The Snyders

We had such the privilege to host two of our dearest friends during our Christmas break.  Jese played basketball at Belmont with Adam and they call each other "broth".  Jese helped Steve break Adam down and pull out some friendliness.  For example, when Steve broke his hand and Adam got sick of helping him dress and carrying around his suitcase, Jese is the one who got on him.  You see, Adam was having to help Steve get dressed, tie his shoes, get his belt on correctly....Adam was miserable.  (I swear to you, he was the MOST UNFRIENDLY PERSON you could have ever met his freshman year) So one morning, on a road trip, Adam purposely got up early and went down to the lobby so he didn't have to help Steve.  He was sitting with Jese in the lobby and the elevator dinged and out came Steve.  His shirt was half tucked, the guy missed 3 belt loops, and his shoes were untied.  When Jese glared at Adam, all he could say was, "I'm sick of helping that kid!"  Poor Steve.  

Steve and Jese would go into Adam's room and eat his candy stash when he wasn't around.  They did an excellent job of taking care of him and keeping each other in line during their college days.  Jese lucked out and met the sweetest girl, Casey.  I actually didn't know much about how they met until this visit.  We sat around one night and talked about the good ol' days and I laughed so hard hearing some of their stories and recalling some of ours.  We have a lot in common with them.  We got married the same year, within months apart.  They are such good friends.  The kind you can pick up where you left off and enjoy the precious time and memories you make together.

Jese serves our country in the Army and is currently stationed at Ft. Bragg, but will soon be deployed for a year to an unknown location again next month.  Jese and Casey have the most precious little boy who just turned one, Colton.  He is an exact replica of his daddy.  Please keep this sweet family in your prayers as this next year passes.  I admire Casey's strength and positive attitude as she supports her husband and raises Colton.  And don't get me started on how impressed I am with how brave and honorable that Jese is.  The profession he chose and the life he leads is not for the birds.  I can't imagine the pressures and stresses he is under, but I am so happy that there are people like him who are serving our country.  

We had some warmer weather and got to play outside.  This is Casey and Colton.

Gorgeous Emi

Gorgeous Aubrie

Jese tried to get Adam to do some pull-ups and show off his athleticism.  They also got out the agility ladder and had the girls run through a couple of reps.

The men and their boys

The girls loved them some Uncle Jese

Colton took a snooze on his daddy

Dan and Steve came over for some breakfast

Emi loves Colton

We went to a Belmont game and the boys were acting silly

Jese and Casey with the famous "BW" Betty Wiseman

Boys and their daddys

Adam said something smart to me so I pushed him on top of Jese, who was laying on the couch, and Jese took care of the rest for me. :)

Dan and his boy Hayden, Adam and Kyle, and Jese and Colton

Thanks for coming to visit us.  Already looking forward to our next visit!

Love to all!

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Merry Christmas!

We had the BEST Christmas break.  As a matter of fact, going back and looking at these pictures just blows me away of how blessed we are and how much fun we had!  Adam gets to take 2 weeks off of work and this year was a lot of fun because the girls are older and we can do some fun things, stay out late if we need to.  Kyle got pretty spoiled by his dad over the break.  He was devastated when Adam returned to work.  It even got to the point that when we both were in the room, he preferred his dad.  Devastating.  Warning:  There are a lot of pictures to tell you our stories.

These two come and jump in bed with me every morning.  Adam gets up early to work, or just get a cup of coffee in his system before he has to face these wild kids.  The rule in our house is that you have to stay in your room until 7 am.  And man, when the clock hits 7, you can hear the girls storming down the stairs.  

One day I was really busy, and gone a lot and when I got home, this guy climbed into my lap and gave me some love.  He just wanted to be held and loved on by his mom.  I LOVE HIS FACE!!!

Kibbler, our elf, was up to his usual antics.  One morning we found him in bed, with a cold.  Poor guy.

Kibbler reads the Christmas story to friends and shows off the nativity every Christmas Eve.  

Tia played the piano for the kids' Christmas program at the Mother's Day Out.  It was such a special treat.  She accompanied several songs and played while kids got on and off the stage.  

