January, Catch up time

I really don't want to play catch up all year on my blog!  I'm going to try to catch up and then post more regularly.  That way there might be more thoughts and stories  than picture captions.  But for now, you have to deal with catch up!  New Year's day found the boys at our house and a fun game of football in the street.  Even Cynjyn and Becca played.

Tanner, Markus, Charlie and Taz

Cynjyn, Michael, Talon, Taz, Tanner

Markus, Charlie, Ryan, Talon, Taz, Becca and Cynj

Taz, Tanner, Markus, Andrew, Talon (I believe Charlie and Michael are "hidden" by Talon)

Cynj, Michael, Becca

 Taz is enjoying his little job of running Psych.  He usually runs her 2-3 times a week.  Sometimes he'll take her on Marilee's bike and sometimes he'll run.  He's really been saving the money he makes for each run and you'd be surprised at how quickly $5.00 add's up!

 I have been enjoying having to dress up for work or church.  I like doing my hair and wearing my flowers and such.  I've been enjoying Cynjyn's hair tools.  The above photo finds me using her wand to make curls.  I went to work and got so many comments on my hair from the kids!  One girl said "you look beautiful today Miss Kim!"  and almost all of the boys in each class commented that my hair looked really good today.
Speaking of hair, look what Cynjyn did to Taz's hair one day during church.  That's how long it was!


I wore Cynjyn's long extension that she got for Christmas one Sunday.  She french braided my hair and worked the extension into it and we stuck a flower in the back.  I loved it!  I wore it like that to school one day shortly after this picture too.

And one day I curled my hair and then wore her curly pink an purple extensions to church!  I got lots of comments on that from the primary kids...especially the girls saying they loved my hair!  I've used Cynjyn's extensions officially more than she has and she requested them!!

The same day of my Pocahontas hair Taz and Cynjyn both got set apart as the Teacher's quorum President and the Beehive President.  I knew Cynjyn was getting the calling, but Taz had kept it a secret!  I am proud of both of them and their commitment to the church.

 Cynjyn has become good friends with Adrianne from school.  But Adrianne swims so she has swimming practice 6 nights a week.  So they can't hang out much after school.  But one day they got together and made candy sushi!  They always make it look and taste super good.  They also decided to be twins on twin day at school.  Adrianne came over and did the front of the shirts that said Tweedle Dee and Twiddle Dum and then Cynjyn drew a tea pot on the front of the shirt.  Then Adrianne had to leave so Cynjyn finished.
 



She also did the back saying "we're both a little mad" and then hand drew the cat!  She doesn't get those skills from me!!  They turned out so cute.  And the twins had a fun day at school even though they only have band together.

 One weekend, Garry suggested Cynjyn redo her room.  She had been hinting at it since before Christmas, and MLK day was coming up and so we did it then.  The first step was to pick out paint, so a trip to Lowe's was imminent. 


These are the before pictures.

 We had pinned some teen room ideas on Pinterst and decided to do a chalkboard wall on a small area behind her door.  Then we saw on Pinterest that you could turn it into a magnetic chalkboard by painting a magnetic primer under it.  So we bought both.  The magnetic paint took the WHOLE can to make it strong enough to attract other magnets.  But we were all happy with the outcome.

The colors that she chose were:  Nautical and Purple Jewel and she decided to do different walls these colors.

 We painted her bed shelves to match too.

 And this is the final look of her bed and two walls. 

 This was the section we did chalkboard.  It is right by her closet and behind her door.  The little green dots and mustache's are magnets and the rest is chalk.  It is super fun to have that in her room!  She's themeing her room Around the World.  We ordered her the British and Irish flag to hang on her closet doors and she has a Chinese or Oriental wall and a Harry Potter wall.  She put her painting from Krissy above the chalk wall and Garry put a shelf above her closet to hold her snow globe collection.

 
 

 We had some picture frames hung on her wall that aren't full of pictures yet, so we are waiting to fill those for more reveal pictures. 
 
 We rearranged her room a little and found room to make a sitting area.  Garry found two chairs at a garage sale for $5.00 each and brought them home.  They needed some cleaning and a new covering so we went to Hancock and she picked out this super soft material.  Garry made the shell to go over the chair and they turned out great!

 I had a terrible tooth ache on weekend.  Why do they always start on Friday??  It was MLK weekend too!  I called first thing Monday morning and they could fit me in on Tuesday at 2:00.  I ended up having a root canal and wasn't done until 5:30 pm!!  They had to deaden my twice because I could feel the needles poking in and so I looked like a stroke victim afterwards and my kids all had a good laugh.

 Garry's work doesn't have an employee Christmas party, but every year they do an employee appreciation dinner in January.  So we went to that.  Garry won a $50.00 gift card to Olive Garden after going three years with a dry spell and not winning anything. 

 Cynjyn always has fun when we got to the Hancock Fabric.  Here she found princess dress up and insisted I take a picture.

 I needed a fun review game for Jr. singing time with not a lot of prep and so I took some tp rolls and wrapped them in plastic wrap and we built a snow man.  If they new all the words of the song we'd been working on for January and say louder, we built the snowman and then I chose someone to throw balls at it and knock it back down so we could sing again.  Jr. loved it and it worked and was fast to prepare.  We did something different in Sr. a quiz on the song with chalkboards.

 I don't know what happened, but my boys finally love pinochle as much as I do.  They play it on their phones and together.  Taz and Talon played 2 handed all day one Saturday and we've taught Mikel and now we play it all the time.

 Cynjyn is in love with anything British (Thank you One Direction).  So one Saturday she made me take her around to find macaroons.  After a couple stops at different stores, we found them at Freed's bakery.  We bought, she tried and actually liked them!  Oh the things we do for our children.
 

 We always try to do a YW camp fundraiser in January.  We thought we'd switch it up this year and do an Enchilada and salsa sale instead of pizza.  So the Tuesday before the pick up date, we gathered all the girls to make 54 16 oz. container's of salsa.  This group below were the brave ones and volunteered to dice the onions.  It was so crowded in the kitchen and those onions were so strong...everyone was crying!  But they did it.  We ended up needing to make 80 containers of Salsa and Garry made them for us.  He did some the night before the fundraiser and then during it we were selling them as people came to pick up their enchilada's and so he was making more during it. 

 We both had spirit week at the same time and neon day on the same day.  So here we are with our neon.

 And Cynjyn is baking good stuff for the YW bake sale held at the same time as the selling of enchilad's and salsa.  We ended up making about $2600.00 on the fundraiser after taking out the supply cost.  We all worked hard on it!

 Taz watched Sparky and added to his money stash one weekend.

 And finally, Garry put some fake grass by the jacuzzi and that made that little area look so much better.