Family Reunion

It's been quite a while since the wife's family has all come together, and Thanksgiving turned out to be the best time to accomplish that feat. The food was delicious, the company fabulous, and the visiting awesome! Best of all, they got long over due family photos out of it.

Here are the highlights:

Sunset during the long drive

Croissant turned octopus!

Games with siblings

The delicious Thanksgiving spread

Extremely tasty desserts!

The family picture in "Carving"

Boys in "Bas Relief"

Girls in "Rubber Stamp"

All the girls together, finally.

 Until Next Time!

After Halloween Party!

These two peas in a pod went to an awesome After Halloween Costume Party. The food was great and the company even better. We played a quiet game the whole night where one person, who was the chosen killer (and unknown to the rest of the party), went around winking at the guests. We got pieces of paper with the way we were each supposed to die after being winked at, like "Sing yourself to death." It was fun. But let's just show you the rest.

Here were some highlights:

Each invitee was assigned a food to share. We made mummy dogs.

They turned out really cute, and they're really yummy too. Just use hotdogs and Pillsbury croissant dough.

For Halloween this year, the two peas decided to be Rapunzel and Flynn Rider from Disney's "Tangled."

We made the costumes with cotton fabric, ribbon, fabric paint, and bias tape from Walmart. The "lace" on rapunzel's dress was ribbon that was hot-glued to the finished skirt and shirt. Can you believe the sleeves on rapunzel's dress were made with knee high 30 cent stockings? It was fun.

 

 

 

The hubby won "Hunkiest Costume." Awesome! This wife sure thinks he is a hunk.

Some of the detail on Rapunzel's skirt. This was accomplished with silver fabric paint.

Some more awesome costumes.

The party guests playing Halloween pictionary.

Mr. Peanut! Made with duct tape! How creative is that?!

The End.

Saturday Projects Part One: Cleaning the Garage

When the two peas moved into their house, they just lobbed all of the packing boxes and papers into a pile on the garage floor. And that pile led to another pile, led to another pile, until everything in there was in some sort of pile. Not so conducive to parking the car, etc. Oh boy! You can imagine the mess. (Or maybe not, 'cause we took some photos.) 

 

They spent Saturday morning neatly stacking, organizing, and sweeping. It turned out great. Hooray for completing our Saturday projects. Next week's venture? The backyard.... *gulp*

This is a sort of before. We had already begun our project. But if you can imagine the stacked boxes in piles on the floor, then you'll have the idea.

This is definitely after.

The End.

What to do with clutter?

Years ago the wife and her mom attended a class on... Cleaning Out Your House!

Oh yes! 

And... It was awesome. To this day, I still have the handouts. The tips for cleaning out your house were easy. Following them through? Not so much. It's hard to let go of things, but the more my mom and I went through the house, the easier it got.

These are the rules:

1. Only clean out one room at a time, and don't move on to the next one until you've finished the first one.

2. Go through your stuff every six months, or once every year.

3. If you get to an item, and you're not sure you should get rid of it, keep it for six more months. The next time through, if you haven't worn it, used it, or whatever, get rid of it.

These are the tools:

1. A box labeled, "Someplace else" (These items go in another room)

2. A box labeled, "Trash" (Speaks for itself)

3. A box labeled, "Charity" (Also speaks for itself)

4. A box labeled, "To Put Away" (Things that need to be put away in chosen room)

5. A box labeled, "recycling" (for those who live in states with recycling options)

The instructor of the class also said, make sure you have a small drawer or box that's all yours and is a place to just put things. Sometimes we have a few things that don't have a "home" and this is where they go.

The hubby and I have kept this routine up. We've cleaned out our clothes closet, the study room, the kitchen, etc. It feels so good to keep things neat, organized, and clean. In the study, we each have a green fabric box, in which we can throw random papers we think we might want to keep. When our boxes get full, we go through them and figure out what we want and what we don't want.

Just passing on an awesome idea.

Game Day!

The two peas have been missing BYU's games like crazy! They got the chance to see one live at the Dallas Cowboy's Stadium. The cougars lost, but it was still fun to root for their team.

The wife ready to root for the team. Big stadium!

The hubby standing on the main floor.

Check out that incredible gigantic screen!

We had such good seats, so close to the action!

State Fair of Texas

The two peas took a break from school this week to enjoy the State Fair of Texas.

They tasted four varieties of fried foods: buffalo chicken dipped in pancake batter and fried, corny dog fried, cookie dough fried, and strawberries dipped in chocolate dipped in waffle batter and fried. 

That's a ton of fried even when you split it!

 

They caught a glimpse of this year's butter sculpture:

Yes; the cow and all the people are pure butter!

They enjoyed an awesome acrobatic performance by Cirque Shanghai, pictured below.

And they enjoyed observing and petting animals from around the world.

Little baby goat

Emu

Momma Kangaroo and her baby waking up from a nap in her pouch!

Yummy Foods

For the wife, certain yummy foods help make a heaven on earth. All growing up dad made sushi and mom baked pies. So lately I've been striving to perfect these two skills and enjoying the fruits of my labor, even if they don't turn out perfect. They sure taste good!