Valentine craft idea?

I came across, what I consider to be, a fun idea. Check out wordle.com when you have a sec. Depending on the font you use, you can enter around 150 words about anyone or anything. You pick the font and color scheme. The almighty computer then rearranges them in lots of different ways (you choose how you want them arranged). Then you can print your creation on a normal-sized piece of paper to use for whatever your little heart desires. The only downside, as I see it, is not being able to make the words fit into more shapes. Oh, and the fact that you can't go back and edit. If you decide you want to add a word, you have to start all over.

Christmas '08

We made a rule last night that the first person awake was to wake up the others, but NOT before 7:00am. The kids were worried that Kayleigh would wake up before that, but I reassured them that it wasn't Kayleigh who they should be worried about, but Matt! He didn't let us down and started waking people up a few minutes before 7. We all got some great gifts from each other and Santa and enjoyed a yummy breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon, hashed browns, and toast.

Thank you to all of you who also helped make this a great Christmas season. I told Matt the other day that this was one of the best Christmases for me. I think a lot of it had to do with being able to stay home and actually having time to work on various projects without the stress of getting things done after long days at work. I'm crossing my fingers that I'll manage to have more like it in the future.

The 2nd Annual Hales/Spencer Holiday Extravaganza

Today we went bowling with the kids in Ogden. Kayleigh was good for one game, but that was about all she could handle. About the time she started running down the lanes, Jenny and I decided it was time to take her home. Matt, Garrett and Tara stayed to bowl a second game. Matt joined "The 200 Club" with an even 200! He's now asking for matching satin bowling jackets for Christmas and begging me to join a league. If I didn't have such a wimpy bowling arm, I might take him up on it! Brandon and Brittany came over around 5:00pm. We played a get-to-know-you game with M&Ms and then had dinner - a new spice-dubbed chicken recipe, funeral potatoes, corn and rolls; dessert was brownies and peppermint ice cream (my favorite at Christmas time).

Susie Homemaker in the making:

Jenny and Kayleigh made Christmas cookies last night. I think Kayleigh's will be going to her little friends in the neighborhood. (She has many more than we do - friends.)

Santa's Little Helpers

Santa Visit

This afternoon we went to see Santa at Sunset City Hall. Kayleigh wasn't too keen on sitting on Santa's lap, but she did talk to him and she didn't cry, both of which suprised us. She managed to grab a candy cane from his little sack before it was her turn to see him. Smart girl!

Christmases Past

What is your favorite Christmas memory or tradition? One of mine is when I was a kid living in Huntsville, TX. We were dirt poor (has that changed?), living on our property out in the woods. We had no central heat in our house, so in the winter we kids would sleep in the living room by the wood-burning stove. On Christmas Eve we sat on the floor around the tree with my mom and had a Christmas dinner of hot dogs and chips. My mom may have even splurged and made them chili dogs! For whatever reason, it was a special time for us as kids. Maybe because we got to eat on the floor like we were having a picnic. I don't know. In actuality, it probably only happened once, but it sticks in my mind as if we did it every year. How about you?

Impatience

Okay, so I couldn't wait until after dinner tomorrow to put Thanksgiving behind me. Christmas is just a much more exciting holiday! I have, however, refrained from putting up any decorations or lingering on FM100.

I've Been Converted!

Kayleigh's Pumpkin #2 became Turkey #1. We spent a good amount of time trying to come up with a name for her, but were unsuccessful. She's just "Turkey." I guess that's better than "Girl," which was what K originally wanted to call her.

Holidays

Well, one holiday down, how many more to go? It'll all happen so quickly now. I've always majorly balked at the idea of putting one holiday before the other. It drives me nuts that stores do so, but having K around kind of changes things. For instance, last night we were driving home and she kept talking on and on and on and on...if you get my drift...about Frankenstein and the Pumpkin Head Man and the "Switch" that keeps falling over and they need to blow her up again. These are all big blow-up decorations in yards that we pass regularly. I was trying to explain to her that they may not be there now that Halloween is over. I was going to say something to the effect that we may start seeing Thanksgiving decorations, but thought to myself that I'm not sure I've ever seen any Thanksgiving blow-up ones. From there I started talking about Christmas and how we'll see Santas and reindeer (she's calling them rainbow deer) and snowmen. That then led to singing Christmas songs with those words in them. The whole time I was telling myself, "I can't believe I'm doing this!" I don't even have all of our Halloween decorations down yet. Actually, as of my insomniatic (sp? - is that even a word?) night last night, I do except for some pumpkins that are outside. I'm considering leaving them as "fall" decorations, though they do have faces on them.

