luckiest girl

 i am such a lucky girl to have an amazing man in my life. James does so much for me and makes everyday incredible.

surprise for my James

I have been planning a little surprise for my Darling James. Saturday i gave him an invitation and tickets to go see Lincoln.It is funny we have never been to a movie together and now we have gone to 2 in 2 weeks.

I tried a new recipe, a slow cooker Lasagna, we liked it, here is the recipe:

Slow Cooker Lasagna Recipe:
Ingredients:
1 lb. lean ground beef (you could also use Italian sausage)
1 (24 oz) jar spaghetti sauce
1 cup water
1 (15 oz) container of ricotta cheese (can use skim ricotta or even cottage cheese)
1 pkg. shredded Italian Cheese (approx. 2 cups)
1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
1 egg
2 tablespoons dried parsley
6 regular lasagna noodles, uncooked
Directions:
Brown meat in large skillet; drain.  Stir in spaghetti sauce and water.  Mix ricotta (or cottage cheese), 1-1/2 cups Italian cheese, 2 tablespoons Parmesan, egg and parsley.
Spoon 1 cup meat sauce into slow cooker; top with 3 lasagna noodles, broken to fit; and half of cheese mixture.  Cover with 2 cups meat sauce.  Top with remaining noodles, broken to fit; cheese mixture and meat sauce.  Cover with lid.

So after dinner we went to the movie, which was excellent. I love spending time with my sweetheart. :)

XOXO I love you baby.

Giving Thanks

I am a big believer that blogs should consist of lots of pictures and little writing (because that's how I read blogs. I scroll through the pics and mostly skim whatever you wrote!) But I have some things on my mind. So here is where I shall write it.

I am feeling incredibly happy today. I've had my up and down moments but today I feel awesome.

Being a step parent is hard. Its hard when kids don't like you. Even Carter wants his dad a lot of the time. The change from one kid to 4 is hard. Living in an apartment (after you had a house) is hard. Living in a tiny 3 bedroom apartment with 4 kids is WAY hard. Family dynamic is hard. I get overwhelmed at times. I stress. I act crazy. Sometimes I look at my life and wonder what is going on.

We also have a lot of fun. I relish my time alone with James. I enjoy the children when we are all together. (or just a few of us) I try to let go of the little things. I feel blessed. James brings something to my life I can't even explain. It's an incredible completeness and happiness. 

This Thanksgiving was much different from my usual. But I was happy in a different way. As always I felt so blessed.

The day after Thanksgiving I kick into Christmas mode and I LOVE it. I hate Grinch types that bring me down. I hate it when people blame commercialism for their dislike of this special season. Christmas is what you make it. If you turn your children into spoiled brats who care about nothing but how much money you spend on their presents, well that is no one's fault but your own. With that in mind, I love buying gifts, I love seeing their excitement. It can be hard to keep things under control but I am committed to making Christmas about something else in my family. My best memories of Christmas are the moments not the presents. Baking with my mom, delivering goodie plates to neighbors, christmas lights, scones and hot chololate, service, going to grandma's on Christmas eve.... I recall only a few gifts. But I love these memories.

I am doing an "Activity Advent Countdown" with the kids. Every day we will do a different activity which I have customized based on which kids will be with us on which days (and I don't even know, I have to guess, which was a challange, but we'll work it out!)

We are doing elf on the shelf, starting tonight and I could not be more excited about it! I look forward to sharing all of this on the blog!

Yesterday we went to dinner at James' mom's house. When we got home I had planned some Turkey Games for the kids, they had been excited about it all day which made me happy.

They loved our "Don't eat Frank" game at Halloween so I had planned a "Don't eat Tom the Turkey" for this event. I hit a little snag in that I didn't have a working printer so I stayed up the night before drawing turkeys for the game board. I don't draw. AT ALL. Like, I can barely handle stick figures. And stick turkeys just don't really work. Thanks google for your turkey drawing tutorials. :)

Next we played "Pin the Gobble On The Turkey" Now before you judge me, please know that I understand it's called a Wattle not a Gobble, but we call it a gobble at our house. Also did you know that the purpose of a male (tom) turkey's wattle is to attract females while also scaring off the other males? Yup.

