Christmas Crafting and Baking

I can't believe I didn't take more pictures. I think because I was so busy. This year I totally lost it. Here are the bean bags, targets and a few of the many, many sour cream containers.

This month I made:

3 batches of chocolate covered cookie dough

4 pans of magic cookie bars (sediment, for those that know Syb)

1 pan Congo bars

70 pretzel rods

150 sour cream containers

36 bean bags for Aaron's school party (ok so Tiffany made these, but I was there)

3 bean bag targets

35 magnets with grandkids faces and Christmas pictures

Now I'm going to bed!

Cora Grace!

She is such a piece of work. She screams her head off in her crib. We go in to get her, hoping she hasn't woken her sister. When she see us she says, "shhhhh", and puts her finger to her mouth, then points to the sleeping Catherine, as if to say, "don't wake her"

This little one is my first to like to take off her PJ's (and diaper) One night I came home and Joe had gorilla taped her zipper. Here she is acting innocent. 'I don't know why he did it.'

Hey guys you are ruining all my fun!

This picture shows her mullet very well. We just don't have the heart to cut those soft little curls. But her hair is always a train wreck. She likes to put pretties in her hair, but will only have them there for .8 seconds before ripping them out and asking that they be put back in again. Usually one side is straight and the other curly, but it is always soft and smells so good.

My new hobby

I hate when you get a form that says "Hobbies" because I have none. Over the last several years, I've been so busy being a mom, church member with various callings, employee, and wife that I've kind of disappeared as a person. Those things I am interested in seem time and cost prohibitive. So I finally found a hobby that I enjoy and works with my current lifestyle. My new hobby......... couponing. It is hilarious. There is a blog, http://hip2save.blogspot.com/ that does most of the work for me, suggesting how to combine sales with coupons to get the best deals. (thanks Laura) I'm just starting, but I've had some fun ones.

The first was a mall gift certificate for $10. All I did was sign up on-line and then go to the mall on a given day and pick it up. I combined this with the going out of business sale a Bachrach and got three nice dress shirts for Joe for $15 total! I thought they would be a great Christmas gift from the kids, but they wanted to give them to him right away. So they all put one on and did a little dance for him.


















The second deal was my first experience in 'rolling' a coupon. (not quite the same as the BYU definition of rolling!) So I went to Meijer and bought 5 cans of soup and a loaf of bread. I had had two $1 off coupons for this. The combination of the purchase triggered one of those $5 off printouts at the register. I was in the self check out, so I bought the same thing again, this time using the $5 off and it printed again. I did this 4 times and walked away with 20 cans of soup and 4 loaves of bread for $5.64. Not as good as some super couponers, but pretty good for a start. I was afraid they would kick me out of the store, but quite to the contrary, the coupon printer was low on ink, so the $5 off wouldn't scan. The helper person was so cool, he said he would just type in the code for me each time and it gave him something to do. So unlike my friends who quilt and compare their hobby in cost to a heroin addiction, I've found a fun little thing to do that will save money for our family. Check out that blog, it is a good one, and happy couponing!

Basketball

As soon as the basketball hoops were up we went down to play. Cora was feeling a little left out, so Joe thought she should participate. I just stood back, said a little prayer for her safety, and took some pictures!Joe would get the ball, hand it to her and take off. He was running FAST! And she loved it.

Lots of trips to the Grove aka longest post ever!

As our summer progressed I knew it would not be complete with out several trips to the Grove. The first one, July 2nd, was a must because I was out of Maple Syrup. These are a few of my favorite Funks Grove landmarks. The old Antique store is now run by Rey Jannusch and her daughter and only open a few days a month and the train station that was moved to the Grove from Shirley. They've been the all my life and they just feel like home.

There were a lot of birds and ground squirrels feeding in the bird sanctuary that day. I couldn't catch a picture of the humming birds, they were all too fast.

This is proof that despite what they say, Catherine and Aaron do love one another.

My pretty girls!

My friend Donna and her family met us there. After an afternoon of playing with Jesse, Jared, and their cousins, Aaron was worn out and took a little rest before going home. Poor Donna, right after I told the kids to stay out of the nettles she was pushing a swing and fell into a big bunch of stinging nettles. She thought she was going to die! Luckily, they only sting for twenty minutes.

Just this one more picture of scenery. As I sit here in October freezing, it is good to see some spring! The flowers were beautiful!

Even after she turned a year old, Cora was not so sure her feet should be in that green stuff.

