I'm Dreaming of a White Christmas!!

Let it snow, Let it snow, Let it Snow!! I think I might get my wish of a White Christmas. It has been snowing outside for about 3 hours so far and this is what we got. The kids are already playing in it. If you don't play as soon as it falls, you might not get to. It is so exciting. I'm going to go make some hot chocolate!!

We had a busy weekend!! Tonight was our ward Christmas Party. Guess who came? Santa!! The last picture was because he goosed me!! Naughty Santa!! Dave had fun with the kids and only had one or two cry. Katie had two little girls that followed her everywhere and Kjersti had 3 little boys that love to talk her ear off. Kazia and Connor stayed outside in the snow the whole time. It was fun to watch the kids reactions to Santa. Last night Dave took all the kids out to eat and then they went Christmas Shopping at the mall for 4 hours. I couldn't believe it! They all had a great time. All of them, including Dave, hope to make it a new tradition. Hey, a quiet night at home, I'm all for the new tradition!! It was a great start to the Holiday Season!!

One of my Favorite Days of the Year!

Well, one of my most favorite days of the year is over. What a bummer!! But I had a great time! How could I not with great food and great friends. Every year Megan Anderson, a friend from church, invites a small group of us to her family cabin on Vashon Island to spend the night. We take lots of food, friendship, and giggles and spend a night getting caught up with each others life. This year we stayed up and played "Bang" and had lots of fun. After a very short night of sleep, we got up and had a yummy breakfast of waffles and then back on the ferryboat to bring us back to reality! Yuck! But I guess it has to be done. I am so thankful my Father in Heaven has blessed me with these women in my life. They are an inspiration to me!!

I joked with them that I get invited each year because I make Peanut Butter Balls that they all love and always forget to give out the recipe, so here it is ladies! Hope you enjoy them as much as I love your frienship!!

Peanut Butter Balls or Buckeyes

1 Cube Butter

1 lb. Powdered Sugar (2 cups)

1 1/2 Cups Peanut Butter, Plain or Chunky

1 tsp. Vanilla

Melt butter and peanut butter in microwave. Add Powd. sugar and vanilla. Stir until well blended. Roll into balls or spread in a 9x13" glass dish. Press down with wax paper or it will crumble when you eat it. Let harden for 3 to 4 hours.

Melt 12 oz of Chocolate Chips and either dip the balls, or spread over the 9x13" glass dish.

Eat slowly and savor the flavor and dissolving of the powd. sugar in your mouth!! Yummmm!!

We Wish You a Merry Christmas

I hope I am the first to wish you a Merry Christmas!! I love this time of year. Above is a complete family picture. Amazing that everyone found time to get together for 2 hours so we could have family pictures taken. My mom and dad, in the center, have quite the posterity. You should have been around for Thanksgiving when we all sat down to eat together. We are loud!! But we sure like getting together. Only one miss-hap this year, Dave fell down our stairs and broke his tailbone and bruised his rib. So he sat all Thanksgiving day on an ice pack trying to get pity for his sore bum. Didn't stop him from eating turkey though!! My mom, sister, niece and I spent all day Friday from 4:30 am to 7:30 pm shopping all the great deals and boy did I get some good ones. My two favorite, a new 40 inch TV (which we haven't stopped watching!) and a new Samsung, 19 inch computer monitor for $99.00. What a deal!! It was at Best Buy but Office Depot matched the price plus gave me the $30.00 rebate that they were offering on top of that!! It was really cool, I love getting good deals. Everything else I bought was for Christmas and can't say because to many people read this. Even though it was tiring, it was fun. One of my favorite days of the year.

Anyhow, I will soon have some more family pictures to post as soon as the photographer is done editing them. Thanks so much to Kim Robinson for coming and taking pictures of my crazy family. I think she was even surprised I could get more than 20 people to cooperate together. Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We are decorating the tree tonight, see ya!!

I'm Blogging!!

I can't believe I finally made time to become a blogger!! Making this blog has been a lot of fun. I so enjoy keeping in touch with other people thru blogging that I just had to do my own.

There is so much to catch everyone up on I will just get started!!

We had an addition to our family just recently!! Dave and I finished building our rental house next door and we now have renters. The house was an experience to build. From the very beginning when we started the project on Nov. 1st, 2007 to when we finished Sept. 30th, 2008 everything went so smoothly. We knew we were suppose to build this house. It's 2 bedrooms, 1 bath, an adorable kitchen with a pantry in the corner and a living room.

We love our renter. Her name is Rosa and she has a beautiful baby girl. She loves to bake and we love to eat her baking!! It works great for all of us.

We also updated our house and put a wrap around porch on it. It really changed the look of it. We went from this:

to this

I love the extra room for my porch swing. Connor loves riding his bike around it and roller skating on it. But my favorite part of my porch was all the hanging baskets I added to it this summer. Along with my star and a sign my sister gave me for my birthday.

I also recently spent some time taking some really cool pictures of Kjersti and Katie in my garden and around out place. They turned out really cute and we had a great time spending time together. As you can tell, sometimes it is really hard for them to focus and stay serious for the pictures. Leave it to Katie to spice things up!! Anyhow, here's my garden this year. It did really well and we are still eating out of it!! Last year we built a green house. The tomatoes grow 15 feet tall in there and produce enough tomatoes to feed everyone!!

The two cute kids are my great niece and nephew, Brooke and Trevor. They had a great time cleaning out my garden, finding hidden treasures to throw, and getting all muddy. It might not look like it but the pumpkins by Trevor weigh around 100 lbs and took two guys to lift them. I had some fun this year!!

We had a bit of a scare with Katie. She started getting a migraine about 12 weeks ago and we have not been able to get it to go away. After several trips to the chiropractor, several doctors and a hospital stay (pictured at the right), a CT scan, an MRI, and a lengthy drug cocktail we might be getting on top of it. Her hospital stay was traumatic with an IV, her head packed in ice, an oxygen tube, and lots of throwing up, needless to say, it was a long night. Her MRI showed swelling on her brain so the drugs are aimed at getting that done. Last week it started easing off and now she is at a 2 or 3 on her pain scale. She has missed about a month of school, but last week she finally stayed the whole week. Her drug cocktail ends in a couple of days, we will have to wait and see if her head ache comes back. We are praying that it doesn't. By the way, she picked the picture, I think she wants pity!! Along with her head rubbed!!

On a better note, Kjersti came home from school all excited, she made the Principals Honor Roll list. He only picks the top 50 and Kjersti was finally one of them. In blue is what is listed on the High school web site for everyone to see. We are very proud of her, she has worked very hard to get straight A's. Great Job Kjersti!!!

Principal's List 3.90-4.00 GPA
HONOR ROLL BASED ON Term 1 GPA
GRADING PERIOD: Term 1
STUDENT NAME: Kjersti Smith

Kazia and Connor are doing great. They both just had a birthday. Connor turned 9 and Kazia is 11. They are excited for the holidays and already are making their Christmas list's. Both of them received medals at school already. They both were awarded "Great School Work". Three kids a month in their grade level get picked and Kazia and Connor were one of the first ones. I would have had pictures but missed the ceremony because I was dealing with Katie. Oh well, that is life. Great Job you two, keep it up!!

I will finish with our Halloween picture. We scored lots of candy again, just what we needed!! Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. It's the day I get to truly be myself!! Can you figure out who I am in the picture? Here is a hint, it's not Glenda the Good Witch!!

Thanks for taking time to read my blog. The next post won't be so lengthy!! Love Tina