Thanksgiving Fun

Ahh, Thanksgiving . . . what a great holiday! Family, food, and fun, what could be better? Well, we started off the festivities with my sisters, my mom, and me going to see Twilight. A fun "girls time" but the movie could have been better. Of course Thursday was a great feast at my parents this year. All of us siblings and kids were there and as we discovered later, this could be one of the last times we are ALL together. Between my parents leaving on a mission soon and nephews leaving one after another, it could be a while. After dinner was the traditional browse through the circulars, as Grandma Clements would call them. We didn't find much worth getting up early for and even Curtis couldn't find anything worth camping out for, what a disappointment! Friday, we all got beautiful and froze while we took family pictures. All the red noses and cheeks will just remind us of the fun of Idaho in November. The kids loved playing with cousins for days on end and I don't think the xbox was ever turned off the whole weekend. The girls even had to take a turn at Rock Band, and we ROCKED!!

Happy Halloween!

We had another fun Halloween filled with tons of candy and lots of fun. First, I was in charge of Billy's class party. Then we hurried home to get everyone dressed and ran into town to pick up Cheyenne and Natalie so we could go to Bill's office. Every year Bill's office has trick-or-treating for all the employees kids/grandkids. This is awesome since you never know what the weather will be like in Idaho. We don't have to design costumes around coats or sweats even. The kids get TONS of candy, which means we don't have to do much other toting either - only a few select houses who give full size candy bars! lol



So here is the Justice League! This has been one of our favorites for a couple years now. We have 4 seasons (Justice League Unlimited, too) on DVD, the boys room is decorated that way, and they all have their claim on a certain character - Billy is Batman, Jon is Superman, Chloe is Supergirl, Maddie had to be WonderWoman (which is usually Natalie's character) . She's Hawkgirl when she watches the cartoon, but Mom couldn't find that costume, much to Maddie's dismay. It's good to know our home is well protected from all evil, badguys. Here they're posing like the picture the boys have in their room (below.)

Natalie wore her karate gi for halloween (picture coming soon) and Cheyenne (wearing her dad's old jersey) and I dressed up for a party at mutual a couple nights before, too.

More Fun

I had so much fun, I had to do the rest of my family.



I always wanted you to grow your hair a little longer, Bill. There was one that looked exactly like a picture of your Uncle Bob in high school, except the goatee didn't work with the picture.

Cheyenne, I think we graduated together!

Natalie, circa 1964.











I think Billy graduated with us, too!

Chloe in 1990 fashion.

Maddie in 1954.











Jon's chillin' in 1976.

Yearbook Yourself

Okay, I had wayyyyy to much fun with this site: www.yearbookyourself.com Billy kept telling me, "Mom, stop laughing!" Check out my results -

• Here's when I graduated with Mom.

• Now with Brad

• Next Shaun, I was probably friends with Kristen.

• And this one looks really close to my senior pictures. lol

New Job Charts!

Okay, I'm an organizing freak, I'll admit it. One of my favorite pastimes is organizing something - closets, scrapbook stuff, kids drawers/closets, recipes, just about anything. I'll even go to my sister's house to organize her stuff when I run out of my own. Two of my favorite times of the year are "back to school" and New Years. Why - that's when all the organizing stuff is out and on sale! Along with the organizing of stuff, I'm always looking for new/better ways to organize my life. So here's my latest creation - new job charts for the kids. The older kids were getting a little annoyed/worried that the little three didn't have charts yet, so I was sure to include them now, too.

Okay, I had to do it, too.

Loved the books, looking forward to the movie!


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Top 10 List

Long time, no post! Things got busy for a while, canning kind of took over my life for a while. When I wasn't actually canning, I was harvesting, cleaning up the garden, on the hunt for bottles, planning for it, gathering supplies for it, then rearranging all the food storage afterward, etc. etc. It's a big LONG process. We're all so glad it's over. So now, my top 6 (I'm too tired to think of 10) list of "Reasons I'm Glad to be Done Canning".

6. My counter tops can be used again and are not covered in bottles full and empty/canners/dehydrators, etc.
5. My life is not revolving around when fruit comes on, when the timer will beep, when Mom can come and help (Thank you soooo much, Mom!), which food item is more ripe than the others, etc.
4. My kitchen floor is no longer poka-dotted and sticky. Ahh, a clean floor!
3. The little kids have never watched so many movies in a day. They loved it, and it kept them busy so I could get more done. They really were good while I worked.
2. It invaded every aspect of our lives. It was the topic of discussion constantly - what got done today, what is left, when will it be done. An example, Cheyenne was helping Billy with his homework one day. He was supposed to repeat the sentence she told him. The sentence was, "My shoes come in pairs." He repeated, "My shoes come in peaches?" We laughed and laughed and I knew canning better come to an end soon.
1. Seeing my storage shelves overflowing with all my hard work and tastiness!