Thankful in November

I am going to give this blog a fresh start! We are going to start with Thankful in November!

Today I am thankful for great school teachers that are teaching my kids to read. They are doing really well and improving every day. J Bear read his first non-school book last night.

Hope you all remember this month to be grateful!

Halloween Pics 2011

My awesome friend Ashley took these pics of the kids for Halloween this year!

All Peanut has ever wanted to be was an astronaut and my friend Mindy found this costume at a garage sale!!! I made the jet pack from an idea I found on Pinterest (LOVE PINTEREST!!!), and found the boots at the Goodwill.

J Bear wanted to be a vampire and it was a quick and easy costume for him as well. Loving it!!!

And if you need pictures taken... call ASHLEY!!! She is amazing!!!

First Day of School

So both of the kiddos ventured into the world of school this year. It makes me a little sad to think that my boys aren't babies anymore, but shaping up to be pretty nice little young men. I am so happy for the year ahead! Lots of new friends and learning will be had by all!!!

In front of our door before leaving for school

Walking in the crosswalk for their first day

Peanut in front of his classroom

J Bear in front of his classroom

Prepare for PICTURE OVERLOAD!!!

Well, after the new year, the blog kinda went by the wayside. We have been super busy mingled in with a few weeks of the yearly "pass around the sickness" game. We are back and ready to update you on what we have been up to lately. Let's start with Christmas...

The annual ornament was given by Grandma Pehrson. A green nutcracker for Peanut...

and a red one for J Bear.


We also had the annual gingerbread house party at Grandma and Grandpa's.

Aunt Erin and Grandpa deep in thought

Peanut's finished house

and J Bear's

We also decorated sugar cookies before the holiday's. It was way more fun than I ever thought it would be!!! J Bear had more frosting on his cookies than there was cookie to put it on. He just kept squeezing frosting on top until it no longer would pile any higher. LOVE IT!!!

Every one of Peanut's cookies was green. Everything that Peanut does or has is green (pretty much).

These were mine. I ended up decorating cookies most of the day. It was super fun!!! Brought back memories of when I was a kid.

Now we move on to Christmas morning. LOVE THIS FACE!!! Just what he wanted!!!

We never could get an excited picture of J Bear because he wouldn't hold still long enough. We had to wait till he calmed down a little before we could catch a good picture of him.

Hubby's haul!

And to prove that I was actually there too (if you notice, both dogs are sitting by me. what's up with that? I love my dogs, but do they always have to sit by me?)

Peanut with his new I Pod. He didn't take it off the whole day. He sang his little heart out and loved it way more than I ever thought he would.

J Bear with his I Pod. He loves his too. I knew he would... he loves music more than almost anything.

Aebleskivers for Christmas breakfast. This is a tradition that my dad started in our family. His first aebleskiver pan came out of a dumpster when he was on his mission in Denmark (and yes... he washed it first!)

They are SOOOO YUMMY!!! and totally worth all the work!!!

It was a great Christmas. Every year the boys have more and more fun and it makes it more enjoyable for us.

Christmas Blessings

I can't describe to you the excitement that I feel over my kiddos Christmas gifts this year but I will try. Here it goes:

First of all J Bear has been asking since last Christmas for a Spike the Dinosaur. Looks like this:

It is currently selling for $130 at Target. Well, I couldn't afford that last year and certainly couldn't afford it this year either. However, shortly after Christmas last year a friend of my brother's had bought 2 of them; one for each of their children. However, when they started to play with them they realized that both dinosaurs were on the same radio frequency and so the kids were constantly fighting about who was controlling it. Anyway, they decided they were just going to get rid of one and my brother asked if he could have it. He took it home FOR FREE!!! and has saved it all these months to give J Bear for Christmas this year from Santa.

J Bear also uses my Ipod almost every day and we had talked about getting him a small Ipod Shuffle for Christmas as well (seems as how we didn't have to buy the dinosaur). On Matt's first day at work a few months ago he opened up his new desk drawer and sitting inside was just that... an Ipod Shuffle. He took it to his new boss who said, "Just keep it!" Another Christmas gift FOR FREE!!!

Peanut on the other hand has not been able to make up his mind for the last couple of months about what he wanted. I always like to ask early in case I might see it at a garage sale or thrift store. Well, he finally decided that he wanted Lego Road Trip. It is on a commercial on TV. Upon further investigation it was discovered that a kit for the RV on the commercial doesn't exist. Lego has an online instruction book to build it yourself but you have to have all of the pieces. Luckily we have millions of lego's and besides a few custom pieces that I had to order online... it was almost FREE!!! ($8.00 in shipping and $5.00 in parts to complete the RV) Seems as how it was almost free I thought I would see if there was another kit that could go along with it. I saw a Camper and thought I would see if I could find that one also.

Well, I couldn't find it anywhere. Not at Wal-Mart or Target or KMart. Only online!!! So I happened to stop at the Lego store in Peoria over by my Mom's and they had it. The online price was $18 and this one had a tag on it for $9.99. I took it up to the register and it rang up $18. I pointed out the pricing error on the tag and they gave it to me for $9.99. NICE!!!

We also thought that we would get Peanut and Ipod Shuffle just like J Bear. However, Apple re-vamped their Ipods again and the kind that I wanted was no longer available to buy new. Bummed as I was, I knew I could find a used one SOMEWHERE!!! I looked and looked but to no avail. Every craigslist post that I responded to had already been sold. We are now 2 weeks from Christmas and still nothing when Matt calls me and says he just won an Ipod Shuffle at the gas station by his work for $1. Yes... $1!!!!