So what else is going on? My YW blog is up and running. We'll see if it ends up amounting to anything. One of my Laurels conducted yesterday and announced it and she did a horrible job of it. I did give all the girls a handout with the website and the reasoning behind it. No one really said anything, so we'll see what happens. I worked too hard on it for it to be a flop. My main worry through it all was that our bishop, who I think the world of yet is very controlling and doesn't even have the internet, would shoot it down immediately. He didn't even let me explain anything about it and was just like, "Yeah, yeah, just make sure you have it linked to the ward website." I was speachless! (Yeah, like that's ever happened to ME!) Anyway, I'm still excited about it and hope the girls are able to benefit from it.

Aside from that, I've been working on Christmas shopping and crafts. I'm NOT opposed to doing that before Thanksgiving. In fact, in a really good year, I have it done before Halloween. This is not considered a "really good year." I'm pretty stumped on what to get a few people.

Jenny's 19th birthday was Saturday. This was the warmest Halloween I remember since I was pregnant with her. I'll always remember trick-or-treating in short sleeves that year. I can't believe she's as old as she is and that so much time has passed. The witch costume that Kayleigh wore was actually one I made Jenny when she was that age. I knew there was a reason I've been hanging on to it - among others (costumes, not reasons). On the 21st, we're going on a "field trip" to BYU-Idaho for Visitor's Day. Jenny will be able to check out the campus and see for herself where things are. We'll spend half the day with people from the school hearing about all they have to offer. I haven't been up there for a really, really long time. I'm looking forward to it. I loved going to school there and have promoted it big time.

Garrett got some good news - he's finally getting his braces off next Wednesday. He was gone for so long during the summer to Michigan that it kind of put him behind in the process. Originally they were supposed to come off in March and he's been mad after each appointment where it's been postponed.

A few months ago, Brandon invited Matt and me to dinner (this NEVER happens) with him and his girlfriend. This was the first (and subsequently only) time we met her...Brittany. She's a really cute girl - redheaded like him - and very outgoing. He just kept smiling and looking at her all googly-eyed. Ah, love...they kept giving each other these weird looks like they were going to make some announcement of some kind, but it never happened. All the more reason for us to think the whole going-to-dinner thing was weird. Anyway, I guess he introduced her to his dad the other day. Rumor has it that no announcement was made there either, but that they kept calling each other "love" and "babe." Too weird to hear your children calling someone those names. We'll keep you posted on that front...

Sorry, Tara, I still don't have anything to say about you, but thanks for being steady and so cute!

Can you tell that Kayleigh and Tayah are both sleeping? A miracle!

Happy Halloween

Halloween was fun for us all. We started early in the day by carving a pumpkin for dinner. Actually, we cooked our dinner in the pumpkin. Sounds gross, doesn't it? We were scared, too, but it turned out okay. It was supposed to be "soup," but it ended up being thicker like a casserole. We put browned hamburger, cooked rice, onions, cream of chicken soup, brown sugar, sour cream and carrots in the pumpkin and baked it for an hour. It had a slight pumpkin flavor to it, but mostly it wasn't very warm after being in the oven for that long and we're not big on onions, so there were a lot to pick around. The carrots were also still hard and crunchy even though I had cooked them in the microwave some before adding them. I think next time we'll use onion flakes or powder and corn instead of carrots. It had a good flavor though. I'm always looking for new traditions to start (ones that are different from the same ones everyone else always does). Maybe this is it. Maybe we can try cooking different things in the pumpkin now that we know kind of what to expect.

While the pumpkin was cooking, Matt and I took K out trick-or-treating around the cul-de-sac and about halfway up the block and back. It took an hour just to go that far. She had to stop and check out everything along the way and inspect all of the decorations. We also had to take pictures of her with her little friends. Princess Leia is really Princess "Tayah" - Kayleigh's friend who we babysit a few days a week. Tara and Garrett went out with some of their friends while Jenny stayed home making treats and handing out candy.

Make a Smilebox scrapbook

"Beauty" is a process!

Our little pumpkin

Yesterday, when Kayleigh and I went to WalMart, she noticed a huge display of fake pumpkins. The whole time we were there, she kept talking about them. In the produce department, they only had the little ones (which worked for me), so we picked out a good one for her. When we got home, she told me it needed eyes, so I took care of that. She then spent a good amount of time coloring it with some markers. She was so proud of it! We put it outside on the front porch for all to see. There were three little neighbor boys (probably 3-4 years old) across the street playing and she kept yelling to them, "Show you the pumpkin!" They eventually came over and told her that it was "beautiful." It was fun listening to these little kids all having a conversation with each other.