Merry Christmas

Well, Christmas is here! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday! Here are a few pictures from our celebrations. The first is at our house, Colton opening his presents from Santa!

The shirt Colton is sporting I made for him, how cute is that?

Colton opening his stocking and stuffing the Hershey Kisses in his pockets!

This is Colton's new pick-up truck! His great-grandma gave it to him for Christmas. You can see he already has the back filled up with essentials, a lunch box included!

Merry Christmas from all of us!

It's A PaRTy!

So Kimba is having a party over at her blog "A Soft Place to Land". I thought I would join in with a few of my Christmas decorations!
This first one is something new I bought at a signature homestyles party, it's called an art deco tree or something like that, but I think it looks great with my Christmas cards on and since it matches my living room I am pondering leaving it up year round with pictures in it!
The second picture is up close of my tree and one of Colton's favorite ornaments. Favorite because it's a tractor and it was an ornament one of his great-aunt's gave him last year! If that great-aunt is reading this,we really do love it!

This is the major Christmas hub in my house. I bought a new tree last year on sale and to be honest I hate it, it is way to small. So to make up for it I put up two small trees next to it. I don't know if that helps but it makes me feel better. The two small ones are decorated totally in red tractors, Colton almost had a coronary when he saw it the first time! We had some tough times learning to just look not touch, but I think we get it now!

Colton is modeling next to my final picture, my snowman. I got this at a craft fair earlier this year and I think it is the awesomest! It is made from an old gas can, which my husband thinks is such a waste and probably the stupidest thing he has ever seen, but me? I think it is SO clever, and cute for that matter!

So please visit Kimba's open house at the link above and see everyone else's amazing Christmas tidings! If you are visiting from Kimba's I would love to see some comments!

KB

Sprinkles!

So what did I do this weekend? Well after a delightful cook walk at one of the local churches, my Mom and I went to her house to bake some sugar cookies. Well 10 dozen cookies to be exact! And Colton got to help put the sprinkles on! By the time we were done there were sprinkles EVERYWHERE! But he had fun and so did we!

I think this last picture is him figuring out he can spray the entire room with sprinkles!

KB

It's Official!

Well I finally got around to listing my first item in my Etsy shop, "Grace In The Margins"! (giggle) Of course I have only listed this one item, but perhaps if I get really ambious after my cleaning, cooking, dishes, laundry, wrapping presents and taking care of my son I will get a few more listed that I just have lying around the house waiting!

What did I list you ask? Well this is it. Not a super great photo but an okay one. A bracelet personalized with names or words. I think it turned out super cute, but of course I would because I made it! Price is $25.00 with $5.00 shipping. Check out my shop GraceInTheMargins.Etsy.com .

Sillyness!

So I am not quite sure why blogger is posting my pictures in reverse order, but at any rate....I took some pictures when Colton and I got home last night and I got supper in the oven. I bought him a very bright orange "vest" that he refers to as his "coat". He loves this thing, no maybe that is not strong enough he LOVES LOVES this thing. In fact he cried when we had to take it off to put our pajamas on and he wanted to wear it this morning when he was getting dressed. Silly me I should have bought them in a few different colors. Any whoo I made him stand in front of the camera to model his new favorite "coat" and told him to say please, because I still think that is the cutest thing ever! After a few of those pictures he wanted to take one with me but he got SOOOO excited and was laughing so hard that you barely can see either of our faces! Sillyness that's Colton!

Until next time KB

Thanksgiving Decor

So...happy to say it seems Thanksgiving at my house went off with out a hitch! Of course as you look at this first picture you might think otherwise, but this is Colton wanting his turn with the camera...something I am not brave enough to try yet!


The rest of these pictures are of my decorated table! I think it turned out lovely! Of course I forgot to take any pictures when there were live people sitting at it.

I used the pears as place markers, which I think worked well. And we now have fruit to eat for a week!

Here it is from another view!

I hope you all enjoyed Thanksgiving where ever you were! Until next time!

KB

"PleeeeAse?"

I finally got a video of Colton saying please, but I have to admit it is not as cute as usual because he wasn't sure why he was saying please! Any whoo! The picture below is from supper Sunday night, this is Colton playing with his FAVORITE friend Darin! They were playing with this pickup and and then dumping the tractor off of the back - apparently a great time had by all!

