And the Winner is.......

Drum roll please!  Well I had 17 comments in total (including Facebook people) thank you very much!  I am pleased to announce the Winners are Beate Holt from Colorado and Dela Wandler.  I wish I had enough for everyone.  Next year I will make even more!  Congrats ladies!

Ornament Exchange Contest!

 Well, this is my workshop this year!  I ended up painting everything in my office.  As usual I have 365 days to prepare for ornament exchange and I waited until the 364th day to start!  I don't know why I do it to myself.  It is one of my favorite Christmas traditions but I always leave it to the end and it ends up being a couple days of panic and a hungry family as I don't have time to make supper!

 I had 500 ideas but finally decided on doing little Dr. Seuss type presents.  With 24 people in the exchange and my 15th year being in it.....I am always shocked that we still come up with new things we haven't done.  I love my Christmas trees as they are all filled with homemade Christmas ornaments from dear friends! 

I will post pictures later of all the ones that I received for this year.  There were some really great ones.  OK, so I have a contest.  I LOVE LOVE LOVE Comments.  For every comment you make, your name will be put in a draw for one of these ornaments to be mailed out to you.  I will draw a name Friday morning and then I will mail it off so that you have a homemade little wooden ornament from me.  If I get a lot of comments I will draw two ornaments!  I hope you like them and can't wait to hear from you!

December is here!

I know I know I have been slacking.  I now know what a dog feels like as he chases his tail, always running never seeming to quite catch up!  Well I came up with a new holiday it is December Eve.  We celebrated last night by getting Dairy Queen and dreaming of all the wonders that December holds.  The last few years the Christmas spirit has escaped me.  This year I am determined to slow it down a bit and enjoy it a whole lot more.  We got snow yesterday so it was a perfect start to December Eve.

I have a new job as a Education Assistant.  Right now I am filling in and have already discovered I can't work full time and keep up so I am hoping for 3 days a week or half days.  I am still doing some bookkeeping so that will keep me busy the other days.

Basketball Season had began at our house or Chauffeur season as I call it.  This year we have another kid in the mix so it is really crazy!  Sam made the Seven Person girls team and London is on JV for Hat high.  We are excited for a  lot of cheering!

Halloween Costumes

Sean had to dress up for Cubs this year.  We found this awesome hair at a costume shop!  It is so cute.  I think he looked great!

London was little red riding hood!  She looked so pretty

We have a tradition that everyone has to "practice" trick or treating on our door.  They got some pretty awesome treats!

Sean is wearing the hat he wore for the spook house with his chainsaw!  He was after London's chocolate bar.

We rented a costume for Samantha She was the Egyptian Cleopatra.  The black cats were perfect props!

London with the big bad wolf!

London didn't want to go trick or treating as she is too old.  But I made her go to a few houses down at grandma and grandpa's house.  Sam went into town to trick or treat with her friend.

Haunted House 2011

First off I have to tell you this has been a pain to get this entry uploaded!  I have tried for a week and for some reason it wouldn't upload more than a picture or two at a time and would freeze up!  Hooray I finally got all the pictures I wanted! 

Welcome to the start of our spook house.  We have an old barn out in our back field.  They got a CRAZY fast jerky ride in the back of our truck out to the middle of the field!  It was crazy fun. Our friend Craig drove.  We just put some bales in the back of the truck and away we went!  The walked up through the graveyard first.

We had a bunch of old farm equipment covered in webs and had dolls, head and body parts speared on the points!  Poor dolls. We collected a bunch at garage sales and second hand stores!  I felt so bad dismembering them and covering them with blood!

Unfortunately I got so busy with the kids and getting everyone organized I don't have very many pictures of the inside and the ones I took the flash made it look bright!  It was very dark with very little lighting so that made it creepy.  The wind was blowing through the holes in the old building so it made things rustle inside.  We had curtains hanging everywhere from the top down to make rooms with theme's in each one.  It was very scary.  I hated being out there in the day time even by my self!

The spook house to a long time to make but the most amazing part the icing on the cake was our actors!  They were so amazing.  Way more that I even expected.  This is Ben and Erin.  They are newly married and agreed to be our haunted corpse bride and husband.  We found an old wedding dress at the Salvation Army that was perfectly creepy.  This is them before we splattered them with blood.

This is the entrance going in.  Remember it is pitch black with only strobe lights going.  See the holes?  Well no one else could.  That is were Sean reached through and grabbed people as then went by.  We mad it really narrow here so they couldn't get away.

This is a picture of our lunatic!  Kenzie did such an amazing job!  She was jumping around everywhere growling at people!

Dave was our Mad scientist!  He had a different name for himself for every group that came through.  He was so good at getting people to touch the gross stuff!

Table full of ewwy gooey gross stuff!  It was very dark except for the orange lights.  The flash ruined it but you can see the gross stuff better!  We found that hawk in a dumpster by the church so he was a great addition!

This is my amazing father!  He did so good out there.  He was what invited the people in.  He screamed like I never knew he could then acted like a crazy man, warning people not to go in and what to watch out for!

This is a picture of my Nephews and my Brother Micki.  I love the look of terror on Matt's face!  They came all the way from Cardston to help out and go through it!  It was so nice to have them.  Nadine helped with the food and Micki and the boys kept the fire going.

This is Vance...that is what the coveralls said.  He was so creepy in the strobe light just hanging there!

Uncle Mac was in the corner in the dark until he stood up and came at you with a saw!  Eek that was the torture room.  Notice the finger on the table?

Take a good look this is Nina and after this spook house you don't want her taking care of your children!  Lol.  Just joking, she did a great job in the room of beheaded dolls.  She sang rock a bye baby and then screamed how much she hates children!  Look at that look!

This is the butcher shop!  We had a sign that invited people to take a gum ball.  Then Jon would pop out his hand and grab them!  We had all sorts of human parts for sale!.  Poor Jon is a really tall big guy and he had to lay under this table for hours.  He did a great job scaring people.

Kenzie again being a lunatic!  So scary.  She put the blood in her mouth then spit it all out so it dribbled down her chin.  She was so good!

This was the last room.  It was called heart break hotel!  I found a sign at a garage sale that said that so it was perfect!  Erin and Ben were so good.  Ben wandered all around the whole spook house scaring people.

 I missed a picture of Brad he was a scary zombie guy too.  Robert was hidden in the tall grass in the field and would scare people as they were walking back.  Also Sean was hidden with a chain saw and would jump out at people at the end too.

It was such a great night.  The poor actors were frozen by the end of 2.5 hours.  I couldn't believe how many people came out.  We hoped for at least 30 we ended up with over 100 people  Out yard was filled with vehicles.  They waited in the shop.  We had filled it with chairs and Vern Hyde entertained everyone with funny (scary) stories.  He was so great.  It turned out great.  We had lots of helpers with food and Jodi sat in the field freezing directing traffic.  We had hot dogs and hot chocolate by the fire.  The weather was perfect!  It was so fun.  Thanks to everyone who came and helped.  WE are already planning a scarier bigger one for next year!