Kitchen and Living Room Curtains

I had made curtains for one of my kitchen windows a little bit ago and I've been wanting to make curtains for my other kitchen window and my living room window, so I finally got brave and did it. I've also been looking for reasons to use my new sewing machine that I got for Christmas. I love it!

I used the same burlap and ribbon that I used on my other curtains.

I think they turned out really well. I love them!

Christmas 2011

Christmas morning, Tean still wasn't up at 9:00, so we had to go wake him up. After getting over being grumpy, he was excited to see what Santa brought him. A few days before we had taken him to the dollar store with us to get stocking stuffers for him, not thinking that he would remember what he got. Well, he was so sad when he got home that he couldn't play with his toys. We told him that he had to wait for Santa to bring them to him and every day he kept asking if Santa would bring them. So when we started going up the stairs to see what Santa brought, Tean listed all of the things that we had bought for him at the dollar store and said he wanted to play with them.

It was so much fun this year because Tean understood it a lot more and was so excited about it.

He loved his presents. It was so fun seeing the excitement in his face. After going to church, we went up and spent the rest of Christmas day with Jake's parents and drove around and saw the Christmas lights around town.

Christmas Eve

For Christmas Eve we went up to Jake's brother's Josh's house like we have for the past few years. On our way up there we stopped at the Blackfoot Community pool and went swimming. Jake and I went of the really high dive that was probably about 15 or 20 feet! Tean loved being in the pool as long as he was hanging onto someone. We had a great dinner with Josh's family. We ate things that Mary and Joseph would have eaten when Jesus was born. It was really good!! Then we did the traditional acting out of the Nativity scene. Jake was the donkey, so Tean wanted to be the donkey too. We sang Christmas songs and opened one present, of course, Tean got pajamas and then we went home, to go to bed and wait for Santa. Tean fell asleep on the way home, from having so much fun with his cousins. It was great to celebrate Christmas with family and to remember the true meaning of Christmas.n (Pictures to come when I get them off Jake's phone. I took some on my phone, but they turned out horrible.)

Playing in the Snow

This past week it snowed quite a bit so Tean was excited to build a snowman.

We got all bundled up, but when we got out there we realized that the snow wasn't very good snowman building snow, but

Tean still had a fun time playing with his truck in the snow.

Tean even ran after me with snowballs.

He liked learning how to make snow angels too. Tean's excited for it to snow again so he can go out and play in the snow some more!

Making Gingerbread (graham cracker) Houses

This year we made gingerbread (graham cracker) houses again. Tean and N (our foster daughter) loved it. I think they liked eating the candy the best! Tean loved helping daddy put up the graham cracker parts and put candy on. Now after every meal he thinks he needs to take a piece off! We had a fun time!

Playing in the Leaves With Grandpa

Tean had a fun time helping Grandpa rake up the leaves while we were visiting in November.

As you can see, Tean was a lot of help too!

A New Member

These past few months we had been going to classes to get approved to do foster care, and last month we got licensed. On the 29th of November we got a call and got our first placement. We got a 2 year old girl (2 months younger than Tean). It has been so fun having her here with us. Tean loves having her here too. They fight, but they also play really well with each other. Just yesterday we got called that they had found an aunt or uncle in her family got licensed for foster care so she was going to be going to them that day. So we had about 20 minutes notice to say good bye and send her off. We are really sad to see her leave, but we enjoyed to time that she was with us.

Santa and Christmas Party

Last week we went to Jake's parents ward Christmas party. Tean had a fun time sitting on Santa's lap. We prepped Tean on what he should say to Santa, so we got him to say that he wanted a bike for Christmas. When it was his turn, he walked right up to Santa, but he didn't want to say anything.

He was glad to get candy from Santa. Jake's brother was in the Christmas program that they did.

He was a wise man and did a great job!

Kitchen Curtains

Last month my parents came up to visit. While here, by mom helped me make some new curtains for my kitchen. I wish I could find a picture of my old curtains that were here since we moved in 5 years ago. They were red and white and had chickens on them. I so love my new ones.

Halloween

This year Tean was a pirate, and a cute pirate at that! It was a super easy costume to make. Eye patch and sword from the dollar store, white shirt - DI, church pants and shoes, old material for head covering thingy and belt, and old material to make a vest and with all that, an adorable little pirate. We started off our Halloween two days early by going to a trunk-or-treat with Jake's parent's ward.

Tean loved that he got lots of candy. Halloween morning started out with pumpkin chocolate chip pancakes with vanilla sauce found here. I found the vanilla sauce on my new obsession, Pinterest. That afternoon, we went to lunch with some friends that used to live here and came up to visit. Then we started our trick-or-treating. First we went to the health and welfare offices, then we went to the Bishes RV trick-or-treat, then we went to another trunk-or-treat that my friends ward did, and finally we went to people in our neighborhood. For the first bit, Tean thought we just went to cars to get candy. He was a little confused when we started knocking on doors, but he soon realized he would get candy there too. Tean loved that he was able to eat lots of candy, and for a couple of weeks he thought that he got a piece of candy after every meal. We are just barely breaking him of that habit! It was fun seeing Tean get into the holiday and even say "Trick-or-Treat" at the doors.