Busy?

I feel like I have been running my butt off as of late, but maybe that's just at work. Actually Colton and I spent the last weekend at home for the most part. I haven't even been inspired to take any pictures, though I do need to capture a video of Colton saying "Please!" It's the funniest thing ever, and you can be sure he now gets whatever he wants as long as he says please. What I have been working on when I get a few spare moments is a shop at etsy.com. I've named the shop "Grace In The Margins" and have been working on some things I would like to sell. I had a bit of a camera issue as it was taking TOO good of pictures for the website, if you can imagine such a thing. I have that figured out, now I just need to retake the pictures so I can post some items. So hopefully very shortly I will be posting what I have for sale and you will be able to visit my shop and actually see and buy things...exciting I know! For now I leave you with my Etsy banner, not very original I know, but hopefully I can come up with something a little better after I get going.

Until next time
Kristin

Mom-Preneur Shop-A-Thon

Here is another great Christmas Shopping idea. Tip Junkie is hosting a mom-preneur shop-a-thon, pretty similar to the moms unite I was just talking about. This is a huge list of shops to check out, and they are all great! For the next 12 days Tip Junkie is doing 2 giveaways a day, so if you have a blog and want to help promote mom-preneurs jump on over there and check it out.

Christmas is Coming

With the economy the way it is, and a lot of people struggling to provide for their families. I have decided to promote a great cause "Mom's Unite". You can find this button on the right side of my blog and it will take you to a great blog "A Soft Place To Land" which has a list of mom made shops. That's right its online shopping supporting moms. I think it feels good to buy from moms and ecspecially those who are stay at home mom and are looking for a little extra income. So here are a couple of examples of what you might find on the link!

Magnetic Board by Kimba Made

Personalized Santa Ornament from Melanie's Crafts

Quilted Table Runner from Uptown Jane

Sunday Ponderings

UPDATED: I wanted to update this post because the first time I posted Colton was sitting on my lap thinking that he should be the one typing! Any who! I wanted to draw your attention to the new button on the right side of the blog. Clicking on this button will direct you to the blog "My Charming Kids" if you need to hear something inspirational this is the blog to read. I don't want to ruin it for you if are going to read it for your self, but this is a miracle only God could have been a part of, so if you have some extra time please stop by this blog to read the amazing story of MckMuffin, you won't be dissapointed.

Well here you are the MUCH anticipated picture of our kitchen redo. What did we do? We knocked a wall down, right under that sign is hanging. Then we painted everything a green color, patched the vinyl flooring, and the wood worked. A good (no great) job done, and now a bigger kitchen!

Below is the infamous picture of the pumpkins Colton decorated last weekend ...pretty scary!

And here is Colton the spider!

until next time KB

Pumpkins and argh!

I have to admit I don't know what is going on with blogger but it will not let me upload all of the pictures that I want to post!:( So I will try again later, but this is the pumpkin we carved last night at our house. I think that I DID a great job! You see Colton was all for it until he put his hand in the pumpkin to clean it out and then he was totally grossed out and wanted nothing to do with the carving process. Once it was done though he thought it was pretty neat. We also bought some plastic faces that you could just poke into the pumpkin and he thought that was awesome, however that is the picture that it won't let me post! Anywhoo! We also got our kitchen finished this weekend, you can still see some of the remnants of the mess on the dinning room table with the pumpkin, but I will try and take a couple pics of the new kitchen in the next couple days.

What a messy boy!

So as I was working on my kitchen that we are currently remodeling this is what my son was doing. He found the bales I bought as OUTSIDE toys and decided to play with them in the living room. This picture however does not do justice to just how much of a mess he made. What did I do about it? Let him continue to play what else!

Family Pics!

Last weekend we spent our Sat. taking family pictures. First up was the Kelley family in Storm Lake, pictures were taken by In The Moment Photography (if you like what you see I can give you her contact info). Then in the evening we traveled to Nathan's family's house to have some Boysen family shots taken. I think Colton and I had a fun day, but Nathan was not to thrilled about a day full of pictures. So here is a sneak peek at how they turned out. I think they are great!

