Hannah Says...

Project 365 - Week 15: Day 1

April 8

Happy Easter!

Our only family picture of the day!

Happy December

Thankful

Seriously I can't believe it's Thanksgiving already!  November has flown by for us.  I'm looking forward to a long weekend, although Brent has to work most of it.  But we will have fun nonetheless.  I'm sure we will do a little shopping on Friday, but believe it or not, I don't have a lot on my list. 

We've had a year of major ups and downs, but we do have a lot to be thankful for.  Such as:

• a healthy family, espcially Emmett
• a warm house and full cupboards
• lots of needed patient experience for Brent
• jobs that pay the bills
• supportive families
• wonderful friends
• a funny little boy who keeps us on our toes
• two great Bible studies (for me) that keep me encouraged
• a church that we really like
• lessons that we are learning from our experiences
• a God that loves us and keeps us in His hands

And so, during this week that we are reminded to be thankful, I will do my best to remember all that I have. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Our Christmas

It came and went all too quickly, just like I knew it would.  We had a very fun week, including lots of family, presents and yummy food.

Christmas Eve we celebrated with Brent's mom, stepdad and grandma.  After an early dinner, we opened presents.  Emmett didn't really get into it like I thought he might.  Once he had one opened, he was too excited about getting that present out of the box to care about anything else.  Once we convinced him that there were more fun things, he got excited.  He got lots of cars and trucks, and a few books too. 

Christmas morning, we woke up and opened presents and stockings here.  I think Emmett was most excited about the chapstick that came in his stocking!  Brent got me lots of organizing stuff for my crafts.  (Now I just have to get it all organized!)  I think my favorite gift was a label maker.  Pretty soon, everything will have a label!  Then we headed over to my parents.  Everyone was there and it was pure chaos!  Fun chaos.

We spent the rest of the weekend relaxing and playing with our new stuff.  My grandma hosted another party, which included a few games of Bingo.  (A favorite of Grandma!)  We've also been spending a lot of time with Brent's dad this weekend.  Emmett loves having him around!  And it makes getting stuff done a lot easier!

More Christmas Things

Ok, so these aren't all Christmas-y, but oh well.

All day today, since it has been so cold, I won't let Emmett go outside.  I keep telling him that it is too cold.  So, whenever Brent goes out, Emmett stands at the window crying saying "Dad-dy, cold!"  I think he worries that his Daddy is too cold out there.  In an effort to keep him in, I have the door to our back deck locked (that's the only door he can open to the outside.)  Well, I must have used it and forgot to lock it because he made it out into the snow...BAREFOOT!  He stood there crying, not knowing what to think.  Poor little guy.

Emmett and I wrapped a bunch of Christmas presents this afternoon.  I was really lazy this year and resorted to using stick-on bows instead of ribbons.  So not like me, but I just wanted to get it finished.  I did, however, print some cute gift tags from here and here.

We have two Christmas parties tomorrow night, and I am bringing treats to both.  I made my mom's shortbread this afternoon, using my new cookie cutters.  (They were the gift I received at our Bunco Christmas party!)  Tonight I made peanut butter cups, but they are actually balls.  It's the easiest recipe!

• 1 1/3 cups graham cracker crumbs (I actually use 1/2 gc and 1/2 rice krispies crumbs)
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 18 oz peanut butter (I totally estimated this one)
• 1 stick softened butter
• I used my food processor and zip zapped it all together (make your crumbs first and then add the rest)
• Roll in small balls and chill
• melt some (1-2 cups) chocolate chips or milk chocolate with 2-3TBS shortening (or something like it, butter, oil will work)
• Roll the chilled balls in the melted chocolate and let harden
• I think you are supposed to then put them in those little paper muffin wrappers, but I never do
• Eat one (or two) whilst the chocolate is still soft...delicious!

One week to go!!

The Christmas Tree

We got our tree up last night.  Actually I did it all by myself.  We have a fake tree all covered in lights that we got at Costco a few years ago and I love it.  I am not a real tree kind of girl!  I had gone to Target earlier in the day and bought two new packages of ornaments.  They're just bright sparkly balls to fill in around all the regular ornaments.  I thought that since Emmett has his own tree to play with, he wouldn't be as interested in the big one.  Wrong!  As soon as I started hanging ornaments, he started pulling them off.  I really don't want to fight with him all month long, so only the top half of the tree is decorated!  It's driving me a little crazy, but it's better than nothing.  I was also only able to use about half of my ornaments, so I was a little more discriminatory with what I used.  I did it all while watching the Christmas at Rockefeller special.  Love that show!

