A Santa Birthday Party

Yes, I know. Another late post. I promise this is my last one from six months ago. My next one will be why I am too busy to keep this thing updated regularly, haha.

Back in December, my mom turned 60. The year before, my dad turned 60, and I surprised him with a surprise party. Of course, I had to give my mom one too. I'm pretty sure she was half expecting one. You can't fool this woman. She's known everything I've ever done. Even before I did it. This was a hard party to pull off. I even thought about having it in about October to really fool her. What I ended up doing was having the party two weeks before her birthday and involving lots of other people and making up a lot of lies. HA! By golly, it worked!

Here's the details of the party...

My uncle cut out a wooden Santa hat, and my grandmother painted it. All the guests signed it.

Lots and lots of Santa decorations! Did you notice the Santa belts on the table? They are made from black table cloths and yellow scrapbook paper!

My Aunt made her cake. It's made out of cupcakes.

She also made this cake. My mom collects Santa Clauses and Pillsbury Doughboys. She had asked for a Doughboy cake for her birthday. Well, she got one...with a Santa hat on.

Reindeer Chow. It's just snack mix with white chocolate chips melted in it.

Santa Hats. Brownies/White Icing/Strawberries

I had a love/hate relationship with ol' Santa here. He's made out of frozen bread dough. I'm pretty sure it ranks up there with birthing kids, college math, and showing up to work at the courthouse in terms of the hardest things I've ever done. His beard wasn't exactly supposed to be covered in mozerella cheese, but after it took like three loaves of bread to form him, he was too fat and too close to the top of the oven. In other words, poor Santa got sunburned. I'm glad he at least looks like Santa. Maybe Chernobyl Santa.

M&Ms. Self explanatory.

Santa Cheeseball.  It's a cranberry cheeseball. I picked cranberry because the cranberries could be used to make Santa's hat. You can find this recipe under my recipe tab ^^.

Milk and Cookies for Santa, duh!

Our drink table included water, Christmas Punch (recipe also under recipe tab ^^), hot chocolate and coffee with all the fixings (marshmallows, peppermint, chocolate chips, etc).

And there's the birthday girl! It was a miracle we pulled it off, but it happened. So don't expect it again. LOL.

Favorite Christmas Memories of 2016

These are some of my favorite pictures from this past Christmas!

 Christmas program at our church.

 Christmas program at school.

 Christmas Program at my parent's church.

 Seeing the Rock City lights.

 Rocky the elf with Reed and cousin Noah.

Turtle Power!

 Yes, like usual, I'm extremely late with my Halloween post. I never want to completely skip it though, so I can look back each year on what we have done.

Reed decided much earlier in the year that he wanted to be a ninja turtle for Halloween. That idea was perfect since there are four of us and four turtles.

 I'm all about saving money, so I found the kid's costumes at a consignment sale. Reed's was the whole suit and came with a purple and an orange mask. Jade's suit was just the top, which was perfect because I made the two of us into girly Ninja turtles with homemade tutus. I found my shirt at Walmart and ordered Lance's off Amazon. I used bandanas we already had for the red and blue "masks."

 Since we always have to have a trunk or treat idea, it hit me at a Young Farmers meeting where we had pizza. Ninja Turtles love pizza. I have free pizza boxes. Fill the boxes with candy like I'm giving out pizza! Talk about a cheap idea!

The kids loved it!

It's Almost Halloween...

Wait..it's not? You're right. I may have gotten my holidays mixed up. It may not be Halloween on the calendar, but it is on my blog! I always post our Halloween pics on here, and I'm always late. So, keeping with the tradition...Here they are!

