Christmas Decorating

The kids and I decided to get the house ready for Christmas last night.  With Grandpa Dan still in the hospital, its honestly been a struggle to feel in the holiday mood.  Someone asked the girls if they had a good Thanksgiving and they said, "not really".  (Break my heart!) Dan is still in the ICU so the kids can't visit and Matt's been at the hospital every night so its not been easy to get into the Christmas spirit.  We persevered though and now the house glows!

Photo by Essie

Being Silly

Chloe being more silly

Sporting the Rudolph nose

All done...and the best part was we got all the decorating boxes and mess cleaned up before Matt got home from the hospital!

A Frugal Find

Sorry for more delayed posts, we've been experiencing technical difficulties (which I think we have solved now).   Last week, I (Amy) swung by our local Habitat Restore on a whim and look what I found!

I know, it totally looks like a junk book shelf.  It was ugly and dirty and overprice ($8!), but the store was running a 50% off sale so I snagged it for $4. I whipped out the Grapealicious paint again and voila!

A new storage shelf to display my beautiful jars of canned goods.

Date Night at the UK Football Game

So my most vocal follower (my sister Kelly) has been hounding me to blog.  I'm so sorry we have been away from blog-world for a while.  My father in law took a turn for the worse following 6 bypass surgery and has been intubebated for the last 11 days.  I'm happy to report that they just extubated him and things are looking up (though he has a long road to recover).  Matt has been at the hospital when he was not at work, which left me playing single mom (a role I do NOT like!).  So, by the time I get the kids to bed and Matt gets home from the hospital, I just haven't had the energy to blog.

Matt and I did manage to get away on Saturday night for a date night. A friend of our's has season ticket to UK football games, but is planning to give up his seats next year.  He was out of town last Saturday so gave us his tickets to the last UK home football game for 2012.  It was Senior night and also the last home game for Coach Joker Phillips. I found this pic below from 2009, when we took the girls to fan day.  Look how tiny they were with Coach Phillips.

August 2009

One more pic from 2009 (just because the girls were so stinkin' cute!)-and a shout-out to the player pictured, Tristian Johnson, who had a fumble return for a touchdown on Saturday night!

Anyways, it was Senior night, we had great seats and despite the freezing temps., we had a great time at probably our last (free) football game.  (And the Cats actually won!)

Mummies

I saw this project in a magazine and enlisted the girls help to make a quick, easy meal.  The girls loved helping and they were very creative. 

Take crescent rolls and cut them into strips

wrap around hot dogs

project done!

The Bench Project

Sorry, its been so long since we've posted.  Matt's Dad had a heart attack last Friday and open heart surgery today (he's as good as can be expected). Our latest woodworking project involved the broken bed frame from our guest bed (that Matt replaced a few weeks ago).  I thought I should be able to make something out of that. So I started the project one afternoon sanding down the old head and foot boards.

I soon realized I was in over my head and Matt quickly took over the woodworking part of the project.

We cut the foot board in half. 

And yes, we used the project as an excuse to buy a new tool!

Cutting the bottom rail off the foot board so we could use it as the new arm

Reinforced the very unstable frame

Screwed the head board and foot board to the new frame

and voila...a bench (sorry, forgot to take a picture with the seat on it)

First coat of paint

And the finished project, after 3 coats of paint

It took WAY longer than I wanted.  Matt finished the construction in a day, but then I didn't get the painting done for 2 weeks.  Now the weather is yucky outside so don't think we will be using it much, but the idea is for it to go on the deck, since we currently have no seating there. 

National Adoption Month

November is National Adoption Month. This video was created by Love Without Boundaries, a wonderful organization that works in China.  Enjoy!!

Halloween Time

We "enjoyed" a cooler than normal Halloween this year, but the girls insisted on not wearing a coat for at least the first 10 minutes.  Our town closes Main Street to traffic and the local businesses hand out candy.  Treats on Main is always a good time.  AJ decided he was too old to dress up this year (what?!?!) but did walk around town with us.  

Chloe decided to be a ballerina (YAH!-all items we already owned)

Essie was a cheerleader and though we did buy the pants and shirt, they are things she can continue to wear (double YAY) 

Ready to head down to Main Street

The weather finally got to them, but the cotton candy helped with the walk home.

For a walk down memory lane, click on the girl's 1st Halloween blogpost from 3 years ago.  Be sure to watch the video at the end.  Its killing me how fast they are growing up!