poco and the bear

poco stares down the teddy bear. he looks like he's about to pounce! he's not though, he's much too lazy for that...

often times poco will go and get his teddy bear and just set it in front of him, waiting for us to notice so we can be impressed with his toy. it never works. (although, it sure is impressive!)

he looks like he's some sort of hostage here, huh?

poco's other favorite passtime when he's not playing with his teddy bear: looking out the window.

he spends almost every waking moment (and all the moments he's not awake) chillin out in his favorite blanket!

cover the walls

papa stands on the arm of the couch and screws the anchor into the wall for our clock.

a couple more pieces that went up: a sign above the door way that says 'faith * family * friends', and over the dining room table, one of diana's pictures from where she used to live.

a couple paintings in the kitchen above the stove.

looking down the hall into the kitchen you can see all the pieces that went up: the two above the stove, one that says 'la dolce vida' (italian for 'the sweet life') over the door way, and a really cool framed set of six images of marriage that we put up in on the wall to the left.

decoration shopping

walking the isles of menards, one of papa's favorite places to shop. well, not the menards down here by us- that place is old, dilapidated, and gross!

we were wandering around cabela's with mom and papa, and for some reason, we always get drawn into the cool taxidermy they have there. when we finally came to, we realized mom and papa were almost on the other side of the store!

diana found a furry hat that she really liked- super cute, huh?

deck the halls 2

diana and i stand proudly by our first christmas tree! aw, so cute! oh, and the tree looks nice too... we shut the blinds and plugged it in: ah, now i'm feeling a little bit of that christmas spirit!

deck the halls 1

unpacking the tree from the box, we set it up and diana gave strict instructions that she was the one who got to 'poof' it out.

poco, purched on the chair arm rest, surveys the area that the tree will reside. he gives it a thumbs up. oh wait, dogs dont have thumbs...

papa finds the perfect placement for it. remember papa, dont poof it, only diana gets to do that!

diana and i untangle the new lights jill and tim gave us to wrap around the tree. with the poofing now completed, we began decorating the tree!

sleepy turkeys 3

bubba was getting sleepy, but didnt want to admit it of course. he layed on the floor and threw a blanket over him. well, that seemed like an invitation from tweets to pester him!

tweets soon followed suit by grabbing a blanket too. this time it was aves turn to pester!

sleepy turkeys 2

as usual, the kids wanted to take turns with the camera. tweets decided she wanted to take a picture of her mom. its ok, but tweets, you are going to have to do better with light aperture if you ever want to turn pro...

bubba decided he wanted to take a picture of papa's moustache (ok, i may have given him a little suggestion on what to take a picture of...)

after getting a good laugh at taking a picture of papa's moustache, he wanted to follow it up with a picture of mine!

sleepy turkeys 1

after dinner the girls played memory at the table, diana played a little game with tweets, and jill played with aves.

bubba stopped by the table for a minute to see what all the fun was about!

aves was not at all interested in looking at the camera, but mema worked her magic- aves is powerless to resist a happy mema!

family thanks

tweets showing off her amazing dance skills!

its funny, all the toys that tim and jill have given bubba, and still his favorite are the bag of transformers i had when i was a boy!

aves decided it was time to roll around on the floor... mema even had a little treat for them, she had found a doll she used to play with when she was a girl! aves loved it!

looking good!

wear it with pride there, big guy!

perhaps aaron felt like we were not giving the sweater enough praise, so he made sure to puff up his chest and display it proudly.

thanks eve 2

jeffry lee and aaron mixing it up in the corner.

random picture of jeffry lee's forehead. he looks like some sort of creepy zombie, huh?

aw, so cute! diana looks good too... zing!

diggin' the facial hair, but you've got to stop shaving your head, man!

the happy couple, way past bed time!

thanks eve 1

freddie and i. i'm not mad, i guess i just look like it...

diana was a good sport, putting up with all of our silliness!

we obviously couldnt be bothered with actually cleaning off the table while we hung out.

another freddie shot before he left. he's been growing his hair out a bit, and i think it looks good!

organiza-shed

the shelf is along the back wall and about as sturdy as you can get!

i repacked the egg boxes (i got those over the summer from the grocery store i worked at- very helpful!) and put them up on the shelf- now there's plenty of room for diana's bike. and my guitar, apparently...

it might still look a bit messy, but now i know where everything is!

toy soup

the idea i had for the decorations was to make a bunch of kids playing on and around different outdoor equipment. since its getting late in the fall, i decided to make the kids all bundled up in their coats, scarves, and mittens. i made a total of about twenty kids.

i looked outside at the new equipment and saw all kinds of bright colors, so i used the same colors with the equipment i made. the blue polls, yellow rails, and orange slides are fairly accurate, and they are also some of our school colors! here is a fun twisty slide that one of the kids is standing at the bottom of.

another slide with children playing by it. i made about 8 slidey things that the kids were playing around, and it filled the room nicely. they had also gotten tons of balloons for decorations around the tables themselves. it turned out quite nicely! i was even thinking ahead and had the bundled up children decorations laminated so we can use them next time we have a soup supper fundraiser!

poco on the couch

our little dog poco loves his blanket. every day he spends hours on the couch wrapped up in it. some times he will just lay on it, but usually he likes to lay inside it! its the cutest thing ever when he is digging into that blanket trying to find a way inside it. once he is inside the blanket, he always likes to poke his head out from under it to peek out and see what we are up to. it is so adorable that i am often tempted to take a picture of him poking his little head out at us! here are a few pictures of our burrowing dog making his nest and popping his head out to see what we are up to: