I've been meaning to show off a picture of the goodies I got from my secret sister!

I've been playing secret sister for 3 months at Memory Creators and its been a blast!
I've loved picking out items for my secret sister and have loved getting stuff in the mail!

Look at all these goodies that NicoleinHB sent me-- love all the Christmas goodies!

I actually cleaned up my scrap area a little yesterday and sat down and did a 8x8 layout today! whoohooo! I have a couple other 6x6 layouts I should photo also! I will try to photo them a little later!

We are playing poker tonight, one final night before our friend Matt moves away-- I wish him the best of luck and we will all miss him!

Thanks for reading!

WOW!! We had such a busy fun weekend being up north for Thanksgiving!
This is the first time in 6 years we went up north for Thanksgiving, we usually

stay home and I cook here and put up all the decorations for Christmas. We did

make it home in time last night to get our decorations up outside! They look good and the

kids were thrilled!

Noah hit a milestone over the weekend and lost his first tooth! He looks soooo cute!

Today when he woke up the tooth fairy had left him 2 dollars and a trail of glitter where

she had been, he was thrilled :D (he still has sleepy eyes in the picture) I have sooo much to do today, I can't believe how much laundry we come home with! Happy Monday everyone :D

I copied the questionaire from Jess's blog and thought it was a good way to kick off the holidays! :)

A little Christmas questionaire, that could also be used as a scrapbook page!

My answers......

1. Egg Nog or Hot Chocolate? Hot Chocolate
2. Does Santa wrap presents or just sit them under the tree? just sits them under the tree
3. Colored lights on tree/house or white? depends on the year, I've done it both ways.
4. Do you hang mistletoe? No
5. When do you put your decorations up? Usually on Thanksgiving but this year we will be up north, so probablyright when we get home.
6. What is your favorite holiday dish (excluding dessert)? Does Chex Mix count?? lol-- I love buttery mashed potatoes.
7. Favorite Holiday memory as a child: seeing all the presents under the tree!
8. When and how did you learn the truth about Santa? probably when I was 8 or so... I saw my mom with the presents and went and asked my older sister.
9. Do you open a gift on Christmas Eve? We did when we were little! We also do Christmas with Nates parents on Christmas Eve so I still get to :D
10. How do you decorate your Christmas tree? blinking lights, bulbs and tinsel and an angel on top!
11. Snow! Love it or Dread it? DREAD IT!!!!
13. Do you remember your favorite gift? hmmmmm nope.
14. What's the most important thing about the Holidays for you? Spending time with family, watching the kids learn and enjoy the holiday and of course remembering why we celebrate Chirstmas, The birth of Jesus.
15. What is your favorite Holiday Dessert? Fudge
16. What is your favorite holiday tradition? Singing Christmas songs with the kids everynight before bed startingweeks ahead a time.
17. What tops your tree? an angel
18. What's your WORST holiday memory? Getting in to a fight with my sister.
19. What do you usually serve/eat for dinner Xmas day - a 'traditional' meal or something else??? traditionalturkey/ham, potatos, stuffing etc.
20. What is your favorite holiday movie? Rudolph and Frosty
21. Do you dress up on Christmas for dinner, or do you have special holiday PJs? We don't have to dress up but we usually wear something "semi" nice and we dress the kids up!
22. Do you exchange gifts with all your family? Just some? pick names? How do you do it in your family? Last year we started not buying gifts for our siblings, it just got silly that we were exchanging gift certificatesbut we still buy for everyone else.

First and foremost....HAPPY BIRTHDAY NOAH!!! Mommy can NOT believe you are 6 years old!! I wish I knew how and why time flys by so quickly!

We had a SUPER busy weekend! We drove up north to see the grandparents for Noahs birthday. He got soooo many presents(too many!!!) and we went to the bowling alley on Saturday! Here are some of my favorite pictures:

I just can't believe how fast 6 years have gone by! I am so grateful to have such a sweet happy healthy little guy! He amazes me everyday by his good, sweet nature and how VERY smart he is. Speaking of which...... we had conferences today for both of the kids! They both got high praise from the teachers! Noah's told us that he is reading higher then a 4th grade level and that she will be challenged by Noah to keep him interested this year but she will be doing reading with him on his level. They also have 25 words out of 300 that they are supossed to recognize by the end of Kindergarten and Noah knew 297 of them lol!!

Ciaara did really well also, the teacher said she is a pleasure to have!! She is going to see a speech therapist though, Ciaara is a little hard to understand sometimes. She talks really really fast (she gets that from me) Usually if you ask her to say the work one at a time she gets it right but when saying the sentence it runs together. I'm glad they are watching her and they say speech is soo easy to fix, especially when they are little.

I thought I'd share this picture of Ciaara also since I was talking about her and I think it is soooo cute! Thats all for now, I hope to get some scrapping in tomorrow and Wednesday and then I am helping in Ciaara's class on Thursday! Thanks for reading!

Here are my latest layouts! My dear friend Jess helped me with the title for the fair one and gave me an idea for the swing batter one when I was stuck--Thanks Jess!!

On the word Swing I had to use a U upside down because I was out of N's, can you tell?

Have you seen the KI kits that Joann's is selling? I used THIS kit for the Bike layout and I loved it!There is TONS of stuff in the kit and if you can get it half price it is sooooo worth it! I also used my first swirly on that layout and I LOVE it!

Thanks for looking :D

If you need a smile click HERE !
Just wanted to get this on my blog-- its soooooooo cute!!

I'll be back later to get some layouts here :)

FINALLY some BOY layouts!! I did two of them today and the other two are the ones I started and couldn't finish, I still have one more sitting here that I just can't get done! Maybe I'll start that one over!

The "fanatic" one isn't one of my favorites but I just couldn't get it how I wanted it! I really like the other ones though, nice simple easy layouts!

Noah is sooo photogenic, he always takes good pictures and almost always puts on that same smile!

Happy Halloween to everyone, I hope you all had a great night! We had a Cute Witch and Batman invade our house for a day!

They both were excited about their costumes and we had a wonderful time!! I spent time at their school yesterday, watched the costume parade at school where they start with a class "parading" through one room and that room joins in and so on until everyone is back in to their own rooms and have seen everyone else. It was so cute to see all the kids dressed up! They were all so proud!

It was VERY cold last night and WINDY! Ciaara couldn't wear her witch hat outside because it kept blowing off. We just kept the wig on. I had the kid bundled up under their costumes, they both looked like they gained about 30 pounds. The kids are getting so grown up and brave, they walked up to most houses on their own while Nate and I stood back and watched them take yet another step of independence.

We carved a pumpkin on Monday night, we bought one those stencil sets and tryed a "cool" pumpkin this year! We were all proud of how it turned out--much better then the faces I attempt to draw out! hahaha :)

Happy November to everyone and thanks for reading :)