I just have to share this shot of Emilie doing her routine.  They danced to "Rockin around the Christmas tree".  She showed off some pretty cool dance moves.  And please notice that she's a whole head taller than most kids in her class.  Every time she heard that song come on in the car or a store, she would squeal "THIS IS MY SONG!!!!!"

We had a really special surprise!  We were walking around the cul-de-sac, passing out homemade pretzels to our neighbors and all of a sudden our neighbor said, "Hey!  I think Santa is walking down our street!"  And sure enough, he was!  He just wanted to stop by to say hello and check on us.  Good thing he did. We had a couple of questions about reindeer, Kibbler, and some extra pretzels to send home to Mrs. Claus.  Petey wasn't so sure about it all.  When Santa was walking towards the tree, Petey jumped up, bit his beard, and jerked it down.  Luckily, the girls were facing the tree, but it was definitely comical.  

In true Adam fashion, he waited until Christmas Eve to buy a couple of gifts for good ol' mom.  So he and the girls loaded up some toys for tots and dropped them off and then headed to Walgreens for some gifts.  I got some neon pink nail polish, and the movie Despicable Me, which Aubrie picked out and took out of my hands when I opened it and said, "you can share this, mom."

We grabbed this manly shot of Kyle one night right before bath time.  He looks pretty mean and his legs are so thin!

It's now time for me to come clean about something...or someone.  You see, there's someone new in my life.  He's always there for me.  He follows me around, hums to me, picks up things for me.  I can rely on him daily to be there for me.  He makes my life easier and....I love him.  His name is Roberto.  He's my new iRobot.  

It was love at first sight.  Best Christmas present ever!  Between Roberto and my Dyson vacuum, I have the cleanest floors.  And I will NEVER replace my Dyson.  The day we went to go get the Dyson, I vacuumed the whole house with our old vacuum.  When we got home with the Dyson, I vacuumed again with the Dyson and IT WAS DISGUSTING!  The Dyson is amazing.  And so is Roberto.  It's amazing the places he can squeeze under and clean.

We took the girls out to dinner one night and went to see the Rockettes.  It was a ton of fun!  It was Aubrie's second time seeing the show.  Emilie's face was priceless.  She did a lot of "Oh wow!" and "ooooh!"  We had popcorn and M&Ms and stayed out late.  Adam and I were amazed at how easy and peaceful dinner was with just 2 kids.  We couldn't believe how easy we used to have it.  Haha!

We had a lot of "Christmas Jammy days" where we would take an early bath and then watch a movie.  I ordered Adam and I some flannel jammy bottoms that we rocked the entire break. 

We hit up the Christmas Eve service at church.  We had four time slots to choose from.  We thought we would do the 4:30 slot so that we didn't have any tired, whiny kids with us.  WRONG.  It just so happens that all three kids decided to gang up against us and opted out of their nap that day.  Even Kyle, which he never does.  It was so crowded and I snuck candy canes in my pocket to feed Kyle to keep him occupied.  That worked great until he started rubbing his sticky hands all over my nylons.  Somehow, Adam reached for him and caught him off guard and he fell backwards and his head bounced off the floor.  He did one of those cries, you know the one where they don't breathe for a couple of minutes and then finally let out a shrill scream.  I scooped him up and did the "excuse me, pardon me, can I get through" down the aisle and almost got to the back door before he let out the scream.  Needless to say, we stayed in the lobby the rest of the service and his head was fine.  The girls had a good time lighting the candles and singing silent night.

Growing up in Elfrida, we had some friends, The Estelles.  They are an awesome family who moved in the area and were missionaries.  Every Christmas, Mrs. Estelle (Betsy) would bring by a loaf of this delicious bread that had nuts and raisins and cherries in it with frosting on the top.  It was amazing.  My brother and I would call it Betsy Bread.  We loved that stuff.  We would knock off a huge chunk at breakfast and sneak a piece for a snack later in the day.  It became a part of Christmas for us.  Well, I haven't had Betsy bread in 13 years because we have all moved away, so I took matters into my own hands and had Mom emailed Betsy to get her recipe and ask her if I could share it with you all.  I don't think she had a clue just how much that bread meant to us.  It's delicious!  This year I made it into one loaf and the rest I made into a small round cake for us to eat on Christmas day for desert.  

