Well well well...

Look what the cat dragged in! A blog post! It's about time!!!

This family has been plagued with migraines and the flu...
and then there were a few snow storms mixed in there...
and some late nights and weekends that had to be worked.

 Those all sound like excuses, and well...they are, but I'm back and I'm going to try and get things back on track.

Kurt and Caiden...twinsies!! I took this picture at the church. Kurt was helping prepare food for a fellowship and Caiden insisted on helping. Since Uncle Kurt took off his tie and jacket, Caiden wanted to do the same thing...and I just thought that they were too cute not to capture the moment!! This is one I will show his girlfriends in the future (Caiden's, not Kurt's!) :)

Boys will be boys!

Merry Christmas, everyone! I hope that you all had a very blessed holiday with your families! Kurt and I were able to spend the morning in church, where I tried to explain to our nephew, Caiden, that this was the BEST service of the year because we were celebrating Jesus' birthday! He was crabby and overtired and totally not into what I was trying to tell him. I kept telling him that we get to sing all the best songs and that the whole hour is a huge celebration!

He then replied, "Do we get to do two Holy Communions? Because THAT would be really cool!!"

I didn't know how to respond to that! I guess when you are 8, that would indeed make a church service different, ha ha :)

Weiner Dogs on Wednesday

My sleepin' boys

Oscar boy is so dang cute in this picture I can hardly contain myself!!



Please excuse ugly wood paneling...that was when we were temporarily living in the mother-in-law's basement (which we are very grateful for!) but paneling is no good for anyone =)

Sunday school lessons

I decided that some of you out in bloggy land might teach Sunday school too, and like me, you might not like the old, boring craft ideas in the books that they give you...so I will share mine with you.

This lesson was on Moses and the burning bush. If you aren't familiar with the lesson, God speaks to Moses through a burning bush and tells him to go to the Pharaoh and free his people. Moses was scared that the Pharaoh would not believe him, so God gave him a miracle to show the Pharaoh. He told Moses to throw his staff onto the ground and it turned into a snake.

The craft in the Sunday school book was for me to draw a bush onto a piece of paper, and to have the boys glue pieces of red and orange tissue paper onto it so that it looked like it was on fire. LAME...especially for my boys, who I have a hard time getting interested in the crafts anyway!! So Kurt and I decided to do something with the staff and the snake idea. And this is what we came up with....

A staff ( 1x2 cut into 2 foot pieces) with dollar store snakes glued onto it, and the "memory verse" for the day glued onto it as well. 

Oh hey! That kid is cute isn't he!! I have some cute pics of the other 2 boys in my class ( I have 3 boys, ages 5 and 6) but since I don't have the permission of their parents, I'm not going to post pics of other people's kids...so just enjoy my sweet Kyle.

Weiner Dogs on Wednesday

...on Thursday
Oops! I let Wednesday get away from me this week. I had the boys, so it was a little nuts with the pouring rain, homework, dinner and getting ready for church. Ever had to convince an 8 year-old that he smells and needs a shower? Ugh! ha ha

Up in the sky

Nothing sweeter than a six year old on his very first Ferris wheel ride!

Midwest Dachshund Festival

Kurt, Kyle, Oscar, Lyla and I will be going to our 2nd Midwest Dachshund festival soon. There are hundreds of weiner dogs running around there, and some really great people too :)
Last year was our first year and we had a little booth where we sold Kurt's homemade BBQ sauces and spices, as well as handmade doxie harnesses and some treats, cards, etc. It didn't really go well and it was a real pain in the butt to drag all that stuff down there. Apparently there was some unspoken rule that you could not sell harnesses because it was competition with one of the sponsors of the event, and Kurt's mom was NOT happy since she had spent so much time and money on her harnesses!

So this year we are going just for fun :) We decided to take Kyle because he doesn't ever get to do things "first," since he is the youngest, plus he has been doing really well in school...and he LOVES our weiner dogs.
Oh, and lets face it, he is six, and he thinks its hilarious  to say weiner dog :)

Here are a few pics from last year.

No wonder I'm so tired...

It's 3 am an neither Caiden or Oscar have chosen to sleep well tonight.

Kyle, Lyla and Kurt and sleeping soundly through it all...especially Kurt :)

Remember this?

Well, my handsome boys and this super cute and easy project are linked up this week to a couple of link parties!! I'm so excited! I went out on a limb and linked up to one, and then I got a few more e-mails asking me to link up to other sites! My little crafty blog is growing up!

Anyway check us out at:

Tattertots and Jello

Fun on a dime

Mine for the making

A day at the farm

Virginia, part 2
After a LONG day in court, we all went out to my good friend, Matt's parents farm and enjoyed the weather and time with the boys before they went back to their moms house. Jason and I chased chickens, and the boys launched rockets, and everyone relaxed a bit after a stressful morning.

Sweet southern comfort, carry on...

I know, I know...
I've been home for a week now. I should have edited and had all of these bad boys up by now. Well, I don't. I worked 6 days this week and have been working on several other projects as well, so I let this slip away from me.
Because there are so many pictures, they will have to be posted in several parts. I'll start with my very FAVORITE picture of the whole weekend. This is of my sweet boys and I, taken during an evening walk/metal detecting session. We found bottle caps, rusty nails, a few quarters (strategically placed by their daddy!) and a piece of a pipe. We also got 2 million mosquito bites. All worth it for this picture!

Cute craft, so easy.

I've done this before...but I never took pictures before because I'm a bum. This is a really cute t shirt craft that is simple and SO easy to clean up! I like tie dye just like everyone else, but seriously, it is NOT a craft for children!

We started with 5 for $10 colored t shirts from Michael's on sale. I pre-washed them so that the bleach would work a little better.

Then I just gave them one of those Clorox bleach pens and let them go to town. Kyle was just making abstract designs and Caiden started out by drawing a dinosaur, but then he didn't like it so he crunched it all up and it came out really cool.

Here are some pics of the finished products.

Super cute. Super easy. Super entertaining. Super easy to clean up AND Super cheap!