Emmett's Christmas Tree

So far, my Christmas decorations consist of just Emmett's Christmas tree.  He L.O.V.E.S. to take people by the hand and show them his little tree.  It's covered in glittery snow flakes, twinkle lights, a felt garland, bright ornaments and some felt ornaments.  It's so cute and I love how it turned out.

 

   

 

 

 

Thanksgiving

Fabulous weekend, including (but not limited to):

• Spending all Wednesday afternoon at my mom's prepping dinner
• Brent taking the whole week off!
• making turtle cheesecake
• making chex mix with my little brother Andrew
• all day with my family on Thanksgiving day
• yummy turkey, potatoes, stuffing, green beans, sweet potatoes, rolls, pretzel jello
• getting up at the crack of dawn on Friday
• Abby and I racing around to all the stores we wanted to hit (Fred Meyer, Target, Costco)
• buying stuff for Emmett and myself, but sadly, nothing for Brent!
• making cupcakes, mini pumpkin pies and caramel corn
• birthday party for Brent's grandma on Friday
• seeing Brent's entire family (mom's side) except one cousin, one aunt and one uncle
• doing nothing on saturday!
• well, i did a few more ornaments for emmett's tree, watched a movie and watched the Beavers get beat
• I'm sad about the beavers, because I was scheduled to have two sweet little girls stay with me when they went to the Rose Bowl (Abby and Scott would have gone down for it and I was going to keep Hailey and Avery)
• Did some major grocery shopping today
• played with Emmett and his new Little People's nativity scene...so cute!  My favorite part of the set is that the "Wise Men" are each a different nationality
• snuggling Emmett in his new jammies, I call them old man pj's (long-sleeve top that buttons down the front and matching pants)

Advent Calendar...

It's finally finished!

The whole thing.

 

A few close-ups.

 

 

Some of the ornaments.

   

 

A sparkly star for the top.

 

I wanted to make an advent calendar that didn't involve candy, but most of the ones I found were designed to put a piece of candy in each day.  So, I put together ideas from a couple that I liked.  Each of my ornaments and gifts have one half of a snap on the back and the other half is on the tree.  The tree will start out bare and each day we will put up an ornament or gift.  By Christmas day, it will be completely decorated!

 It's made of entirely of felt and embroidery floss.  I only bought a few pieces by the yard (the background, tree and snow) and the rest are the small rectangles.  In fact, I mostly used scraps from my garland and other projects I had done.  I also did all of the stitching by hand.  I would rather have used a sewing machine for the big parts, but I don't have one.  So, there it is.  Other than figuring out a way to hang it, I'm done!

November! *edited*

Oh my goodness, I can't believe it's November!  Time flies, right? 

We had a busy, but great weekend.  Halloween night was busy around here.  We had a lot of trick or treaters, maybe 150?  I don't think any of us actually kept count.  We had a huge bowl, mounded with candy and went through all of it.  (A bowl big enough for Emmett to sit in, that's how big.)  We also had our annual party. (My parents, the Futrells, and Melhorns)  It gets more fun each year as we all have kids and they are now almost all old enough to get Halloween.  After dinner, (chili and cornbread) the dads took the kids to a few houses in the neighborhood.  Emmett got to use his bag that I made him and brought home some good candy for Brent and me to share!  :) 

Saturday we headed up to Ellensburg for Karis' birthday party combined with a family harvest party.  It was a little cold and rainy, but that didn't stop the kids' fun.  Scott took them on a tractor ride around the yard, they toasted marshmallows and did some crafts.  Actually, during craft time, Emmett and Roc played in the playroom and left the crafting to the girls. 

Yesterday afternoon, we raked all the leaves out of the backyard, for the second time and filled 13 30 gallon leaf bags.  We still need to do the front yard and I am sure we will have to do the back again.  It wasn't too bad though, since we all worked together.

Today Brent took the day off work and I am really glad about that!  Happy Monday!

P.S.  My friend that adopted kids from Ethiopia had some family pics done.  Looke here to see her beautiful children!