Betsy Bread (Jesus' Birthday Cake)

Betsy Bread

Recipe originally from Jan Conduff given to Betsy in 1973

1 box raisins (about 1 lb)

2 teaspoons soda

1 cup cold water

2 cup sugar

3/4 c shortening (I use margarine)

1 teaspoon vanilla

3 eggs

2 10 oz jars maraschino cherries drained and chopped

4 cups flour

2 teaspoons cinnamon

2 teaspoons nutmeg

3 teaspoons allspice

1/2 teaspoon salt
(You can add nuts if you'd like)

Put the raisins in a small saucepan, cover with water and bring to a boil, remove from heat, add soda and 1 cup cold water (I used the juice off the cherries) and let stand.

Drain 2 small jars of maraschino cherries.  Cut up the cherries into smaller pieces.

Cream shortening, sugar, eggs and add vanilla.  Mix dry ingredients add alternately with the raisins and liquid to creamed mixture. Add cherries.  Makes 2 loaf pans +.  Bake at 375F for 50-60 minutes or till toothpick comes out clean.

I frosted this with a simple butter cream frosting recipe I use for sugar cookies.  I colored some of it red and some of it green and made little holly berries and ivy leaves on top.

We also had a chance to go to the movie theater to see Frozen.  While we were there, we saw this huge cutout for the upcoming Rio 2 movieand they just had to get their picture taken with it.  We cannot wait for it to come out.  And after seeing Frozen, we CANNOT WAIT until it comes out on blu-ray!

Kyle used Granny's present as a stepping stool to reach higher ornaments that are breakable.  We only had one ornament broken this year.

Lots of baking and eating was done.  Here we are decorating Betsy Bread

Set up the ol' tripod for a Christmas Eve picture.  Adam's mom made the girls velvet sashes and Kyle's bow tie.  Petey didn't know what to think!

Christmas morning!!  All Aubrie wanted was a pool floaty and Emilie wanted the Princess Sophia family. 

My favorite part is the stockings!!

First peek at the tree!

Bubby got a dragon.  Rawr!

I hope everyone else had a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends.  We are so blessed to be surrounded by so many friends, which makes it easy to stay in town and start our own traditions.  It was sad to see Adam return back to work, but when he did, the house stayed a little cleaner and Kyle came back around and turned back into a Mommy lover.  Until Daddy gets home...

Love to all!

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Crafty pants

So...I'm about to toot my own horn on projects done around the house and little things I've done.  But let's get a couple of things straight.  1 - I'm not original.  These are all things I've copied off of somewhere, anywhere, and added my own little touch.  2 - What I have done is NOTHING compared to what my dear friend, Katie can do.  NOTHING.  The woman is amazing and inspiring.  Every time I go to her house, I look around and think she's got new things.  But all she does is move stuff around to different rooms and re-paints something, or makes a piece of furniture, or a picture frame and freshens up a space.  She's amazing.  And she's not even an interior decorator.  She's good at so many things and I'm so glad she's my friend.  What a gal.  

Here she is.  Reading to the boys.  And while she's reading this book, she's planning in her head ways to re-arrange my play room and how to make it more functional.  And her planned worked.  She's amazing.

The playroom.  We painted the walls grey and assembled a bunch of expedit units from IKEA.

Now for my mantle.  I found a pin on Pinterest that I liked that had this garland.  So I made it using pom poms, yard, hot glue, and felt.  It's tempting for Kyle, but he's managed to leave it alone.  I found the YOU ARE SO LOVED printable online and printed it and trimmed it to fit this 8x10 blue frame that I found on clearance at Michaels.  I painted it red and took out the glass.  Emilie picked out the heart.  I was going to make my own using little felt circles, but I did not have the patience.  But my friend, Rebecca, did and you can see how she did it here on her blog!

