Christmas Stockings

ryan and i have never had any christmas stockings. i went to a friends house and saw some that she made. they were so adorable. she told me that she could show me how to make some. so that's what we did yesterday. this is my first sewing craft. i am so proud of myself. that's no joke.

thanks my friend! :)

Oh Christmas Tree...

this is our first time to go out in the forest and cut down a christmas tree. ryan and his family used to do it, but i only partly remember doing it like maybe one time when i was young.
it meant a lot to me and i hope we can have it as a family tradition.  
(thanks jeff v. for driving us all the way there and packing our tree all the way back)

  
jeff found his tree first and it was a lot taller than it looked at a distance....

i think it was around 11 feet. but it was such a good looking tree, ryan and i got a little jealous. and so we were really on the hunt to find our perfect tree. not just any tree... a very tall tree. to fit in our very tall ceiling home. we drove up and down the road and up and down and back and forth. but then... we found one.


12.5 feet tall.

the tea room....

a week and a half ago i went and hung out with my mom. she works so much i don't get to see her very often. but this time i had a car (thanks to the stokers) so i was able to say, "can i come over?" we went to a little place that my mom calls "the tea room"... why? i'm not sure, cause its really called "miss tami's cottage". 

we had the southwest club and the monte cristo. SOO GOOD. our table acted like a lazy susan, so it made it easy to share our sandwiches. although, i don't think it was supposed to turn like that.

we got a little silly in this place. it was a good thing they let us have our own room by the fake fireplace and the creepy santa and mrs. clause.

we were leaving and 2 ladies were shocked when they found out that my mom was indeed my mom, rather than a sister. she pretty much LOVED that. I forgot to tell you mom, that my friend saw some pictures of us on my wall and she thought you were a sister too. :) thanks for this day. it was so much fun. XOXO

we wish you a merry christmas!

love,

charly, mom, mr. and mrs. santa creeps

A Generation Party

Ryan was in charge of a generation party at the church and it was really fun! There were all kinds of soups and desserts. There was even some dancing. Ryan even spun me around and dipped me.

This is the photo backdrop we set up to take everyone's picture.

what i'm wearing: savers jacket and striped shirt for 6 bucks total.

what ryan's wearing: word to your mother T from his closet.

took a much needed trip

i took a week off work to go and visit my sister and her family. we got a pretty good deal on plane tickets, that my oh so sweet husband agreed to buy me. :)

i was SO excited!

as i was waiting to board the plane, there were birds running all around my feet in the airport...

also, when i was waiting, there was an older gentleman doing pushups against on of the chairs. what kind of airport is this anyway?

i sat by a lady on the plane that was related to my mother in-law. how funny. it made the trip so much faster to visit with someone. she was really sweet.

i pretty much ran off the plane i was so excited and there daegan was waiting for me.. all dressed up ready for me to take their family pictures.

out of a gazillion, only a few turned out. most of them turned out fuzzy and if they weren't one of the kids would be making a funny face. (daegan of course did the editing)

for sunday, we got all ready for church and daegan got really sick. she had a migraine through most of the day. it was so bad that she took a very long nap and threw up her pain medicine. but she is a trooper and still put together her super fun halloween meal. we did this meal sunday because monday, well there just wasn't any time.

daeg asked her more than willing to help his sick wife husband to make a web on the table for the fun meal. he needed some scissors to cut the end of the web and tossed them back, they slid and landed right on the tip of my big toe! it must have been sharp end down, cause the thing went through my toe nail, pushing my toe nail into my toe. i was like jumping up and down. if you know my sister you could imagine her reaction to someone in pain. LAUGHTER! she was giggling and i was groaning and grunting. then i looked at it. it wasn't bleeding, but it was so disgusting that i started to cry. charlie had to pull the nail out of my toe and then came the blood. the boys happily went and got me a super cool bandage that was super bad and sticking. later that day charlie was looking for the kitchen scissors and couldn't find them. he asked where could they be and the oldest nephew says, " why don't you check char's foot dad?" HA HA HA! clever little kid.