This child has an opinion about everything and oh boy will she let you know what it is. The other day in church she felt she should have seconds in bread during the sacrament. She was pointing and 'talking' very loudly. We quickly broke out the Cheerios. That calmed her for a minute until she saw me and decide all this would be washed down nicely with some milk. She dove for my shirt and had it half way up before I stopped her. Needless to say, at the point, we left the room!

Our next trip to Funks Grove was a more somber occasion. On August 1st, we went to the funeral of Willie Farris. My dear friends buried a wonderful husband and father. He had a pretty hard last month which prepared them for the loss, but it was still a sad occasion. He is laid to rest a few yards from my father. After the services, Joe took Cora to visit her grandpa's grave. It was raining slightly that day. Like the heavens were crying with my friends. The flag on Dad's grave indicates his service in the army. He was deployed in WWII. He wanted to be a fighter pilot. He cheated on the first eye exam to get into pilot's school, but failed the second one. He ended up repairing radios in a jungle somewhere.

The final trip to the Grove happened on August 7th and 8th. It was the Funk-Stubbfield 125th family reunion. It was so much fun.

We started Friday night with a meal provided by Funk's farms. They provided the meat for the burgers and the corn that they picked that day and grilled. Cora would take a bite and hand her fork over for another one! It was raining pretty hard when we got there, we ate under a big tent and it rained just long enough to keep the kids in there seats to eat. Then it cleared and was a beautiful evening.

There was a hula-hoop contest, which to the surprise of all of us, Aaron won. Catherine had her hopes up because she is our master hula-hooper. She did, however, get a dollar from some long lost relative for shaking her hips so well in practice. I'm not sure how I feel about strange men giving my daughter money for shaking it!

There was also tug of war. Jacob got started a little early, but no one else seemed to notice!

Then the water balloon toss, which quickly became the water balloon fight!




The fire was started in the early afternoon and burned hot enough to survive the rain. Little s'more packets were made up, and the kids, I mean Joe, loved them!

Cora was a good sport and spent her time getting past between Joe and I.










Parking is a little way from the nature center so a couple of guys hooked up big people movers to the backs of their tractors. The kids loved to ride and we took several unnecessary trips back and forth. The view was amazing, so I didn't mind a bit!

When it got dark the amateur astronomers, who have an observatory at the nature center, came out. They brought some powerful telescopes with them. We saw the craters on the moon and three of Jupiter's moons. Jacob, Catherine and I went on a night hike. We saw bats and several different night insects. It was the first time Jacob has ever stayed that close to me!

The next day was a catered picnic lunch at the church. It was super hot that day. We took the family picture and then there were these cool reenactments of different ancestor's stories. Kind of a day in the life. A group of actor had been hired and they were in period costume. We thought it was amazing, but so was AC. Lucky for us they tape them all and put them on you-tube! So we went into April's house to cool down.

Then back to the nature center for a scrumptious dinner and live band. As soon as he finished eating Jacob went right down in front to hear the music. Followed shortly by Joe and Catherine. The band covered a lot of our favorite artists and people were shocked to see Catherine and Aaron singing along to music from the 70's and 80's.

Jake, Cora, and I went on a wagon ride through the prairie. The horses that the Prairie Home has are 18 hands high. I don't remember the type that they are, but they went to Europe to get them because that is the type the Funks had back in the day. Rick was trying to get people on and off the wagon and I wanted to get a shot of the horses. I handed him Cora and after people got settles he only half jokingly said, "Whose grand baby am I holding!?"

When the sun went down the fire and some icicle lights provided the light. It was pretty. Catherine spent her time dancing.

Cora and I checked out the nature center.

She was thrilled to be able to touch anything she wanted to.

Then not sure she wanted to!

Jacob and Aaron ran around being a nuts. There is something about kids outside at night.

The day was just perfect and there is nothing that says we had a good day as much as this.

Swimming Lessons

The kids were thrilled to take swimming lessons this year. They all did a great job.

Catherine and Aaron moved on to the class that swims the long way across the pool. It was rough going for Catherine at first, but by the end of the session her teacher said she had the best front stoke in the class! They began to work on the back stroke and she go a little lost. In this picture she is 90 degrees off course. It was really cute to see the look on her face when she looked up and wasn't sure where she was.

The kids took two sessions, luckily the last two which were in July, because the weather was so cold this year. Some days the teachers would wear sweatshirts in the pool. Each of the sessions lasted two weeks. In Jacob's second session he had two of his buddies, Mike and Joe, in class with him. That was lots of fun for Jacob, not so much fun for the teachers!

Jacob learned to float on his back


And put his head in the water.


Look how cold his teacher, Matt, is!






I'm so thrilled to see them love the water. Swimming is one of my favorite things in the whole world!