"Are toys and balls part of the valentine's decor?" Yes, it is the latest trend and we have it in every room. All the cool people are doing it.  

Next, we have my favorite and most humorous project, the laundry room.  Our laundry room had one 60 watt bulb in an old fixture hanging from our 9 foot ceiling.  So, I immediately replaced it with a chandelier.  Yes, a chandelier in my laundry room.  Once we had more light, I could see all the filth...I mean...the paint swatches I had taped to the wall.  So, I then picked out a paint color and painted the walls a light green.  It's beautiful and I can wipe the dirt off.  Our whole house was painted one color before we moved in and the paint they used was the cheap contractors paint that is like chalk and shows every kid fingerprint.  

We bought the in-stock white cabinets that Lowes carries and took down the wire rack that was hanging in there.  Now, this next step was the MOST CRUCIAL!  We invited Katie to come help us.  She and the boys came over 2 days before Christmas and the kids played, while we worked on the laundry room.  She had this awesome laser level that came in handy and she is so good at helping, suggesting things gently, and building us up to make us think we know what we are doing.  

 In the above picture, you can see a whole in the wall where the cabinets were going to hang.  We ran into a small snag.  We could not find any studs in the middle of the wall.  So, Adam was using a nail and hammer to look for studs.  He got to right above the faucets for the washer and started to bang and right when Katie went to open her mouth to warn him not to....PING!  He hit the pipe and the faucet busted off where you hook up the washer and water was spraying everywhere!  I was in the kitchen and came around the corner to see Adam frozen, sweating, and Katie laughing hysterically.  Adam looked at me and yelled, "WHAT DO I DO?!!" and I said, go turn off the water.  He then runs into the garage and starts tackling items to get them out of the way, like the utility sink, and still didn't know which valve to turn so I had to help him.  The kid was panicked.  It was pretty funny.  Sooooo, after a trip to Lowes, some bad luck, a call to the plumber, a trip to chick-fil-a for some lunch, and a visit from the plumber, we were back on track and started hanging the cabinets, which turned out to be pretty easy and it turned out GREAT!!!

This next project is from the fall. I made two different banners to hang on the mantle.  One went to Marcie's house and the other one stayed at ours.  Once again, Kyle really wasn't tempted to jerk these down.

It says "with grateful hearts"

The next couple are my favorites.  I learned how to crochet from a sweet Australian lady on YouTube.  Ever since then, I've been trying to perfect hat patterns for babies.  I love making hats and things for kids.  I think of their sweet little heads and how precious they are.  I love making hats.  

These two are for Katie's nephew, Grayson who was born a couple of months ago.

So stinking cute!

This one is for Aubrie's teacher's little boy.  Huge IU fans.

And this beautiful frame with bead board was made by Katie.  All of it.  Frame and everything.  

And this gem is for baby Lily. 

And this gem is for baby Luke.  

Lily and Luke are cousins.  Both born recently by twin sisters, two dear friends of mine.  Michelle and Marcie.  Marcie had Lily and Michelle had Luke.  I loved making these for their doors at the hospital and for at home.  I also thought it was cool because you can hang it on the front door and tell drop in guests or the UPS man to not ring the doorbell, baby is napping!  

And now the new little baby that I'm ready to spoil is Steve and Brittany's little baby.  They are fun, like us, and not finding out what they are having and so they have the cutest grey and yellow nursery waiting for this little one.  I made this picture for her baby shower.  I used painters tape and MATH (gross) to paint on the white and yellow chevron stripes.  Then I cut the elephant and balloons out of fabric and hand stitched them on the canvas, which was so cool.  Didn't know if I'd be able to do it, but it worked and I love the way it turned out!

Some of the hand stitching.  I used yarn for the strings to the balloons.  

I love that there are so many tutorials and other people out there sharing their ideas so we can use them.  Please note, this was all done in a span of 6 months.  There's no way in the world I have time to do stuff like this every week.  Wish I did!  

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