Valentine's Day

We have had five snow days in the past two weeks where we have missed school and had temperatures in the teens.  It was such a blessing to have the time at home, because I got sooo much done.  I cleaned out closets and was able to get rid of a ton of stuff.  I'm trying my luck w/selling the baby items on Craigslist for now.  Unfortunately, all of that cleaning meant that I didn't get around to doing my Valentines decorating this year.  Bummer!  I'm going to post my pictures from last year's Valentines.

Cannon asked to buy a little heart shaped box of chocolates for a girl in his kindergarten class.  He is so sweet.  When I asked him if this was his girlfriend, he said no and that he just can't decide which one to pick.  He said there were too many pretty ones.  :)  I'm afraid he is going to break lots of hearts.  Ryan would rather stick needles in both of his eyes than get a girl chocolate....I wonder how much longer before that changes.  :) 

Jaron and I are not  planning on doing anything special this year for Valentines, but I hope he knows how much I love him!  We just celebrated 12 years of marriage and we've been together for 18 years...that's more than half our lives!  We have so much fun together.  I know I am so blessed to have such a good husband that takes care of his family and is such a strong spiritual leader for our home. 

Merry Christmas!

 Christmas 2010

We began this Christmas break with a surprise birthday party for Jaron.  His mother and step dad secretly flew in from Kentucky for his surprise and for the state playoff game the next day.  He was totally surprised and so glad they could be there for the big game.  At the party were Jason & Lacey, Timothy, Kim & Paul, the boys and me and Jaron.  We ate at Genghis Grill, one of his favorite restaurants.  Jaron's mom brought a cake shaped like a football and football themed cookies from Kentucky.  They were awesome.  Happy 35th Birthday, old man!

We didn't win the state championship, but the Raiders had a great season.  We are so proud of the players and all of their hard work.  Maybe next year we can have another run at the title!

We enjoyed spending the first part of Christmas break with Kim and Paul.  They were there for Christmas morning and Christmas dinner.  Jaron's brothers and their wife/fiance joined us and Kim and Paul for Christmas dinner.  We celebrated Christmas Eve at Jaron's Dad's house and enjoyed playing Lego's and opening presents.  The celebrations continued with Sunday at Jaron's grandparents and at my sister's house with my entire family. 

The boys got some awesome gifts including a trampoline, Lego sets, football table, a baby ride-on four wheeler, an indoor basketball goal, a Build-a-Bear longhorn, Wii games, and the list goes on and on.  They were grateful for their presents and were deserving.  Good boys!  Jaron and I were spoiled by his mom and step dad and his dad and step mom too.  We are blessed. 

I would say our most favorite present was the gift of the time we got to spend with each other this holiday break.  We had two full weeks together and loved every minute of it.  Many days we were lazy and never got out of our pajamas!  Many other days, our house was full of company and busyness.  Timothy, the boy's uncle, had a break from college and got to spend many nights with us...the boys absolutely love it when he is here!  Jaron and I decided that we need to win the lottery because we totally love being at home with our boys.  I guess you have to play the lottery to actually win!

Here are some photos of Christmas at our house.

Spending time with family

Manna enjoying holding Parker on Christmas Eve.

Ryan and Cannon exchanged presents they had got for each other on Christmas Eve.  They were so sweet and kind in the gifts they traded.

 

 Jason and Lacey joined us for Christmas Dinner.

Parker's favorite gift from Santa!  He had a little trouble working it, but his brothers were quick to "help."

Cannon's favorite present.  Good gift, Manna & Paul.  There have been many basketball games in the kitchen since it was unwrapped. 

The Santa Mantel

Each member of our family has a hand beaded Christmas stocking hanging from the chimney.  Jaron grew up with stockings that looked like these, so when we started our family, we decided to make ones like them.  So every time a new baby came along, Jaron and I sat on the couch and hand beaded and sequined a stocking.  We love them and the special meaning they have.

The Santa and frosty fireplace screen.  We inherited this from Jaron's parents.  My boys enjoy it just as much as Jaron and his brothers did growing up.

I found this Santa silhouette at a thrift store for $2!  It went perfect w/the rest of the Santa decor on the mantel.  A little secret, instead of attaching it w/nails or screws, I just hot glued it to the bricks.  It peeled off fine after Christmas.

Dear Santa, I can explain...  I took a piece of burlap and wrapped it around a board for a super cute addition to the mantle.  Instead of paint, I used a Sharpie to write the words. 

Our Santa stocking hangers were a hazard for Parker (pull the on his head), so I just wrapped greenery around them and kept them up. 

I got a huge sack of vintage decorations at a thrift store in town that a little old lady had just donated.  This Santa was only one of the neat things inside!  In the background, you can see the boys pictures with Santa.  We put their new picture up every year.  We had nine displayed this year.  It is so neat to see how much they have grown.  Our favorite one is of Ryan screaming his head off in Santa's lap.  Poor Santa!

I got a new Santa snow globe from Paul to add to the others he has gotten me in past Christmases.  I just love Christmas snow globes.

