Christmas Tree(s)

I saw this post on Pinterest with a Christmas tree blurred and it looked so pretty. So I was trying to duplicate it and practicing my focus on Jts head to get the blurry background. I followed all of the instructions, but I must be a camera idiot cause I couldn't get it for the life of me! Maybe next year. So here are my results: Not even close......

At one point I said screw it and just played around with the manual setting and did this one all by myself! No to bad, if I say so.
This one isn't bad either!
Now, this just looks blurry!

And then.....there's my dads fake half lit tree! LMAO

Don't ask why I thought I should share this with you, but every year I am determined to get a great TREE picture! Going to be one of must.

Home for the holidays (Random)

The boys and I were lucky enough to be home for someones birthday this year! My brother Jeff celebrated his 39th birthday! Ignore the picture below, he IS NOT 40! lol

We had a great day started with brunch and then followed buy dinner up at my moms! The guys went shooting at my moms while us girls sat inside talking and catching up. I think they even went fishing! Jackson was so happy to get to spend some time with his cousins and uncles.

My brother opening his gifts!

Tanner enjoying his dinner and watching everyone chit chat!
This one was funny! We thought we would give him an extra year!
You don't look a day over 34 Jeff!

Little stink! Move away from the plant!

My brother Scott with his granddaughter Brooklyn!

He adores her beyond the moon!

So glad we got to spend the day with you Jeffrey Douglas. We love you and hope you had a great day.

Santa came to Kfalls!

Jeff was so happy and excited to see Santa, he was jumping up and down! Right, look at that face, he was probably just waiting to get out of there!

As for Tanner well, he was asleep!
This is how it's done in Eagle land!

Jeff plugging Jts ears while he watched on. Santa was just about to get out of the Jet!

And Mrs. Clause was there to greet him after he landed and was on the ground safely!

We didn't get to see Santa after he landed. The line was so very long and Jackson was ok with seeing him when we get home in Fresno. So we will tell Santa what we want for Christmas next week!

Meal Planning and Grocery Lists

Ok, so if you know Jeff and how picky he can be when it comes to food, then you might know how boring our dinners can be. I feel like we eat the same thing over and over again and the grocery list consists of the same thing. I don't know how that happens cause the grocery bill is always changing! lol I know, every other trip is diapers and snacks.

Well, I have been addicted to this website called Pinterest. You have to be connected with Facebook to have a Pinterest account. If you don't don't have either you missing out, especially with Pinterest. I have become a crafty little thing and the home ideas to recipes are awesome!

I am going to share some with you that are on my grocery list for this week and 1 that I've tried and I know some of you are wanting.

So my grocery is looking pretty short and that's because I have most of what these recipes are calling for. This is what I have on my list:

String Cheese
half & half
pizza sauce
penne pasta
capers
spaghetti sauce
4 lemons
3lb broccoli
pepperoni
2 packs of chicken breasts (skinless)
1lb shrimp
1.5 pd flank steak
sweat baby rays bbq sauce
sherry
sage
cornstarch
Green tea Bisquick crescent roll
and of coarse milk, coffee creamer, bread.....( the basics)


Meal Planning for the week: (click on the meals to get the recipes)

Monday: Stoganoff & veggie (Jeff is night flying so I am keeping it easy)

Tuesday: Spaghetti, salad & veggie (Jeff is night flying again, so easy breezy)

Wednesday: Lunch: crescent pepperoni roll up for the kids

Dinner: Creamy Grilled Chicken Piccata

Thursday: Roasted Shrimp & Broccoli with Rice

Friday: Crockpot Barbecue Chicken with Rice

Saturday: Broccoli & Beef

Sunday: Brown Sugar and Balsamic Glazed Pork Lion


They all look so good and I can't wait to try them!

The other one I have made a couple times now is Lasagna Rolls, try this one it's awesome!

Don't ask why I posted this, I think I am really excited to see a short grocery list this week! I absolutely hate grocery shopping, especially with kids! Something I dread big time!

Good luck if you make them, they seem super easy and inexpensive!

Thanksgiving Week

Before Thanksgiving:

We had family here starting the Sunday before Thanksgiving! We had a few things planned, but nothing to exciting! We met a friend at Jumping Jacks, which was a hit! We will definitely be going back when it's to cold outside! This was Tanner's first time jumping and he loved it!

Jackson getting ready to head down the slide and catch his cousin Kyle! Miss Courtney supervising the boys while grandma and I made sure everyone was being good and Tanner wasn't killing himself!
On Wednesday everyone was finally here! Jackson had cousins to play with and boy was he in hog heaven! It isn't very often that we all get together with Carter and Kyle. They live in Bakersfield and Carter started school this year. So life away and visits make it hard with visiting the cousins.

Thanksgiving Day:

Chris and Penny deep frying the turkey! Oh it was so yummy

Kristle & I after our belly's were FULL! My brothers girlfriend who we love dearly! Hopefully she'll be my SIL!

The Fam Damnily before we were getting ready to eat! Did I mention there were 23 people at our house for Thanksgiving! This is what it's all about. Family, food and loving each other. I love being around my family, I just wish everyone was able to make it!

The spread!

My SIL Lauren taking a picture of me, so I took a picture of her! (Lauren you better post yours:)

My mom and step-dad Larry carving the turkeys! They did an awesome job and so did everyone else who brought and made something! Thank you all for helping. We had a ton of food and it fed us for days after!

Warm it up mom!

Everyone being themselves and enjoying one another company! I love how each group is doing something!

