79th

We all went to Ruth's tonight to celebrate Mom's 79th birthday (belated).....We had a nice dinner and then it was time for cake...A quick picture with all the grandkids Happy Birthday Mom! Here's to another 20.......

christmas 2009

SO this is what the livingroom looked like at 3am christmas eve, right before I went to bed!and this is what it looked like at 11 am the next day! YEA Dad did good.....He got us Guitar Hero for our playstation.......(just what we need around here, the ability to be a rock band!)The kids also got new sleeping bags, which they stayed in all evening and watched TV........

chess

In the past year or so Jordan has learned to play chess. We go to the library almost every saturday. They have an older gentleman who gives of his time to teach the children chess for free. Jordan loves it. The teacher said that he is really good at it. He really stops and thinks about every move very carefully, soon he will be beating him. He even played this fall after school at the school for the deaf. Tom came home tonight after being out in the snow all day, to a nice fire in the wood burning stove, and his favorite dinner, chili. Then it was time to sit down and play Jordan in chess.........
as you can see Jordan took him to task! I can't even recall the number of times I heard "check"!

Let it snow

Yippee....the first "play" snowfall of the year!

knowing that I have been a little stressed out these past few days, my wonderful husband showed up afterwork yesterday with this in his arms....... It's so pretty!Sorry ladies but I think that I have the best husband in the world!

finals

Jordan's dek hockey team defeated a tough team to win the semi final round of the championship. They then played the first game of the championship and lost but it is a best of 3 series so next monday we have a chance to get back in it.......GO RANGERS!

ole'

So Tom decided for his birthday, which was saturday, that he wanted to go out to Don Pablos for dinner. Of course we "happened" to mention to the waitress that it was his birthday...Here they came, singing and putting this on his head. He did manage to get a free dessert out of the deal!Then it was time for his favorite dessert....cake
Happy Birthday honey, I'll love you forever!

thanksgiving

Tom's been off on vacation for 2 weeks so he's been doing some "odd" jobs around the house..

But he did manage to get it done in time for a thanksgiving meal....I had the job of cleaning up th plaster dust....man that stuff gets everywhere. If you visit our house and find some, please don't tell me about it!

b day

Tuesday was Cody's big 15th birthday.....We went out to eat.....Then it was time for presents. A new PSP game he wanted, transformers, and Dad took him out to get a new pair of roller blades.Then cake. Can't believe he's 15 already. Happy birthday Cody!

T or T

The force was ever present in our livingroom tonight.......
All this time I thought it was James Earl Jones....turns out it's Jordan. A good time was had, candy was devoured, and even some leftover snacks for lunches. Another successful Halloween!

skating

Cody wants a new pair of inline skates for his birthday so on a spare of the moment we went to skate and possibly check out thier pro shop.....Couldn't wait to get laced up and hit the floor (one way or another!)Poor kid was exhausted!

monsters

I made this cake for Cody to take to his CAP meeting for their halloween party, that's why he's wearing camo.......

finale

SO my final cake class was today (for this session) and we had to do the basketweave technique and place all of the flowers that we made through the weeks. So here is the final creation......
Tom keeps asking when we can eat it! He's a cake lover.

Airman

So Cadet McKelvey (Cody) worked hard these past months and passed his PT (physical training) test and his written leadership exam and got promoted tonight to Cadet Airman McKelvey! He is so excited he was practically dancing!

These are his dress blues uniform.

bargain

Just got a great deal on fabric softener.......There is a coupon in the red plum coupon pack from the 10/04 sunday paper for $3 off on 1 Snuggle 32 load bottle. So I went to the dollar general and got a whole bottle of fabric softner for $0.80! Love getting bargains.

let em eat cake

So here is the latest saturday creation..... chocolate cake with cherry filling, decorated like this......

dinner

Cool fall days......rain......means spend the afternoon making soup. Today's menu includes Baked Potato soup! It is so yummy..

I'll get some nice crusty bread started in the breadmaker in the morning and dinner will be a breeze tomorrow!

dek hockey

Spent the morning at Jordan's first dek hockey game. He isn't even sure of the rules but its fun so that's all that matters..... He's #7

4 laughing babies

Need a little joy pick me up? watch this.......

cake

Here is my latest creation...........

pink

Having 2 boys it's not often that I get to talk about pink things. So I jumped at this opportunity. The fountain at Point State Park in Pittsburgh is flowing with pink water all month in honor of breast cancer awareness. I have seen first hand what this disease can do. My stepmother, who was more than a mother to me, died when I was in high school from breast cancer. I watched her suffer and even stayed home on occasion to take care of her. That was 27 years ago and there is still not enough progress being made. Please do whatever you can to help.

project

Tom and the kids are out at Cody's CAP meeting so I get to do one of my favorite things......Sewing. I have been on this fabric basket kick. I am working toward selling at my very first craft show in November so I am busy "working" on some projects (although it really isn't work, for me it's play). Anyway, thought you might like to see one...

baked goods

This has been a bit of a busy week here. Both boys had their open houses at school. So we went to them. It was kind of strange going to Cody's and being back in our old high school again, this time as a parent! Jordan's PTO had a bake sale and I made sunflower cupcakes......I also had my final cake class (of this session. A new class starts on Oct. 4th) Here is my final cake. I think that I got the hang of the roses.

Cody also got his school pictures this week.
And his first progress report. Biology, he's got an F. Oh the fun!

#2

So here is cake #2. (keep in mind that we only have about 1/2 hour in class to decorate our actual cake.)

Love

The only thing you can really take with you when you die is the love inside.-Patrick Swayze

dinner

The kids are both away for the weekend. Cody went on the senior high retreat with our church and Jordan went with Uncle Lenny to his house. So since we had a free night Tom and I had a date night. We went to Don Pablos for dinner. As you can see he needs his reading glasses more and more.......

It was a nice "quiet" dinner....

CQ

CQ stands for craft quickie......my newest one. If you are like me you have a ton of canvas tote bags laying around, given to you because you went to a seminar or volunteered for something. Well I found this great idea on the web. You basically take an ugly tote bag, they usually have some sort of writing on them, and make it into something brand new.
I Started with some fabric I had and a tote bag...I added a pocket to the bag to cover the writing. In hind sight I should have put a back on my pocket with my fabric.......From there I basically made a cover for the bag. Turn your bag inside out and lay on the fabric. Cut a piece that is approx. 1/4 inch larger than the bag all the way around. Put right sides of fabric together and stitch the sides. Insert tote bag into the fabric cover and fold down the top to meet with the bag and top stitch.The result is a tote bag with a pocket inside that I wouldn't mind taking to the grocery store or farmers market!