Thanksgiving 2009

This year for Thanksgiving we went to Springville to have Thanksgiving dinner with Travis's Mom and Stepdad and his older brother Wayne and his wife Melissa.

We started out right away getting the boys occupied with toys so that the adults could make dinner. So the boys (Daddy too) made a fun marble tower and Grandpa with the help of Melissa was able to put on Thomas the Train for Kimball. Then off to the kitchen were we prepared the delicious dinner. Brandon helping Grandpa get the table ready to eat. Kimball taking time with Daddy, who is taking a break from helping.

Then after dinner it was time to relax.....watch some football.....Take a nap.....and then what else?? Look at the Black Friday ads!!! After naps I needed a picture of all of us in our turkey shirts!! Travis was a very good sport and wore a turkey shirt. Then after awhile we decided to play games. We got out the game Quelf. If you haven't played this game, it is definately a MUST for a group game!! I LOVE IT!!! Before the game, Travis's little sister Rose and her husband Derek came just in time to play. Here is Wayne in his "homemade halloween mask" that he had to make for the game. Then Travis and I playing. You can see our shirts a little better in this picture.

We had a wonderful day. I love spending Thanksgiving with family and friends. A perfect holiday is when you are with family, in my opinion.

Then this morning I got up at 3 am to do the black Friday shopping, and then 7 hours later I was home in time to have lunch and a nap.

What I am Thankful for....

I am very thankful for many things. I am truly very blessed, but today I am thankful for my family. We are so lucky to have family close by us. All we have to do is drive 20 minutes and we are able to see our family members. I am truly thankful for that. I am also thankful for the love and support my family has given to me and my tiny family. If we have a problem or and issue we are dealing with, we can always count on our family to be there for us.

I am thankful for Travis, my wonderful husband who does the best that he can to make me happy. I have had a lot of hard days lately and he has been there for me and had given me small gifts of service to help me through.

I am thankful for Brandon and his love that he has for me and his brothers. Brandon is always there to stick up for his brothers and make sure that they receive the same reward he has just been given.

I am thankful for Nathan and the love that he gives me on a daily basis. He is always so happy to see me and and make me happy. He loves his brothers too and love to play with him.

I am thankful for Kimball and how he adores his older brothers. If one of them are laughing he joins right in on the fun. He is so curious about things and has come to know how independent he truly can be.

I am thankful for my Savior who gave his life for not only but my family. He showed us how to love and serve to which I have a great example.

I am thankful for my Heavenly Father who has blessed me with the best family I could have ever asked for.

Don't you hate....

Don't you hate it when you just finished cleaning your kids and they are all nice and clean and you leave alone for a few minutes and you turn around to find them dirty again. And not just dirt but marker. My boys....ahh you gotta love them.

Turkey FHE

Tonight we had a nice turkey FHE. We talked about controling our emotions, expecially anger, we have been having issues with that lately.
We made turkey cookies....I didn't get a very good picture of them, they had gummy wadles and chocolate chip eyes. Then we made turkey shirts. I saw that my cousin Lacy talked about having a turkey dinner and I noticed her children's shirts. They were so cute I decided that I wanted to make some. So the boys helped me cut out the feet, waddle and nose. And they helped me decide where they wanted their feathers. This is Kimball's shirt. It is harder to sew when it is smaller.

Brandon's shirt. He wanted a "pattern" because they are learning about patterns at school.

Then Nathan wanted to make his like the picture on the computer had it's feathers.

I also bought shirts for Travis and I. I will make ours tomorrow, but it will be ready for Thanksgiving, so that we all match!!

I am also going to get our family pictures done soon, and I want us to be in our turkey shirts. One thing though, the pictures do the shirt no justice, they are much cuter in person!! :D I will try to get pictures of the boys tomorrow in them. They are SOOO excited to wear them. They told me many many times.

UFO's .....A New Year of Joy

I have accepted this challenge to get my unfinished projects done with my fellow blogging quilters. So my list consits of:

1. Brandon's quilt
2. Pink Quilt for my mother
3. Amanda Jean quilt Along quilt
4. Wonky Log Cabin quilt
5. Western string quilt
6. Jenni's quilt
7. Catie's quilt
8. Flannel quilt

Looking at this and it is making me sick! LOL I have a lot of quilts to do!! So I have one done, and 7 more to go!

Although I am having a set back with my sewing machine!! I need to get it fixed asap so I can get it all done. But I guess I can wait on the quilting them and work on getting the quilt tops done! :D

Brandon's Finished Quilt!!!!

Okay so I have suffered through it (yes, suffer) and it is finally finished. And Brandon's opinion on the blanket is.....Brandon is very excited to have his quilt done. He was a very good boy in waiting for me to finish other quilts before his. He is a good boy. Nathan saw that I was taking pictures of Brandon, so of course he had to come in. I was able to get a very nice picture of them. This is a rare thing!! What beautiful boys!! Wait, boy and dinosaur.Kimball is very excited to see Brandon's finished quilt too, and of course had to be in the pictures too. They always want their picture taken when I don't want to, but when I want to, they HATE it. I think it is a kid thing. It was suppose to be a regular rag quilt, but I added a border because I thought it needed to be bigger for Brandon. As you can see from my previous post.
The back is the puzzle piece material. I really like it because it HIDES all of my mistakes and it still looks good.
This is a "wonky" stitch. I have created this "wonky" stitch because there was no way I was going to be able get them straight. My hats goes off to Amanda Jean that did get it right!

