Merry Christmas!  Not much else to blog, just busy getting ready & doing the normal laundry dishes type stuff.  Eventually you will get your card... I went to the post office today to mail them, but all 4 big blue boxes were overflowing stuffed with mail so I just came home.  The parking lot was packed and a line down the street to get a parking space.  I think I might try a post office in another town later today.

Snow Day!

Hooray!  The last two days have been declared (by me) official Snow Days.  Friday we went to a church party with plenty of winter fun-sledding, skating, eating. We slept snug in our beds while the snow fell and the winds howled all night... and all day.  Everything was canceled- no 6:45am breakfast party for Ana to attend, no dance class, and no church on Sunday- the parking lots hadn't been plowed yet.  Hooray!  Hooray!  Saturday we shoveled a few times.  Someone took compassion on us not having a snow blower and did the bottom of the driveway where the plow had been.  Kids played computer games.  Sunday we slept in, had a big breakfast, shoveled some more and now the kids are outside building a fort.  Maybe we will watch Mr. Krueger's Christmas and have hot chocolate & baths and dinner.  Everyone is enjoying the weekend so much they are only a little disappointed it's a snow day on a weekend instead of a school day.  I'd be open to starting Christmas vacation now-

I finally did it!  After months of being pestered by the missionaries and a handful of attempts since summer I finally made a mormon.org profile.  You can check it out by clicking on the "I'm a mormon" button on the right.  I am still "pending review" meaning they have to preview what I wrote and make sure I didn't say anything blasphemous or completely off the mark and then they will send me an email and then you should be able to check it out.  Maybe some of you have no idea what I'm even talking about.  Have you seen the "I'm a mormon" ads on your computer or tv?  Well, sometime ago, I think summer we were told we would start seeing ads in certain "test" locations in the U.S. to test the ads and see how they do & since we are in a test location we should do our own profile- not for the ads, but for our friends or people who the missionaries teach that might not know anyone and they look for people like them.  Anyway, when I first heard about it I thought, "okay, that sounds easy enough" and I went to the site to write up a profile.  HA HA!  I looked at some of the ads and decided they do not need me on there.  I am not a foreign diplomat who speaks 14 languages, a homeless teen who has become a well known singer, a designer for Harley Davidson, or a surfing champion.  I did not survive the 9/11 attacks, look like a model and raise a child with down syndrome, or open an orphanage.  I really did not see a point in me bothering with it- there are already some amazing and insightful and touching stories on there and I still don't know that I have much to contribute.  Well many a time it has been requested that we all set up a profile so I decided to be obedient and try again.  Still intimidated so I tried again later- like November later.  I realized the questions would take a lot of thought for me to answer=a lot of time which I didn't have that time.  So Monday I decided, I'm just going to answer the questions because if I wait for "the perfect" words it will never happen.  I poured out my soul and clicked to save- none of it saved, it said pending review, but no text was there anymore, it all disappeared instead.  Wednesday I typed up my answers again as a word document & let it sit there a couple of days hoping my husband would have time to read & edit for me 'cause he's good at that, but today I decided I just want it done and if it sounds stupid so be it.  I'm calling it done and I really hope it inspires someone, because it is the only thing "done" this week.  I now have to do the laundry, do the dishes, make a shopping list, go shopping, clean my house, and all the boring stuff.  Our Christmas cards are almost done-another obsession consuming this past week.  Oh, and I did get a shower which is always a bonus. :)

Thanks to all of you who left me nice comments about my redecorating. :)  Some of you asked questions so here's my best find of the all the decorating we did- the curtains in the boys rooms and my daughter's room are shower curtains.  I was having trouble finding what I was picturing in my head in the drapery sections of numerous stores real and online.  I decided to wander the shower curtain aisle at Target and voila!  I swear someone started singing opera.  I had found exactly what I wanted!  Another great find was the bunk bed.  I got it online at Walmart for a very good price (129? not sure anymore) and free shipping since I had it sent to the store.  It arrived within a week.  The rugs in my living room & dining are recycled leather rugs (scraps from leather upholstry) I got online at Garnet Hill.  I love them even though I have to remind my dog not to chew on them.  Any decorating questions please feel free to ask. :)

Happy Thanksgiving!  I think Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  I love fall and harvesty food.  I love the emphasis on family time.  I love just sitting around talking and eating.  It all comes together at Thanksgiving.  My youngest told me Thanksgiving is his favorite holiday because "you get to do everything!"  I'm not sure what he meant by that other than being very excited to go to grandparents houses in Utah like he'd been asking if we could.  We made the long trek that didn't seem so bad on the way, but does feel long coming back.  We visited family and ate, and I still think Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  :) 
Sorry to all our friends we didn't visit.  I think a week just isn't long enough.  We spent two and a little more days driving, a day to go grocery shopping to buy food for Thanksgiving & visit some cousins ;), a day to do homework we were missing and catch a movie with grandpa (Megamind- which was AWESOME!), a day to visit the Carl Bloch exhibit at BYU (beautiful!), Thanksgiving, and two more days driving home.  We still feel like we are moving while sitting still.  To keep us entertained on our long drive we did a little of homework, a little reading, and a lot of listening to old detective radio shows we checked out from the library (Tales of the Texas Rangers, Sherlock Holmes, Dragnet, The Shadow, The Saint plus more) and a lot of Tom Glazer so if we seem a little caught in a time warp, sorry, and going back to school Monday should snap us right out of it.  Although we did have one child singing to us in his best Justin Beiber voice to keep us in modern times and no we aren't big fans (of his music but I'm sure he's a nice boy) and yes, possibly, maybe, a sarcastic Justin Bieber is worse.   Unfortunately, I don't think I took any pictures on our trip, but I do know I caught my third born playing in the back seat with the video camera so who knows what I'll discover later when I feel like looking.  We had a pretty good drive there and back except when we almost made it to the other side of Wyoming (on the way).  A storm hit so they closed the road and told us they would open it and then after three hours they admitted they weren't really going to open the road for a much longer time so we had to drive back about 30 or 40 minutes to the last town.  During this 3 hour wait someone had to go to the bathroom (both kinds).  This next part is not for the faint or easily disgusted- at least our family has a sense of humor- what else are you going to do?  The someone had to go in a bag.  The someone had to have two people help hold the bag.  In the morning it was discovered someone missed the bag and got someone's pillow.  Fortunately the solid kind made it in the bag and we washed the pillow thoroughly at grandma's & grandma had other pillows to use and now it is all forgotten; but preserved for posterity on the blog.  A toast to "Live, Laugh, Love".  Happy Thanksgiving! :)

