Happy Mothers Day!

Spring time in our yard. Happy Mothers Day to ALL!

Max and Mark have beens suffering from spring time allergies. Here is Max wishing all his Grandmas, Aunts and friends a Happy Mothers Day .... just as the sneezing begins!

Jail Time

So truly there are times when all of us must feel same about putting our little angels in jail, right? Surely I am not the only one who feels like this? Today, Max deserved a little jail time. In other words, Mark, myself and Justin left Max alone for 2 minutes and guess what happened? Max had got into his closet and found a little heart shape tin that contained plaster (in a sealed bag) to have his hands molded with. The next thing I knew Max came down to the basement and I noticed a little white powder on his shirt ... what had he gotten in to? Was it the flour? Was it my makeup? No ..... see photo's below to see exactly what the mess looks like AFTER Max had thrown the bag of plaster from the upstairs hallway.

And so this is what happened.

Ok - so it was not the City Jail but, I did think about it twice. Max had to sit on the stairs until I swept, vacuumed, swifered and then hand wiped the entire floor - because plaster can leave a nice thin white dusting all over anyone's hard wood floors. Oh my little angel. I eventually let him get up so he could help me clean up the mess. Oh, never a dull moment here.

Good thing we think he is cute!

Pictures Galore!

Temple Visitors Center Christmas Tree's

Winchester Stake's Christmas Tree

The visitors center has a room full of beautiful pictures depicting Christ's life. Here are a few that caught my attention.


Again, to me I felt like I was there with Him.

Can't you just imagine sitting on beach in this scene?

Max in front of the Christus.

Tonight was the first public night at the Visitors Center for the Festival of Lights. It was snowing there and it just made it that more fun. Mark was helping to direct traffic for the evening while Max and I viewed the lights and festivities.

There is a nativity scene with a live Mary & Joseph. Max of course wanted to climb up on the camel but he settled for getting his picture taken next to it!

Brother & Sister Bryant from our ward (also our Home Teacher) played Mary & Joseph on the first shift tonight at the temple.

Beautiful Temple and Lights.

This fall I have participated in several home craft shows or craft shows at elementary schools. I decided to make plates to sell this year. These are a few of my favorites. They sold great today when I had a dozen peanut butter truffles sitting on top.

A friend gave me a delicious recipe for peanut butter truffles. I think they will become a tradition for the holidays at our house! Yummm. In fact, one lady is paying me to make 2 dozen of them for her this coming week.

Our house is officially on the market. Here are some pictures of our home since we have painted. If anyone wants a little investment in Winchester, VA ... just let me know. We have a deal going on the house .... AND I'll even include a dozen or two truffles with an offer!!

Our living room. We have decided to keep some of our pictures and statues of Christ up in our home even though it is on the market. At night I light up the greenery on top of the piano and the Christus statue looks amazing. Max loves to see his Jesus statue.

Our little library room.

Max in front of our sometimes decorated / sometimes not decorated tree. Today we only had one ornament casualty. I think I've lost count for the season. Bless his little heart!

We are fasting and praying for a new job here in Winchester although we will go wherever the job will come to us. And, I know many of you are also keeping us in your prayers which we are very grateful for. It is amazing how many things you can find to be grateful for during this time of year despite the challenges that hang over us. I am grateful for our family, friends, healthy kids and husband, the heat, the snow, indoor plumbing, the gospel, our testimonies, the power of faith and of course our freedoms. We hope you and your families will find the same blessings in your lives as well.

Updating

It's been a while since I have last posted. Lots of things are happening in our life right now. New jobs are hopefully on the horizon along with putting our house on the market. Lots of painting, cleaning and staging have been going on along with trying to keep our Christmas ornaments actually on the tree! Max has been diligently taking not only the ornaments off the tree but, he likes to take the little metal "thingy" that holds the ornament hook on off the ornaments. The night we were putting the tree up ... he had taken at least 25 of them off various ornaments. Oh boy! His other favorite thing is to move the window candles and relocate them - so far we have had one casualty. Thankfully they are only a dollar or two to replace. Bless his little heart.
Tomorrow night we'll have pictures of lots of things but here is a recent photo of the little man!

Our Backyard Visitors

Just recently I was getting ready to make dinner and looked out in to our back yard. There sat three deer just grazing away on the grass and whatever else the woodchucks and squirels had left behind. They were so close - just over the fence line in our neighbors yard who owns 5.5 acres behind us. I got Max to the window so that he could see them and he finally got focused in on them and loved watching for them. He could hardly wait for Mark to get home to show him. When Mark got home, it was dark outside but they grabbed a flash light and headed out to "scare" the deer! Max was loving it! I had been teaching him that we did not want to make too much noise or open the doors because it might scare them away. Mark says, lets grab the flashlight and go scare them! I guess that's the difference between mom & dad.