Caught Jackson tasting the turkey before it was time to eat! Little turkey!

The Day After Thanksgiving:

We had family group pictures, went to the movies, swimming, celebrated Lauren's b'day, ice skating and sat in the spa with In law siblings! Great times and great conversation!

Lauren and Penny watching the boys swim!

Tanner man and daddy swimming in the kiddy pool!

Lauren just finished blowing out her candles! Happy Birthday Lauren!

Olive fingers! We didn't even have to show him! He did it right away! Smart little cookie!

After putting the kiddos to bed, us adults and teens headed out to the ice arena down the street and skated our little legs off! Boy was that fun and scary!

I always have these visions of falling and someone skating over my hands and cutting my fingers off! What a great thought and luckily that didn't happen! lol

Courtney and I holding hands and skating! It seemed to make it easier holding hands. Plus we would whip each other around!

Daddy and tanner looking at a airplane magazine! Relaxing and enjoying some quiet time before bed!

The last night here was just my family. My mom was getting some loves from the boys! She loves them so much and misses them dearly!

We had a great Thanksgiving with both of our families! We hope you did as well and enjoyed the time you had with them. I know we did and appreciate every single one of them!

Family is what it's all about!

Snow Days

As you can see we got some snow! lol This was just a few days after we got home from Fresno. We were being lazy after all of our traveling and because it was super cold outside and all of a sudden we noticed that is was snowing! I don't think I've seen Jt get that excited in a while. He was jumping up and down and as fast as I could blink he had his rain boots and sweat shirt on. He was ready to go and experience it! He's been to the snow before, but never lived in it! At one point he told me that this place was better then Fresno. (I don't think so buddy)

Well, He loved it and didn't last long before his little hands were Rosy red!

Our house covered in snow! I am just waiting for the next month when it really starts to fall and doesn't melt. They recently put up poles to mark how many feet of snow we get, so it has to be coming soon!
Here is when it started to come down. It came down harder when I put the camera away and stood at the back door watching it with the boys. It is literally breath taking to see this all happening before our eyes. I am just so glad that the boys get to experience all of this. I've been telling Jeff how we've experience one extreme to the next as far as climates. Mississippi was hot and humid (t-storms,tornadoes that we never got to experience, but heard the alarms a couple times) Tucson was just hot and now we are here and it's freezing + it snows.
Jt playing with his Dinosaurs. He left them out and it ended up snowing a lot more and we couldn't even see them! lol He got a kick out of that!
Just a random one! thought it was kind of cool to have icicles hanging off of our house.

Definitely love seeing this, but knowing we are stuck in the house and can't leave really takes a toll. We have been doing some school work and coloring a lot. I've even taken up some crafts!

Halloween 2011

This years Halloween was great other then sitting in the car for 7 hours! It was great because Jeff was with us and he has missed the last 2 Halloweens for some kind of training!

We ended up getting home from Fresno around 4 something and we literally jumped out of the car, unloaded and changed the kids to head out and let them get some candy! The only bad thing is that this area is mostly vacation rentals.

They had maps of the houses that were participating in handing out candy, they placed pumpkins outside and we ended up having to drive to most of the houses.

So the boys were stuck in the car again, but I think they liked it, it was 40 degrees outside, but with the wind it felt more like 20! I'm not kidding! It was drastic change from Fresno.

Here is Jt in his Bumblebee costume!

T-man as a skeleton. These are actually pjs and Jt wore them when he was 2! Next year we will buy him a new one!
One of our friends house.
We definitely had to hit them up for candy!

I'm just glad they got to participate in the festivities and that we made it home safe! We were affraid they wouldn't get to Trick or Treat this year! So glad Jeff was here to do it with them why I drove door to door!

Halloween Party 2011

Wow! It's been a while since we've dressed up for Halloween. Jeff's been gone doing some kind of training the last 2 years, so he's missed all of the festivities. Especially trick or treating with Jt.

My brother used to host these great Halloween parties every year, but stopped for a while. This year he decided to do it again and being we were home, we weren't going to miss it!

It's kind of weird because I have always loved the month of October, but as a child I hated to dress up. Maybe I was just to shy then, but I've come to appreciate the craziness that comes with the holiday. It's like your inner creativity can come out through your clothes and no one can say anything about it!

This year I decided to be a moth from the Martha Stewart magazine. I ended up changing it a bit, but it turned out great! I had the help of my mother in law who made my cape, Jeff spray painted it for me and I had a wonderful makeup artist from MAC do my face!

Jeff chose to be a rodeo clown, which turned out awesome! He always has creative ideas! He even did his makeup and bought everything on his own without my help!

My makeup! Loved the pheasant feathers!
Jeff and I before we headed over to my brother Scott's.
My brother Jeff and his girlfriend Kristle! She was a gothic pixie and Jeff was Vanilla Ice! Ice Ice Baby! Good ole ebay costume for him! he looked hilarious!

Do I need to say more.... I have no clue who this guy was, but he was so funny! What a funny costume, especially if you want some boobies in your face! lol
Ok, take the margarita from my mom. Aren't nuns supposed to be good!? lol
My mom and Larry being silly and enjoying themselves!
From the left: My soon to be SIL Penny (80s girl), my brother Scott (Brett Michaels), Me and my brother Jeff. Good times with them always! Love my brothers!
Oh boy! lol She was getting her yearly!
Some of the guys!
The Family!
Thank you Scott and Penny for hosting such a great party! We had a great time and can't wait to do it again!