We all look super creepy in this picture. LOL Photo FAIL! Josh ducked down so all you see is his foot. 

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

twillght! cupcakes!

we celebrated my birthday on sat. i got home from work and took a detox bath, sipped on hot chocolate and read magazines while james made me dinner. (bath, epsom salt, baking soda, and lavender oil) it was heavenly.

james made me orange chicken, fried rice and won tons  and it was delicious. we ate dinner and watched tv and cuddled before the movie. twillight was awesome. james wasn't impressed, but i thought it was sweet just to go with me :-)

on sunday night i made a cupcakes for 2 recipe i found on pinterest. they were so good.

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It was my birthday. James got me some FANTASTIC boots and is taking me to see Twillight tomorrow (which if you know James is an incredible sacrifice, especially since the Lincoln movie comes out this weekend too!) He got me a cake .... (with 4 candles.... guess he didn't want me to feel old.) and pepermint ice cream which I LOVE in the fall and winter.

I woke up to my front door having been decorated and a pile of presents on the porch. Thanks family.

the weather outside is frightful

but we are cuddled up with our hot chocolate. perfect!

Traditions

We started a november activity, "Our Graditude Tree" every night whoever happens to be home writes something they are thankful for on a leaf and tapes it on the wall where our graditude tree is. I think its adorable. :) I think I will make it a tradition.

James with tonight's addition to the tree.

I am so excited to start our next month tradition "The elf on the shelf" James drove me around to different stores, in a snow storm to find my elf. I can't wait.

Halloween 2012

Halloween 2012

I picked up Josh and Jordan after work and we went home to get ready. Make up, quick dinner, and off we went. They went strong for about 3 hours and then we finally made them stop. They would have gone all night if they could!

Jordan -- as Jason

 Joshua-- as a Vampire

 Carter-- as Spiderman

 Enough pictures... can we go yet?

 my only "action shot" I could not get these boys to hold still for a picture after this point.

Checking out the loot

 lots and lots of candy



Happy Halloween!

Happy Birthday Josh!

I am a little behind on the posting but Josh turned 6 on Oct 8. Carter and Ava and I made some decorations while the boys were at school. Then after school we went to Hollywood Connections. We had pizza and root beer for dinner. Grandma Wilma came over. We had cake and ice cream, opened presents and played legos and playstation all night.

Superman cake

The Birthday Boy with his cake

 $6 for the 6 year old (he ended up buying more legos with it)

 opening presents

 James helping out with the legos

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY JOSH!



Carter and Ava go Witch Hunting

On Monday I was off work and Carter and Ava were with us, so we went on a little toddler sized adventure. Also I should note I spent our extra money on Halloween (party, costumes, candy etc. ) so we had no money for an activity. Our adventure cost less than a dollar. YAY!

First we went to the library where we were going to get Halloween books (but they didn't really have any so we ended up getting regular books, but we did find a Halloween movie!)

Next we went to Gardner Village. I had printed off the Witch Scavenger Hunt at the library so we spent about an hour walking around, looking at witches and taking pictures. Carter and Ava loved the witches! And when you take the completed scavenger hunt to the bakery you can get a cookie for the kids for only 35 cents

Next we went home, had dinner, made pop corn and kool-aid and watched the Halloween movie.

Godsey Halloween Party 2012

We had a Halloween Party on the Sunday before Halloween since we had all of the kids. We had so much fun! We had Chili and Mummy Dogs for dinner, then we played games including "Don't Eat Frank" "Halloween Bingo" and "Skeleton Dice Game"

 The crew eating their spooky dinner...

 All of my games I printed from free printables I found on Pinterest.

 In the Skeleton Dice Game they roll a dice then collect Skeleton pieces based on what bumber they roll. Right before the party I realized we didn't have dice so I had to make one with card stock. It worked...

"Don't Eat Frank" was a hit. It's like "Don't Eat Pete" but a halloween version. They loved it so much we played twice.

 We didn't have AVA's costume since she wasn't going with us on Halloween, But one cheer uniform and a few stitches and we worked it out. :) I suggested Carter be Woody and use his last year's costume to avoid a spiderman costume disaster since this was before Halloween and you never know what's going to happen with toddlers.


Here is some of our Halloween Decorations ....