All of the painting is done!  I was hoping to get our house completely done (clean, furniture arranged, repairs made) before Thanksgiving.  I almost did it.  I still have the kitchen and family room to straighten up, and the stair rail to fix.  Here's some more photos.

view from front door

newly painted laundry room and door

 Here's the grand finale- My daughters bedroom: (still lacking the ballet bar and swing to be hung).

I decided my winter workout routine couldn't wait and postponed cleaning up my house.

 This and shouts of delight are what we woke up to this morning.  It continued to snow all day.  So you probably guessed my winter workout routine is shoveling snow. 
The first snowfall is always fun and magical.  It's especially great when you wake up to enough to build snowmen and forts and giant snowballs bigger than yourself.  I didn't get pictures of everything- I'm a slave to exercise. Not really, after shoveling I was so soaking wet from all the really wet snow and it was lunch time so I decided to go inside.  Everyone's stuff went straight into the wash for a spin to lose some of the water and then into the dryer.  I hope it doesn't all melt right away.  It was a great day.  Monday the clutter will still be there for me to clean up and I can worry about it then.

And now the bathroom...
Nothing new in the bathroom except that it is clean, and that hardly ever happens so I need to celebrate.

And my bedroom....
I am loving the color and thinking it is the perfect color for a background to lots of art.  I hope to create some and put up not too far in the future.  I painted the closet the same color as we painted the room for the kids to share (and the closet) before redecorating the whole house because I liked the color, we had lots left, and a lighter color would be better in a dark space, and I love the two colors together.
I have pictures of my daughters bedroom but I'm saving those for last and hoping this weekend to finish up the rest of the house.

 

And now room #2...

 

drum roll please!  Here is part one (of who knows how many) of our house makeover.  Here's one of my kids' rooms and then the rest of this week I will be cleaning and taking pictures and post some more.
Move that bus!

  

Every night I need to remember to check under my youngest two boys' pillows.  Sometimes they hide books and flashlights. Sometimes other things.  Here's last nights collection:

A vacuum part, paint stir sticks, a hammer, a belt, a sword and two frog game pieces.
Last week, our stair railing broke. This is is a classic case of "I know it isn't breaking right now, but someday it IS going to break because of what you are doing so STOP [swinging on it, yanking on it, standing on it, hanging from it, and whatever else]!!  They don't admit it was them, but I have proof, and there is no denying they have all done this before:

The sad truth...A few weeks ago now I was at Target and I heard a little voice of someone else's child at the end of the aisle say, "Wow!  Halloween toilet paper?  Mom they even have Halloween toilet paper."  The mom said, "Really?  Oh, that's paper towels not toilet paper."  I had two thoughts in my head- one toilet paper?  Isn't that a bit much? and- Really, I want some.  The sad truth?  I think I would have bought it.  Any other holiday I think I would have thought that was over the top, but not Halloween, or Thanksgiving.  That'd be fun- turkey toilet paper- hahaha. :)

Our one Halloween decoration this year

Halloween!  Today is halloween and so far noneventful.  It could have been very exciting if I chose to listen to the screaming 11 year old in the back of my car on the way to church:  "OH, there's [unnamed friend]!  Pass him!  Pass him!  Aw come on!  Who cares if there's no passing lane!  Just drive on the sidewalk!  AW COME ON!  JUST DO IT!  It would be so awesome!  [unnamed friend] would be so jealous!  We'd get to church and he'd be all 'Woah!  That was AWESOME!'  PLEASE! Just drive on the sidewalk.  Pass them.  Pass them. (That last non caps part in whisper voice trying to penetrate my subconscious)."  So due to my uncool momness we had a normal Sunday.
We aren't passing out candy today.  Part because it is Sunday, the sabbath day after all, and part because I am just not ready since I am still feeling all consumed by redecorating.  We did pause for a little Halloween celebrating though.  Friday and Saturday we went to parties.  Here's the costumes & pumpkins, be prepared, I took lots, my kids look so good!:) :

Cops and Robbers (I'm detective Kate Beckett)

Rock band from England record album cover?

Police and the police dog

 

Our school principal

My 4yr. old's bat he drew and I helped carve

My 6yr. old's ghost he drew and carved all by himself