House Maintenance, Car Maintenance, Mom Maintenance

I've heard the saying, "When it rains, it pours" referring to many different things. But, this week in particular I am having a hard time trying not to get discouraged. But, here is a brief recap of maintenace opportunities ...
House - Downstairs walk out basement doors ... doors not 100% installed correctly from builder; therefore, we have water damage coming through to the moldings and carpet. Builder supposedly "fixed" this back when we originally moved in, ha ha ha;
Solutions: First Contractor - replace the entire door, get it sealed correctly, etc. approx. $2K + the cost of fixing whatever damage they find along the way.
Second Contractor - Replace water damaged moldings, clean carpet, rehang original door, do a little concrete work outside to have water drain away from door - approx. $400 - $600.
Cars - Inspection for Honda ... replace two back tires, windshield and then the man told me the horn was not working - to which I said, let me show you how it is working ... and layed on the horn! Uggh - windshield has passed for years with the single crack, why not now? Two new tires $150; horn - who knows ....Inspection for truck ... we'll see tomorrow. My heart can only take so much in one week.
Mom - Maintenance on mom should probably be characterized as an on-going project! Stress from the economy and a hiring freeze at Freeman (therefore, no work) coupled with house and car expenses, along with our standard on-going life experiences should lend me to some sort of "time-out for Mom" don't you think? Did I mention that I had a little "run-in" with Max last Saturday while putting my contacts in ... therefore I now have no contacts? Thankfully after having one doctors office visit that was completely disorganized and disfunctional and raised my blood pressure, I was able to get in to see a competent doctor who did take our insurance! This was my miracle for the week - as I despise wearing glasses.

I realize we are not the only ones going through "maintenance" problems as anyone who owns a home and a car have opportunities such as these to "grow" and become "stronger". I'm hoping that my cup is full and we can start to work on solutions for draining our cup.

In Come the Spiders!

Yesterday morning I was working here at the computer and of course Max is crawling all over me, the chair, the desk, etc. The next thing he says to me, "Are we going to get the big big spider?" Of course this gets my attention. So I said, "what spider?" Less than a foot from my feet and my chair sits a big old juicy nasty looking spider! Yuck! So, I tell Max "don't move!" I'm going to get a book to kill it with. Of course, after I kill it and remove it ... I then have to go find the Resolve for the carpet. Yuck... I hate spiders. Then we hear a cricket just chirping away. Max says, "what's that sound mommy?" So, then we end up pulling the couch and chairs away from the wall, kill the cricket, vacuum up more whispy little spiders along with chips and crumbs from who knows what ... and we hope we got them at least for this week! I am completely amazed at how many spiders turn up each spring and fall. While fall is really my favorite time of the year, I do not care for the little creatures that decide to join our family each year. Thankfully most of them can get vacuumed up quite easily!!

Painting Complete

Tonight I am happy to report that our painting project was completed by 4:30 pm today. Both rooms have even been put back together again with all the window treatments and furniture in its right place. With the bribery of lollipops for Max for being a good listener and helper ... along with going to the park, we were able to keep the paint splattering to a minimum! Mark and I really love the rooms and we are glad they are done. Hopefully we can get some pictures of them up soon. So much for resting on "Labor Day".

Just an update on what you may hear Max saying these days....

Getting in to the car - Mom: Max get in your car seat
Max: No, I want to drive and go find a snake
Mom: What? No we are not going to go find a snake - get in your seat!

Sleeping - Mom: Max go back to your bed, its 1:30 in the morning
Max: No, I want to sleep in Kiley's bed (guest bedroom-Kiley was our last guest)
Mom: I give up . . . I'll help you sleep in Kiley's bed . . . .ughh

Painting Underway

Well it is Labor Day weekend and we have decided to take on some painting. We are in the midst of painting our dining room and living room. We picked taupe as the color and it is really showing off the white moldings. Mark is really a perfectionist when it comes to painting. The dining room is down to touch ups and we will start the living room in the morning.

Max of course is in the middle of all the paint, tape, tools, brushes, electrical plate covers, screws, ladders and having a grand time. All of his help is making the weekend memorable! Hopefully we'll be able to post pictures when it is done. We are still saving up for a new digital camera. Big bummer on the old one.

On A Roll with Canning

Our Relief Society has focused in on gardens this summer and we have worked on learning how to can various things from our gardens. To date, I have canned 9 pints of green beans, 18 quarts of peaches and 4 quarts of tomatoes. The tomatoes came from our garden and I have been able to get green beans from another members gardens. The peaches came from a local farm market. I have really enjoyed learning more about canning and adding to our families food storage.