What a Kid!

So I had to share a couple of extra pictures. It will only let me post so many pictures at a time and I couldn't resist sharing these two. This first picture was taken this morning at breakfast. Yes that's Colton he is drinking the milk from his bowl after he ate all the cereal. He's a waste not boy! The babysitter told me he was doing this when he ate his second breakfast at her house, but the last few days he started to do this at home too. He even drank the syrup left over from the fruit cocktail yesterday!

The second picture is Colton in the inflatable from the pumpkin patch having a good time! You might see a familar face in the background!

Thanks Kayla for taking some great pictures while I was able to just have fun! Hope you all enjoy! Have a great week! Kristin

Pumpkin Patch Fun!

Sunday Colton and Grandma and Granpa Kelley along with Aunt Kayla and my self traveled to the pumpkin patch for a little fun! This picture is (which I think is darn cute) was taken at the patch they have all kinds of these painted around the place that you stick your head through and take a picture!

First thing when we got there we decided to try out the corn maze. This is Colton finally getting brave enough to walk around by himself. It wasn't exactly the trail but....
This is him "hiding" in the corn.
After the corn maze we hopped on the hayrack ride to pick out our pumpkin. This is the one we liked and so the two of us cut it and carried it back to the ride. Well more of me carrying then Colton but you get the idea.
This was inside the "gift shop". They have a little kid area and Colton got to try his hand at milking a "cow"!
We spent about an hour after this playing on all the various toys and even playing in an inflatable bouncy thing! Fun Times!

An At Home Weekend (for the most part)

Well...not much exciting going on this week at our house. I had my second installment of youth group on Wens. (too many boys!), we're planning to do a skit for both the Ida Grove and Arthur churches in a couple of weeks so we passed out parts and went over that, considering ALL the boys it went pretty good. This weekend the husband helped a local contractor do some shingling and then it was off to Sioux City to pick up the rest of the roofing supplies (among a few other goodies). When we came home with some stain in hand to try the kitchen chair my mom had finished stripping for us, and below is the beginnings of what the chair has come to look like. Just one more coat of varnish, and painting the back white and it will be done! Well of course I am going to do something with the seat, and of course there are 3 other chairs and the table to do, but PROGRESS!

Oh and yeah that's Nathan staining the chair! Earlier in the afternoon while the boys were off playing with Nathan's cousin (something about a combine), I went to the garden and picked pumbkins! Finishing with a few battle wounds but alas 20 pumpkins! Anyone want one?!? I have given a few away, but seriously what am I going to do with THAT many pumpkins?
Then there is THIS picture! This was while I was making supper and my little boy could not wait ANY longer for some food, and so I opened the fridge and let him pick out what he wanted to snack on. What does he pick? The same thing he always picks....weight watchers yogurt and his favorite flavor was on hand key lime pie. Yes that's right my boy LOVES weight watchers yogurt! Weird but true.
Though most parents would let their kids eat a snack before supper, with my kid its okay because after this entire cup of yogurt (and I mean entire he tries to drink what's left and if he can't get it with a handy dandy spoon then in goes the finger!) he ate a chicken leg, helping of green beans, a helping of stuffing...then we went to Dension to get groceries and he had a box of animal crackers and a small fry from McDonalds on the way home! Man can that kid eat! Anyways hope all of you who are reading have a fantastic week!

LeT iT rAiN!!!

Let it rain and rain and rain some more! Why?!? Because this is what Nathan spent the weekend working on....




A new tin roof, in pretty white! Sooooo nice to not have to worry about a leaky roof! I think it looks much better as well! Why else are we not worried about the rain anymore? Because of this...
New white rock for our lane! Much prettier too! Oh and this....well don't mention it to Nathan but we went garage saling on Friday and look at one of the treasures we found! Colton loves to plant the vegetables and pick up the mail! He's not in this picture because he was off taking a nap Sunday afternoon. But you probably see too many pictures of him anyways!
Any whoo thats what we did this weekend, oh besides me driving to Omaha to go to a musical with Kayla which was worth the two hour drive in the middle of the night to get home to preach the next morning! Have a great week!