Upcoming projects

Well my camera is broken, so I thought I would post some pictures from the web on some of my upcoming house projects...


Now that the painting downstairs is done, I've ordered some vinyl and hope to go crazy with my cricut... finally.This is going to go on our front wall beneath some family photos.

I'm going to make this (and a ton of other Christmas crafts) that I've found for next year.

These are going to be 2 of the sayings in vinyl lettering in Paige's room.


I'm going to make my own dinosaur sign for the boys room after it's painted.

I'm going to attempt to paint something like this in the boys room. Without the jeeps. Just similar colors and cuts on the paint.



I'm thinking a Cat in the Hat theme would be cute for the toy room...


Letters similar to this saying "Princess" for Paige's room

I am also planning on cooking everything in my recipe book so I can weed it down (I've cooked 3 so far that have turned out great!)

Other than that, Derek is back at school, Kevin goes back to speech preschool (in a bus!) on Thursday, Darci is now waving bye bye, and Paige is already tearing her room apart!

Goodbye 2009....

We had some major milestones this past year...

• 1 new city - can't believe we've been here nearly a year!
  
• 1 new preschool - Kevin finally got started on speech therapy
• 1 more out of diapers for good - Paige has been in underwear day and night most of the year
  
• 1 more half way out of diapers - Kevin is still working on nights... we might not hit that milestone until 2012!
  
• 1 more addition to our family - I can't believe Darci is already walking and almost 1!
  
• 1 Melanoma skin cancer scare, but thankfully all is negative for now
• 1 new house, 1 old one being rented
• 1 happy person (me) to be out of our yucky 3 bedroom 1100 sf 2nd story apartment
• 1 new dog (again)
• 3 new jobs, 1 for Tad, 2 for me
• 1 broken camera - it died a few days ago and I'm beginning to lose my mind!
  

I'm looking forward to 2010 and everything that it has to offer. Every new year with the kids is so much more fun than the last.

Merry Christmas

Snow at our house 2 days before Christmas



Christmas Day we went sledding up by the Sandia Ski area, about 40 minutes away. The temp on our car reading said 10 degrees and it was windy so it was even colder than that. Everyone had fun. Derek amazed me by going down a huge hill by himself and wanting to do it over and over again. Darci had fun walking in the snow until she fell face first in some soft powder.

This video is the drive up...


Here's some sledding before my camera battery died. I didn't get much of the big hill, but we'll go back in a few weeks and take more.













Christmas was a lot of fun this year. The kids got a lot of fun things and were happy with everything they got. And its always a good feeling when we talk to them about the true meaning of Christmas and about Jesus and they GET it and they tell the story of Jesus themselves.

I found Derek a "cheap" bakugan for $3 and he's been carrying it around with him everywhere. The necklace I'm wearing is my Christmas present from Derek that he made at school.


Paige got her princess bike. Darci just walked around the room everywhere talking to herself and having a good time.


We didn't wake them up early on Christmas day, and they all slept in until 8am. Kevin and Derek got their dinosaurs from Santa.


Darci loved getting into everyone else's presents, especially the wrapping paper.


We let them all sleep out in the TV room on Christmas Eve. None of them had naps, so they went to bed pretty easy, which was a good thing because we still had some wrapping to do.

Princess Room

This is the start of Paige's new princess room. It's not quite this dark pink in person. The ceiling is hot pink, but the walls are a light pink. I've got to go out and get some vinyl to finish up with the wall decorations, and a few wall shelves for other things that I have, but this is what she has so far.

We made marshmallow snowmen tonight.. I was planning on making these for a while and had some chocolate chips set aside for it, but Tad had thrown them away, so we made do with what I had in the pantry.

We went to the river of lights here at Abq's botanical gardens. It was insanely crowded and very cold!

Darci is just too sweet most of the time, but has learned to scream when she doesn't get her way or when you take something out of her hands.

Everyone says she looks like a cabbage patch doll... even when I'm out shopping with her I'll hear people whisper... "she looks like a cabbage patch doll"...

Darci Walking and other things

Darci walks everywhere now.. Here's some more video of her over the past few weeks.



Here are the kids sledding... Kevin did go down, but Tad didn't get a video of him...

More Christmas crafts...

Every year we make an ornament for each of us. Here are some of the ones we came up with.

We made some snowflakes

I spent $7 making my own wreath because I didn't want to pay for one already made...

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