Can you tell what we were? Cavemen and two dinosaurs! Since I have no idea how to make a homemade dino costume, I bought the kid's, but I made our cavemen outfits. How you ask? Oh, I splurged. Went all out. Bought a full size black bed sheet and two leopard print pillow cases. I cut a hole in the middle of the sheet, stuck it over Lance's head, and went to trimming. Lots of points. Cavemen love pointy stuff. I cut down the seams of one pillow case and wrapped it around Lance's waist and pinned it like a skirt. Then I tied it all up with some rope. I cut a diagonal across the closed end of the other pillow case, leaving a spot un-cut to hang on my shoulder. Then I cut a hole for my right arm. I cut jaggedy points at the bottom, cause you know, cavemen love pointy stuff. And don't forget our awesome accessories. Lance has a club. Reed has a small soft bat, and I covered it in crinkled paper bags. I have a bone in my hair, like every good cave woman should wear. I printed off an outline of a bone, cut it out, and glued it onto a small ruler to it would stick out straight. Tada! Instant cave family.

Our trunk or treat was moved inside cause of rain this year, so it was table or treat?? Anyways, I covered a table with a brown sheet, set a 13 gallon trash can on top, and covered it with a fitted brown sheet. Inside the trash can I put flicker flame lights and a red sheer table cloth. Used a box to sit it on. And you have yourself a volcano. Add some of Reed's thousands of dinosaurs, and watch the kids go nuts!

Here's an up close shot of some dinos, and Lance defending himself. That looks like an angry T-Rex.

 

 

Happy Halloween in the middle of January from the Millers!

Christmas 2014

I'm so close to being all caught up blogging! I couldn't leave out pictures from December 2014 though...

 

Reed's church Christmas play. Notice who played the part of the trouble making camel sitting in the floor.



Our yearly family Santa photo. Reed still won't take one alone!

 

We also took a trip to Pigeon Forge in the camper right before Christmas...





 

 

We also had an ugly sweater party. Check out our awesome outfits! I made my skirt and Lance's shirt!

Reed left some milk and cookies for Santa...



got lots of presents from Santa...



and had lots of fun with family!

 

Santa also brought Reed a new room!



I removed some drawers from an old dresser, chest of drawers, and night stand and painted them with chalk paint.



He got a "new" bunk bed...



and new Farm/Ranch themed decorations. He loved it!



Halloween....in January??

So...my last post I promised I would catch up on my blogging! Here's my first catch up post! Halloween 2014!

Did I mention I was behind?? Sheesh....

 

 Can anyone tell who we are??  Here's a hint...."Who ya gonna call?" 

Yep, Ghostbusters! I know, the "official" Ghostbusters wore tan outfits. But when you can find blue coveralls for $5 at the thrift store, you just go with it. Every thing about this costume was from a thrift store, homemade, or from Lance's stash of Ghostbuster toys from the 80s! He had the "real deal."

  The "Proton Packs" are made out of spray painted boot boxes with lots of junk and wires attached to them. We had utility belts with Ghostbuster toys and even cb radios. Our suits (and proton packs) had labels I found online to print off. I made our name tags with black duct tape and red paint marker. Lance was Venkman, and I was Spengler, lol.

 And what would the Ghostbusters be without a Ghost? Yeah, Reed doesn't look happy here because we had to interrupt his nap to go to the Trunk or Treat. He had a ghost/sheet costume that I had made, but he called it a dress and wouldn't wear it. So, the shirt was a last minute thing. Toddlers, hmph.

 I mentioned we were going to Trunk or Treat....I turned my truck into the Ectoplasm Containment Unit! (You know, it holds all the ghosts they catch!) I spray painted cardboard, used duct tape, and printed off more labels. I used two touch lights on the top. (Green light is on when everything is good, Red light goes on-you better run! haha). Lance even had a Ghostbuster duffle bag I used to keep the candy in.

 

This is one of Lance's Ghostbuster toys. It's a ghost trap. When they catch a ghost, they keep it in this until they transfer it to the Ectoplasm Containment Unit (my truck, lol).

If you noticed the clear window in the ECU, (no, the real thing didn't have a window, but what's a Ghostbuster Trunk or Treat without ghosts??) there are ghosts inside! It was really hard to take a picture of, but looked awesome at night. I saved milk jugs, drew faces on them, and dropped a glow stick in them. It was awesome.