Bingo Bonanza and other party games.

It was the annual family Christmas Bingo on Sunday. I had a great time. Daniel is such a sport and he does the calling and facilitating for it. We play for fun prizes like reachy-stick-grabbers and chocolate bars. We also got a $2 bill in an envelope. Fun fun! I saw some cousins I haven't seen in a long time. Fun was had by all and stuffed ourselves silly with too much food.

The whole room! We had such a good time.

Then Monday we went to Daniel's dad's family party. His dad loves to play games and he had a pretty silly one for us. They had to stuff a pair of panty hose with 10 small balloons and then put it on their head. It was pretty funny. Daniel was with his brother, Eric, for the first round and they won. The little kids had fun being silly with all the balloons.

Christmas is fun when we get to spend time with family. We are playing more games on Christmas Eve so I will post about those and our other Christmas festivities!

Cold Days and Warm Beds

With the weather getting colder (finally!) we have been sleeping in and going to bed early where possible. We have also broken one of my rules (gasp!) and have allowed the dogs on the bed. We snuggle down under the comforter with the puppies on top. Saturday turned into a literal dog pile.

I also decided i needed to snuggle a baby, but since we don't have one, I snuggled my baby dog instead. Unfortunately he smells. But he's a sweet cuddler.

Saturday morning I decided to officially  name the second bedroom the "craft cave" until such time as it needs to become a bedroom.

This is my latest thing. I saw shoes like this on pinterest, so I copied it. I love them and I can't wait until the wet weather dries up a bit so I can wear them and keep them clean.

We're doing our best to enjoy the winter days and keep ourselves active. What do you do to combat the winter blues?

Want to know more? email us at danielashleyadopt @ gmail . com

Another shirt

I'm excited about this shirt. It uses the beautiful bird that Cady Driver drew for us and a quote from my favorite author, Jane Austen.

http://teespring.com/flightoffancy

It's available in a couple different colors, long or short sleeve. 

This effort is helping me keep up hope. The holidays are harder when there are no children to share it with.. Fortunately, we have some amazing nieces and nephews. It's been a long time that we have been hoping to adopt and feeling the support of our friends, family, and strangers helps me keep my spirits up. Someday I be a mother and there is some amazing woman who will become our birth mother and hopefully be counted among our best friends. 

Will you indulge in a flight of fancy?

I love to sew

It's no secret that I love to sew. I love making things with fabric, be it quilts, costumes, or decorations. A good friend of mine from college invited us to a Renaissance Christmas dinner. In costume. I know that makes us kind of geeky, but hey, being a geek is fun. Just ask the geeks. So a few weeks ago we went to the store and got fabric to make our costumes. I have spend countless hours cutting out and sewing together our costumes. Here is a glimpse of mine. I will post more as I get further along, as well as pictures of us when they all done.

 The loops for the lacing.

 The embroidered edge lacing.

The color and invite.

Do you like to do things like this? If you could be any character ever, who would you be? I would want to be Cinderella and wear the dress that is from the March 2015 movie. How beautiful is that!!

Halloween!

This year I was feeling kind of scroogey about decorating. I didn't want to make a mess only to have to clean it up again a few weeks later, so I didn't decorate. But I did make costumes. Halloween is much more fun with children. It gets kind of hard to keep putting forth effort. But the costume part was worth it this year.


Daniel already owned shiny pants, so we went with it. 

 

I already owned the red shoes (not seen). Winston already is Toto so then we just made a lion costume (cape) for Lacy. What do you think?

 

Here's a better view of Lacy's lion cape.

What did you dress up as? Do you like Halloween? Normally it's my favorite, but this year seems to require more energy. I will save it up for next year.

Want to know more? email us at danielashleyadopt@gmail.com

Sometimes you just need to spruce things up a bit

So we did. We went to Ikea on Friday night with friends and got ourselves some new cabinets. We've been contemplating this for a little while and finally did it. I'm so excited about the change.

I painted the room yellow - as it used to be a red sandstone color. Yellow matches my kitchen. It's such a happy yellow. Then we started putting cabinets in. Took us most of Saturday, along with a few other things. We just have to the knobs on, put the toe-kick up, and then decide how we want to put our stuff away. It's exciting!

We put the doors on, I just didn't take a picture after that. It makes the room so much more useful as a storage/pantry/laundry room.

Do you have dreams of a super organized house? I do! I'll get there someday.

Want to know more? email us at danielashleyadopt@gmail.com

A Fall Tradition From Daniel

Growing up I had the opportunity to visit my Grandparents often. Often this would be a Sunday visit with my parents and siblings. However, I often would ride my bike to my Dad's parents house in the summer. Or in the fall after junior high school football practice.  Regardless of when I visited my Grandma she would offer me a sandwich. This was always a special sandwich because it would include homemade Chili Sauce. This is one thing that will always remind me of my Grandmother.

Grandma's Chili Sauce is a slightly sweet tangy tomato based relish. We use the recipe from the 1954 Better Homes and Garden recipe.

Now Ashley and I still visit my Grandma's but I no longer rely on her for Chili Sauce. This weekend we had enough fresh tomatoes from our garden that I was able to make the Chili Sauce.  It is one of the ways I know fall is really here.

It all starts with fresh tomatoes. We usually grow two or three varieties each year. Here are some of the yellow ones from our garden. I didn't get picture of the red ones.

















Here is the sauce simmering down. It makes the house smell wonderful.

Do you have a favorite fall tradition? What is your favorite season?
Want to know more? email us at danielashleyadopt@gmail.com