deciding what package to buy and making sure Kaine was presentable. This is what happens: We go in. Take Kaine out of the stroller. Let him walk around. He gets close to Santa. He cries. Santa suggests that we put Kaine on his lap and then snap a quick picture before he gets all worked up. Sounds good to me. No luck. Then Santa has a brilliant idea! He grabs the coloring books that they are giving away and hands it to Kaine. Kaine, if you do not know, is a book worm! This calms him for a moment. Then he starts to cry. Santa then says, "Mom, why don't you come over here and hold him? Or Dad?" Ok, so we ended up having a family Santa picture this year. But I have to say that it went WAY better than it did in my head! I also have to say that the Santa at the Oaks Mall is the best Santa ever! He was so friendly and helpful. He is nothing, NOTHING like the Santa at the Orange Park Mall that is not right for the job. He is not friendly and you can tell he does not like what he is doing. I just don't like him! I am glad that we found a new one!

Found another one!

This one is just as cute!
http://familyfun.go.com/crafts/snowman-gift-bag-669345/

 HAVE FUN!!!

Creative Bags for Gifts!

This is what I am thinking about doing for Christmas this year for wrapping my presents, they are just SO cute!
Here are the links, you must check them out! :

http://familyfun.go.com/christmas/homemade-christmas-gifts/christmas-gift-wrapping-ideas/christmas-tree-gift-bag-669329/

and this one:
http://familyfun.go.com/christmas/homemade-christmas-gifts/christmas-gift-wrapping-ideas/reindeer-gift-bag-669337/

These are just SO cute, I can't stand it. Plus all I would have to buy are bags and maybe some jewel like items! So great and fun! Hope this inspires you!

Christmas Gifts are underway!

Okay, so I decided to make everyone a Christmas gift this year. At first I thought, "This will be good. I will save some money and won't be driving myself crazy going from store to store in search of the perfect thing!" Can you imagine? Kaine in tow the whole way too? I don't think so! So, what better way to give a gift of love, make it yourself. Give something with meaning this year, that's my moto. SO....what is going on you ask?

It is actually going pretty well. Today I realized, in a bit of a panic, that today in December 1st and I only have 25 days to Christmas! How will I get everything done??? Well, I will tell you. I have grounded myself, sort of. Exept for going to the grocery and watching my shows on Thursday night, I am going to be putting the petal to the metal (literally, you know what I mean if you sew!). So, I have been working on the following:

1 & 2. Two Cross Stitched pictures for my sisters.
3. Kaine's felt Playhouse (although, this is fun, the machine doesn't like it!)
4. Birthday present for Matt's mom (not actually started yet, not sure what to do!)
5. Made Mom's present at the 1st of November (toughest person off my list! No offense. I am elated!)
6. Will be making pie crusts to fill and give away
7. Make Grandma something
8. Patty something
9. Possibly the boys, not sure though
10. Books for Lilly, Kaine, Landon, Grace and Jordan
11. Other things I have not gotten to get to yet

I need to be getting to work. Send me some positive thoughts and shoot the Big Man upstairs a shout for me to get it all done and to love every minute of it!!! Love and Merry days to you!