Then on the edges I did the stippling. Although bad news with that, I think the tension on my sewing machine is broken because I cannot get it right. Travis did help me tighten the screw but it has become loose again. I am not sure, but I need to take it in to get looked at.

If you look at the binding you see this star material that does not fit in at all, but I like it. Gives it a little bit of flare.

A new career?

Tonight after kids ate, made a mess and got ready for bed, Kimball started playing and singing to us. I don't know what he is singing, but Travis used his screw driver to sing and Brandon started doing it when Monk's opening song plays. At first I take some pictures....

Then I thought, Hey my camera has a video option, I should really be tape this". So I did. I would say excuse my house behind him, but I really don't care. I am sick and I just don't care.

I think it is funny that Nathan likes to get his picture taken, only when I am trying to do something else. But oh my, my kids are CUTE!!! But you should have seen them about 15 minutes later when we put them to bed...cute wouldn't be the word I described them.

Quilt Along

So when I Am down and don't want to do something, I do something new. This is how you end up having 15 different projects around the house. The quilt along that I did last month or the last two months ended and I still yet to quilt the thing but I finished the top.

Now we are starting something new. I don't really know what to call it, but it will look like this. I have finished making a few of the crazy 9 patch pieces. I really like them so far.

Chore.....

Okay I usually LOVE to quilt because lets face it I find it easy! But this quilt, I am FORCING myself to get through. It was suppose to be smaller but "me" thinking oh I can add something to it, which I could am now dreading my decision because it is so HARD to quilt. I have new respect for all of the the lines that I see quilted on quilts. Just the bulk of the quilt and then spinning the quilt to turn and everything makes it hard. So the quilting on this is offically "wonky" where it's suppose to be off!! :D

Maybe in the future I will get used to the quilting larger size quilts I can try it again, but for now. NO!!!

Helping Hands

Last night after I made dinner my boys wanted to "help" me. Travis and I thought okay, you can go ahead and do what you want to "help" mom. We turn and see them doing this...They were so proud of themselves. Even though not one dish was cleaned....and there was a big mess on the floor....I appreciate all that they did for me. They wanted to help me and for that I am grateful! I must do something right if they like to help mom and know that mom hates to do dishes.

I am very blessed to have my beautiful boys.

Normal

Some would say that there is no "normal" and that every child is different and that is okay. With that being said, is this normal??

-Punching a fellow student in the eye for calling Mr. Robles by a silly name?

-Kicking a new student in class?

-Become so obsessed with not sleeping that we can't sleep because it is "too dark".

-Insist on doing any type of word puzzle even though we have no idea how to do it.

- Has a new favorite show, the Monk? We like it because he solves things and has a cool song in the beginning.

- Is on the "girl's team" that "fights" with the boys.

These are just SOME of the things that Brandon is doing right now. Some would say that this is just Brandon, and I agree. This is Brandon and his quirks, but normal? I would say no. What is it? Asperger's Syndrome. Is it fun having this? No. Would I wish any other child have this? No. Do I know what to do to help Brandon? No. What can I do right now to help Brandon? Love him and try again to help him understand rules at school and encourage him to do different things.

As a mother of special needs children I have stopped judging parents long ago. Realizing that I don't know the situation and they are probably handling everything the best that they can. But today I realized I still do judge, I judged parents that had children that hit or hurt other children. What do I have now? Children (both Brandon and Nathan) kicking and hitting kids at school. Whether they are bugging them or annoying them, or what Brandon says "bothering me", my children are reacting with violence. Do we encourage this at home? No. Do we do everything we can to stop it? Yes. Do I know what to do to stop it? No. Have I tried everything that I can think of? Yes.

I think as a parent the hardest thing is trying to protect your child the best that you can. You love them and do everything that you can for them. I love my boys with all my heart and do my best every day to make them happy and teach them. At times like this when they are doing things that I know they have been taught not to do, I feel like a failure and feel lost.

I used to look at thing in a very black and white perspective, but not anymore, I realize that there are a lot more gray areas. You never know what is going on with someone unless you have been in their shoes.

My only hope is that we can resolve the issues with Brandon and Nathan hurting children at school soon.

Blog Hopping

Have you ever noticed how many aweseome blogs there are out there?? I find myself blog hopping more and more each day and have liked so many that my list of blogs has grown!! I have found another cool one, Sibling Craftery. They also have some nice tutorials!!! And because they are so awesome they are having a giveaway! So head on over there and check it out!

FHE and Projects

For Family Home Evening last night we had a lesson on being thankful! We did this last year where we had a tree that we added leaves to with everything that we were thankful for. We did it again last night and the boys loved it. We will add more leaves to our tree through out the month at our other FHE's. They all thought it was fun to put the leaves on and liked coming up with stuff. We still had a lot more to be thankful for, but we explained that we can thank Heavenly Father in our prayers for those! Nathan wanted to pose for me this morning when I took a picture. He is such a cute boy! Then last night after our ice cream desert, Nathan made a picture of himself and put it under the tree. He was very careful this time and told me he used "tape" instead of "glue". And can you tell that he is thankful for Spiderman?


Then about a month or so ago I finished a project that I have been working on for about a year. It is my scrap yarn from other projects that I made into an granny square afghan for our bed.

It keeps us super warm at night! And I love the different colors and the random of the squares. I am currently working on a slipcover for my lazy boy. I am crocheting a cover for it, but with all the quilting I am doing, it is on the back burner and is up stairs next to my bed, I work on it a little each night (or so).