I spent $15 at a garage sale a few months ago on some more Lego's. So... if you are still with me, the total amount spent for my kids Christmas is:

$38.99!!!
And they are getting EVERYTHING that they want!!!
Those are the blessing that I love!!!

30 Things...

A couple of my friends started doing this and I thought it was a GREAT idea. Today was my birthday and I thought, "What a good way to celebrate a whole year by doing things you have always wanted to do." So here are mine...

1. Learn how to play the guitar
2. Read all of the Harry Potter Books
3. Make a cake from scratch
4. Loose 30 lbs (at least)
5. Watch every Audrey Hepburn movie
6. Eat an artichoke
7. Go to the beach
8. Stop biting my nails
9. Learn how to knit
10. Refinish my kitchen table
11. Play board games with my kiddos once a week
12. Scrapbook all photos taken from 2002 until now
13. Eat lobster
14. De-clutter my house
15. Learn how to cut the boys hair
16. Make a Crazy Quilt
17. Do a corn maze
18. Make Silhouette Pictures of our family
19. Make homemade pasta
20. Eat Fast-Food-FREE for one month
21. Have a missionary experience
22. Have a party for no reason
23. Smile EVERY DAY!
24. Write letters to my Grandma's every month
25. Make my kids my first priority every day
26. Have a quiet weekend with my hubby
27. Go without TV for one whole week (7 days)
28. Buy less and save more
29. Let my kids do more things for themselves (trust them more)
30. Say YES more

Thrifting Finds...

Garage Sales have been few and far between over the summer and quite frankly, it has been too darn hot to even think about going out to garage sales. So I have been doing a lot of thrifting...more specifically at the Goodwill. For those of you who don't know what Goodwill is, it is like 40 of the best garage sales all thrown into one building. It is my favorite place to go when I need some alone time.

So here are my latest and greatest finds of the summer. Some came from garage sales if there were any to go to but most are Thrifty Finds!

This is my new desk. I had been looking for a heavy, sturdy desk for my sewing machines that also had drawers for all of my craft junk. I found it on Craigslist for $25. When I went to pick it up I found out it had a bonus... a locking drawer on the bottom. I can keep all of my scissors, permanent markers and anything else that I don't want my kids to touch, under lock and key! Love it! I think I will either re-finish or paint this beauty when the weather is cooler.

I found this awesome 2 quart blue glass Mason Jar at a garage sale for $4. The contents are some tiny yoyo's all sewn together that I found at the Goodwill. There were 500 total yoyo's sewn together. I think I will be making them into a pillow for my bed. All 500 were $2.99

This is one of my favorite finds of the summer. I was at one of my local Goodwill's and had been eyeing these shoes for a little while. They wanted $20 for them and although that was a good deal, I still couldn't spend that kind of money on a pair of shoes. Then the most awesome thing happened... I went to another Goodwill and they had the same shoes but guess what? They were $8.99 and I had a 20% off coupon! I love these shoes and I have pretty much worn them every day since I got them! I would have worn them to church if I knew I could get away with it!

I got this whole stack of flannel material for $3. These will make great baby bibs.

I found this for $.50 and it is going to make a great tray for my craft table. I am going to add a lazy susan to the bottom to make all my craft tools easily accessable.

I got this fabric at the Goodwill for $1 each. Plain stripes are really hard to find and so I snagged these up pretty quick.

I also got some really cute vintage sheets that will become something amazing before too long, some great books including the last of the Harry Potter series that I needed, some great summer reads and a few piano books. Add to that a significant amount of vintage fabric for crafting as well as sewing notions, some cute baby shoes for my newest nephew (due to arrive in Dec), some light-up Spiderman slip-on shoes for J Bear, and a pluthera of jewelry that I didn't have time to take pictures of.

It was a fun summer of thrifting. However, expect some awesomeness to appear soon as the garage sales pick up!

Who Loves Rock Band?

We had yet another fun night playing Rock Band with the Hunt family over the summer. We were so excited to have Josh and Jamie come join the party (hooray for having them live closer!!!). We had fried Peanut Butter, Banana and Bacon Sandwiches, YUM!!! Then we busted out the Beetles Rock Band. I thought I loved playing... but J Bear loves it more! He really gets into it. Look below to see how serious he gets!

Remember this face! Someday he's going to be FAMOUS!

Mother/Son Date

Over the summer, J Bear spent a few days at Grandma and Grandpa Power's house. While he was gone, Peanut asked me if we could go on a date. I asked him what he wanted to do and he promptly said, "go to IHOP". I agreed and so the next morning we got up and hurried to get dressed so we could go on our date.

Our Self-portrait!

I LOVE this smile!

Peanut LOVES waffles so I knew that was just what he would order.

I ordered a delicious omelette with mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach in it. We sat across from eachother so we could have great conversation. However, about halfway through breakfast Peanut asked me if he could come sit by me to eat. He gave me a big hug and said,"This is the best date I have EVER been on in my whole life!" Thanks for a fun date Peanut. I love you so much buddy!

First Day of Kindergarten (again)

We are calling this year a re-do! With all of the trouble Peanut had last year at school, we decided to give him a second chance to learn under the best possible conditions. He started day one on his medicine to help him be the best he can be! Here's hoping that he works hard and learns A LOT!!!

I tried to get a picture of Peanut before he went into his classroom... and he sneased. Then he didn't want to stand there anymore. He just wanted to go to school so this was all I got. At least he WANTS to go to school this year instead of telling me he hates it every day.