Merry Christmas

Damian played Santa's helper by handing out the presents,

but he seemed to think they were all for him.

Damian had just as much fun playing with the empty boxes as he did with his presents.

Since it was not a hot day we had a roast turkey dinner.

Where did everyone go?

By the end of the day, it was all too much for some...

We're still here

Okay, this is why I haven't posted anything for over a month.

We had a great Thanksgiving in St. George with Aunt Benja and Uncle Erick. Since the restaurant was closed for the day, we had our party there. We made two turkeys this year. PJ made a delicious rosemary rubbed turkey, and we finally realized my dream of putting a whole turkey in the deep fryer. YUM.

Here is Andrew held captive in the princess tent.

Halloween Aftermath

Here's a peek at what happened when everyone finally came home from trick-or-treating. As Little Bo Peep counts her spoils, a wolf in sheep's clothing sneaks up from behind and snags her biggest catch.

Happy Halloween!

First, here are some fascinating pictures of our roof remodel, for my Dad's enjoyment.
Of course, half way through the job, it started to rain, so we had to tarp almost the entire roof.


And here is the latest wall hanging I've made. I was getting sick of my Firecracker one, so I made this out of a charm pack, a fat quarter, and 1/2 yard of fabric. The cute wall plaque is from my Fall Swap buddy.
And finally, the fun stuff. Here's Little Bo Peep, with her sheep (which looks uncannily like a poodle).

Pumpkin Land

Here we are at the first field trip of the season. Everyone looks so calm and organized in the picture, but with every elementary school in the county descending on Pumpkin Land at the same exact moment, it was absolute chaos. How could it possibly be a good idea to take twenty preschool kids into a corn maze? Still, we had a lot of fun and even went home with a souvenir pumpkin.

Aunt Benja came to visit a couple of weeks ago. Not only did she fix us a Thai feast, she fed Lane bubbles.

,

Lullaby

Andrew just sent me this video. I think you'll all enjoy it.

How much wood could a woodchuck chuck?

Well, after feeling guilty all last winter that we didn't have an emergency heat source, I finally ordered us a half cord of wood (I know, this tops everyone's list of fears). I thought I would be fancy and buy one of those wood rack bracket sets at Walmart. What a mistake. As soon as I assembled it and stacked half of the wood, the welds popped on the brackets and my whole woodpile cascaded down the side.That's when Bob's How To (seriously) came to the rescue. For $2.75 I had my very own plans for a foolproof woodrack. After a while, Andrew felt sorry for me slaving away in the garage with our old handsaw, so he helped me out with the power saw to finish all of the cuts. A few hours later, I'd finished my very first woodworking project (not counting the numberless painted wood thingys I've done between Young Women's and Super Saturday). Happily, I started stacking the woodpile for the second time.
Of course, half a cord of wood is a lot of wood, and so no matter how fabulous my new wood rack was, it was never going to hold that much. So the next day, I went down to the Home Depot, bought myself 5 more pressure treated 2x4's, and looked helpless until the salesperson offered to cut them all to size for me. Another hour went by, and I had my second rack, à la Bob's How To.

So, here's the finished product:
And here is what Lane was doing while I was busy working: