Fireplace Makeover

A project that had been on my list for awhile (after seeing people do it in blogland) was painting the brass on our fireplace black with this stuff.

After -

My next project is giving Brett's room a makeover - moving from yellow farmyard nursery to tan "Americana" room :)

Early Christmas

We celebrated Christmas at Grandma & Grandpa Jones last night. It was great to see family we don't see often - Ed's brother's family, Aunt Connie/Uncle Dennie and Ed's grandparent's. The boys had a lot of fun playing with their cousins.

Connie surprised Dennie with a puppy. And I think by the end of the night he was named shadow. He had been found dumped with his brother. He was so sweet. . . .

The kids all enjoyed their presents, but by the end of the night they were having a ball with paper airplanes. It REALLY is the simple things they enjoy the most.

3 on 3

Basketball has started! Actually it started a couple weeks ago, but I have stayed home with little britches so he could take a nap. This Saturday we all went to watch Brady play. And I think basketball might officially be the hardest sport to watch as a parent of a kindergartner :)

But he's doing great. I look forward to seeing him grow and hearing what he does and doesn't like about the different sports. This summer I really got the feeling that he loved playing baseball so it was a lot of fun for me to watch. Right now we just want to know he's had the chance to try a lot of different sports.

GABL has a 1/2 hour of practice and then a 1/2 game at the end. The kindergarten league is 3 on 3 and there are 7 kids on Brady's team so there's plenty of subbing and sitting on the bench - but that's okay. Brady needs to learn how to cheer for his teammates too.

Should be a fun winter activity!

Starry Night, Noisy Night

Brady and Brett sang in the church Christmas program - Starry Night, Noisy Night - this year for the first time. They did a great job!

The preschoolers sang "Away in a Manger" and "Happy Birthday to Jesus" before the play. They were very cute!

Brady and his friend Cameron were shepherds. What a pair!

Christmas Party

Thanks to Dedra and a couple blogs featuring ruffle skirts, I had the bright idea of making a ruffle skirt to wear to Ed's holiday party. I even found this plain blue skirt in my closet. Yes, it was from high school, pretty ugly (and a tad snug :)





















I should have taken a closeup, but you get the idea. I took sparkly chiffon and made LOTS of ruffles.

Miss Frenchie's

Brady went to the movies with a friend (for the boy's bday) and Ed took Brett to do some holiday shopping, so I was able to go here by myself Saturday morning. It was fun to go check out some of the places I've only see via blogland!

Tree Farm Field Trip

I went with Brett's school this morning on their tree farm field trip. A tree farm (D&G) in Louisburg donates a tree to each classroom (very nice of them!). It was a lot of fun but pretty chilly.

I was responsible for Brett and these two cute girls - Alexia and Sophia.

After riding in a trailer out to all of the trees, it didn't take long for the kids to find the "perfect" one (thank goodness!) They all liked the ones that were their size (height) and they were all "perfect." Brett's teacher, Ms. Deja, is in the purple mauve coat.

Timber!

And it was small enough for the kids to carry to the trailer - they loved it!

The kids really liked watching them "shake" the trees out when we got them back to the barn.

And then we had hot chocolate and cookies. The kids started doing "cheers!"- it was so cute. The boy in the orange coat (Matthew) has gone to school with both boys and will be moving to California in January. We will miss seeing him!

Fun pillows

Inspired by these -

I really wanted to use pom-pom trim and experiment with adding a button to the middle of pillows. Let me just say, using a button-covering kit is SO FUN and EASY! 2 pillows with different fabric on each side.

Pirates and Cowboys

We visited Grandma & Grandpa Jones Saturday. Randy got a pirate for his birthday and the boys love it.



They got to "walk the plank" and jump off the boards into feedsacks - WAY fun!

They also had a little machine that you could shoot cans with and when you hit the trigger, the cans would shoot up. Nothing like close range! (notice the curled tongue here :)

This is their good dog - Ms. Shelby.

Later in the morning Ed's aunt brought her grandchildren over (would that be 2nd cousins? I'm never good with that :). We hadn't seen them for a long time so that worked out great. The kids had fun chasing chickens and checking out their goat Scooter.

Brady & Blaine - happy to have caught one

Randy had just done his trick and "put a chicken to sleep" - I was just a little slow with my camera. Love how they're all on the ground watching the chicken though.

Meet Scooter - it's so fun to watch him jump around and go crazy

He went into the chicken house for a short time to get away from everyone. I don't blame him.

Thanksgiving

We had a great time in Lebo with family - lots of eating, dog walks, and more eating. Brett especially enjoyed this Blue Cheese Bacon dip - I had to promise him he could lick the bowl so he would stop eating spoonfuls of the dip before I even cooked it.



And of course, the highlight for the boys was hanging out with their cousins. Brady has already asked if he can go over to Garrett's house at Christmas.



At the end of the night, Garrett and Brady took the wishbone outside. I don't think Brady really knew what they were doing, but Garrett told him to make a wish and Brady immediately wished for a new Bokugan. I sure hope Santa brings one!



Friday we headed to Emporia to get pics taken with Santa (NO line and cheap, this year FREE - Mrs. Claus didn't even really want to take the picture and charge us so we all lined up and just took our own photos. Fine by us!)



And I have to include this pic of Ed and his trophy - he found it on my grandparent's farm. . . . we all went back the next day so we could find the entire skeleton. . . . .and we were successful. That's all I have to say.

Craft Day

Dedra and her boys came over the Wednesday before Thanksgiving to make stuff. It was really fun - I think she was more productive than I was (and she was nice enough to share!) but I did get a dress finished for Brynna and helped Becky make a fabric bracelet (hers turned out cute, but I gave up on mine).

During the Thanksgiving break, I also made my niece Whitney a scrapbook to chronicle their 2009 season (2nd in state!) and made a new pillow for our couch (one of my favorites! I'll post pics soon. Dedra, I made one for you too . . . .)

Here's a pic of our craft corner :)



She brought letters for us to make "Joy" and our monograms - I have my "S" on my front door wreath already and I love it.



The kids had fun playing (and crafting!) too.



Lookin' good Miles!



Thanks for coming over and sharing your great stuff Dedra! I had a lot of fun hanging out and hope we get to do it again soon!

Swimming in November

My parents and nephew were in town on Sunday so we crashed their hotel in the afternoon - it was really nice because we were the only ones there.

It was not one of Brett's good picture days. Maybe I should go one step further and say it was not Brett's day. I don't think he appreciated his brother having another playmate - especially in HIS house . . . . . . but everyone else had fun. We were so proud of Bro going potty like a big boy!

Some things never change

It's been more than 20 years since I've been to a skating rink, but I'm pretty sure they still all look exactly like the one I went to as a kid. EXACTLY.

Same wall to wall carpeting, same black lights and disco balls, same games and I'm pretty sure the same skates and toilets.

The boys were really excited to go Brady's school skate party, but I don't think Brady realized how hard it was going to be. I'm pretty sure he pictured himself whizzing around the rink, so there were some tears and falls and just hanging out around the games.

We stayed on the hallway carpet a lot, but eventually Brady figured out he could tag along with his friend in the rink if he hung on to the wall.

He was feeling unusally confident when I took this shot -

The cutest thing I saw was when it was "girls only" skating, the boys lined up against the wall and stuck their hands out for the girls to high-five.

Brady wants to go again. He wants to go fast. I think it was a good lesson that things take practice. I told him he might fall sometimes when he's learning to ride his bike without training wheels too and he said "That's okay, because I really want to do it."