The whole mantle.  If you look closely on the TV, you can see that it is J-Wow and Snookie on Regis and Kelly...nothing says Christmas like Jersey Shore. 

The Christmas Trees

This is our main tree.  It is decorated w/a ton of ornaments that we have collected over the years.  Each year we buy the boys a new ornament so when they get married they will have 20+ ornaments to put on their tree so it won't be bare.  (Look closely and you can see Paul w/his apron on busily getting ready for Christmas dinner!)

The dining room tree.  This little guy sat on top of the buffet.  I placed some of the vintage Christmas decorations from the thrift store find on the tree for a reindeer theme. 

Our starfish we found on the beach this past summer in South Carolina.

The silver kitchen tree.  I love this tree because it reminds me of the silver tree we had in our house when I was little.  I so wish I still had that tree, but this one is a fine substitute.  I usually decorate the silver tree w/my vintage tin cookie cutters, but I just ran out of time this year.  I used some burlap for the tree skirt.  I liked the burlap and silver together.

Christmas Dinner

The table looked so nice with my Friendly Village china that I received from Paul.  I was proud to use them and continue his family tradition of the china being used for Christmas dinner.

Some of the many sweets!

Look at those Christmas cookies!  I wish I could claim those as my own, but they were flown in from Kentucky.  Manna buys them from a really talented lady there.  They are too pretty to eat!

 Other Decorations Around the House

I love these vintage Christmas ornaments I found for pennies at an antique mall.

Another one of the little old lady's donations that I scooped up from the thrift store!  There were about a dozen of these little birds with hand glittered wings.

With visions of sugar plums...this was a Hallmark ornament that we bought for the tree this year, because we thought it looked like our three little boys.  I repainted two of the boy's hair here to look more like Cannon and Parker.  :)

Manna's Hallmark Toymaker ornament for this year.  She has given Jaron and I one every year since we have been married.  I hope Hallmark doesn't stop making them!

My pawpaw's wooden tool box makes a great holder for all of our children's Christmas books.

Cannon's Football Table

Usually every Christmas, I have a crazy idea to make something for the boys.  It is always some grand plan that ends up with me staying up into the wee hours of the morning the night before Christmas.  This year, I decided to make Cannon a Football Table.  Essentially, it is a tall coffee table that is painted like a football field where he can play with his little plastic football men that Santa brought him.  Good job Santa on bringing football men...how did you ever know I was making a table? 

Cannon had really gotten into football this year with his dad as a football coach and his team doing so well, he was most excited.  For the playoffs, Cannon had to wear a full football suit, complete with football pants, jersey, helmet and eye black!  He was so cute...I think he was the lucky charm that made the team do so well.  :) 

If you want to build a table, you will need these supplies/tools:  drill, frog tape, wood screws, paint, tape measure, three 1x4s, a two foot by four foot board, and table legs at the desired height.

I'm such a cheap scape, that I could not spend the $30 at Lowe's for legs.  So, I went out thrifting and found an end table for $10 at 50% off!  So I got the legs for $5.  I took the legs off the end table and rubbed a little stain on them to hid some of the wear and tear.  They worked perfectly.

The board was salvaged from our train table that bit the dust.  The train table had two green boards that were 2 feet by four feet each.  I haven't decided what to make with the other on yet.  Maybe I'll make another football table and put it on Etsy.

The first thing I did was screw the one by fours on each side of the green board, leaving about a half inch lip on the top so the football men wouldn't fall off.  I had Lowe's cut one of the one by fours in half for the short ends of the table and then screwed them on.  It is a very simple way to do it, and could be done a lot better with some molding and such, but I just wanted a basic look.  Then I screwed the legs into the sides of the table.  This served to be quite a challenge since there was a wooden dowel in the center of the legs.  I broke a couple of screws, but finally got them in place.

Once the sides and legs were on the table, it was time to paint.  I can't say enough how much I love Frog Tape!  I've used the blue painter's tape in the past on various projects and always had bleed through.  The Frog Tape was near perfection. 

This is Parker wanting to help me paint. 

Jaron's brother Timothy, the boys uncle, stayed up until 2 a.m. with me one night helping me paint the football field on the table.  I thought I was a perfectionist, well Timothy is worse than me.  He taped and re taped until each line was perfectly straight.  Without his help, I would have stayed up all night that night and the following night for sure!

The board was four feet long, so it was simple to divide the field up every four inches which gave room for two end zones, and shrunken down version of the the 100 yards on a field. 

I used stickers in the end zones.  On Christmas Eve night, I started to paint the numbers on the field, but my stencils weren't working to my satisfaction.  I decided to wait and put numbers on later, rather than mess it up.

Here is the table with the football guys all in place.  The plastic men are called "Football Guys" and can be found at www.kaskeykids.com. 

The table was ready waiting by the other presents Christmas morning.  Santa put the players all in place for Cannon. 

Cannon loved it!  He has had to fight his little brother for it though.  Parker can't keep his hands off of it and tries to steal Cannon's football guys. 

Cannon at Cowboy Stadium in his jersey and eye black, days before Christmas at his dad's team's game at the State Playoffs.  I know it won't be long until Cannon is on the field himself...Wow!