anyway here is what the meal kinda looked like. oh what a treat!

if you want to see the meal, visit my sister on her food blog here!

monday, (halloween) we got up and drove my oldest nephew to school. he was so excited to wear his skeleton shirt that glows in the dark. it looked pretty rad on him. we came back and daeg and i pondered on what we could dress up as for the trunk or treat at the church. it was down to crunch time and we still hadn't thought of what we would be. i think we pretty much figured we weren't going to be anything. it was 20 min before we had to leave and daeg pulled out some crazy long feather looking eyelashes. she said, "lets be birds!" so we ran into the bathroom and she gathered up her old halloween makeup from last year and we started getting ready. we ratted our hair as much as we could and i ratted daegan's so much that her long hair stood up straight! it was hilarious. so we tamed it down a bit. and then she found some old feather boas for the last touch, and we ran out the door to finish our makeup in the car. thanks to daeg's husband charlie for some advise on how to do the makeup, and of course daegan's artistic talent, we ended up like this...

i think it turned out pretty great!
and so did shaggy and the 3 little monsters.

the kids came back with a load of treats!

the rest of the week i know i can't keep straight. we did all kinds of things. we made so many baked goods, i can't believe how much we ate. YOU could not believe how much we ate. but i think it was worth it.

these little monsters are so hilarious, i wish i could remember all of the funny things they said. cause i know we laughed a LOT at them. the pink little monster did not like me most of her little life. every time her aunt sierra or her lala were around, she wanted nothing to do with me. NOTHING. she would always snap at me, and when someone did something she didn't like, she blamed me. it was just sad. and if i didn't have 2 little boys that loved me and couldn't stay away from me, i would have been much much much more devastated. but this trip was different. she LOVED me. i even heard after i left she looked for me on the couch where i slept in the mornings. she really is a sweet and good little girl.

we went to get gas after dropping off the oldest at school one of these mornings. and the 2 youngest monsters were getting a little hungry. so daeg talked them into a corn dog. the middle child, was not super thrilled about this idea, because he was looking forward to a hamburger. he held it for a while, smelled it and said, " this kinda smells like char." HA! i blame it on my old house smell.

DAEG AND I...

we seriously needed this full week together. it was so great and fun and completely silly. it was fun to laugh at all the funny things her kids said and at each other.

we stayed up late pretty much every night. except when we fell asleep at around 7:30pm and then got up at 11:00pm and THEN we stayed up late. some of these late nights ended at walmart where we got extra silly. we even made a few people giggle at our silliness. 

you must know, my sister is a true artist. yeah, i can draw, but i have to have something to copy, anybody can do that. my sister can draw things out of her head like nobody's business. so she had some white boards, and we had the middle monster come up with animals for us to draw and then he would be the judge of who's was better. i lost...every.time. you try drawing a gorilla and a buffalo without looking at what they look like and tell me how it goes. then we drew pictures with our left hands and our eyes closed. we pretty much mastered the shark.

so not only can she draw and create and whatever, her husband can too. try and imagine what her kids come up with... ok, you don't have to imagine, just take a look...

This one is by the almost 7 year old...

he made another book after i left.

these next few are from the 5 year old...

dragons

char and uncle ryan

super heroes

it was nearing the end of the week and we weren't exactly looking forward to it. it was a bittersweet moment. i did want to see my husband, but i didn't want to leave this family. the 5 year old asked me if i was missing my ryan. and i was. it was time to go. if only i could have packed them all in my suitcases. 

sunday was fast sunday. and we all were getting ready for church. and the boys' church clothes were ready for church before they were themselves!...

we had a great lesson given in relief society. daegan shared her sweet testimony. i am so grateful for that. after church we had some lunch and then drove to the airport. it was already over? it went by so fast. and i tried my hardest not to cry. i did pretty good. but i remembered i had something great to look forward to when i walked off that plane... my husband.