Happy News Year

Yeah a new beginning!! I just know that this is the year that everything will come together for the Brooks Family!! However, mom started off 2009 hurt and in pain. Somehow she hurt her foot. She did go to the doctor yesterday, but he gave her a shot for pain so she didn't bother to get her prescriptions filled. Well, today I went over and picked up her prescription to take it to Kroger to get it filled. Guess what? They close pharmacies for holidays, imagine that. It took me going to 3 different places to find a pharmacy that was open. Poor mom she is in such pain and feels so bad. I almost thought about canceling our family game night, but mom said no that she wanted to come over and play Yahtzee and Uno.

We started game night with Yahtzee. Melinda, Sabrina, mom and I started off because Dan was still studying and Andre is too cool for dice games. Dan finally joined us and he was soo funny. JoJo helped him play



he even had her "blowing"on the dice!!

Then on to Uno where we never even finished 1 game. The first game was never ending no one would go out I even had JoJo to help me, but it just wasn't enough



Mom and Dan probably had 1/2 the deck in their hands it was just fun and good laughs



Mom's foot started hurting really bad and she had to go home so we decided to continue the games tomorrow night. Yeah if I had my way everyone would come over every night.

Jennifer

New Years Eve

Well, I finally got Andre's man blanket done the blocks are a lot bigger on this one because he wanted a bigger quilt than the other ones that I had done and I was feeling lazy bigger blocks =less time cutting after it was done I was worried that it was too bland so I added red corduroy blocks to the green blocks. I like it a lot better now :) and Andre likes it too.

We had a pretty tame New Years Eve, we just stayed at home and watched DVD's of the amazing race. It cracks me up that we watch all the episodes and some how Andre always manages to catch the last3 episodes every season. The kid has talents because he can come in at the end and nail all of their personalities and know exactly who we are rooting for.
We are a pretty lame family in the fact that we didn't even talk about any resolutions for 2009.

Jennifer

2008 New Years Resolution

In order to finish Andre's "man blanket" (his words) I need to go and get more red flannel. I am not quite sure how I miscalculated, but I did and that means a trip to JoAnn's :) I went by and picked up mom on my way and we went on down to JoAnn's after walking around for a bit we saw some really cute cute towels on clearance. Mom and I were looking at them and I said those famous words "we could make those really cheap" off we went to find waffle muslin and mom bought all that they had (it was only 3 and 1/2 yards) after all of our fabric was cut we looked at each other and my a vow ...

This year we will do the projects that we buy for. Every month we will spend a weekend on Christmas projects and we will complete them.

I will keep you updated on how it goes :)

On the way home mom reminds me that I had once before (years ago) decided that I wanted to start quilting and had bought some stuff for it. So, it was decided that I would come in at her house and try and find it. She said it was probably in the basement so we went down...what a disaster (said with love) then mom looks at me and says that her 2008 New Years resolution had been to clean and organize the basement umm we better get busy!!

So I spent all day Saturday at mom's helping with her basement. Melinda and Sabrina came over to help too. We got a lot done, but we will still need to go back tomorrow.

Tonight was our Christmas with Dan's family. We went to Uncle Aubrey and Aunt Nan's house. Beth, Aaron and Ariel were there too (the usual group). The kids (and me) played Scrabble and then we opened presents. After the presents were opened and Beth, Aaron and Ariel left and we stayed and talked about life for quite some time. We always have a good time visiting and Aunt Nan is a fantastic cook :)

Jennifer

Rag quilt results..

I thought that I would post some pictures of my rag quilts I made for Christmas so this will be a pretty picture heavy :)

Here is Melinda and her quilt I really started to make this for mom and then decided I liked it to much and wanted to keep it for myself, but then I decided that I needed to be a big girl and I gave it to Melinda.



This was my favorite quilt. When I started to cut it the one of the patterns actually made my eyes hurt it was so busy!! But once it was finished I just loved it the patterns weren't to busy. Dan says that the reason that I like it so much is because I am not used to pink in our male dominated household.

This one was for Reggie our Georgia Bulldog fan. It always cracks Andre up that Reggie is such a Georgia fan when he actually graduated from Georgia Tech.




This one was Armons'. I am sure that he likes it esp. since he saw it for 2 weeks before he knew it was going to be his.


The dogs crack me up they think that all of the blankets are theirs'. if they see the blanket they immediately head for it and plop down.

Jennifer

Merry Christmas

Christmas was wonderful!!

First thing JoJo gave me the look, I had been sewing with some zebra print fabric and JoJo had been eying it. I promised her I would make her a bandanna for Christmas morning so I set to it. I had no pattern and I am fairly new to sewing so it was a little trying and a little fun. I put the zebra fabric on the top and hot pink flannel on the bottom. She loves it and hasn't tried to take it off yet.

Everyone came over around 9:30 am and Melinda had brought the stockings with her. So we kicked all the kids and husbands out and stuffed the stocking really fast :) Then on to the present opening portion of the day it was really nice we had made a vow for less "stuff" this year and it really helped with the day not being so overwhelming. After opening gifts and eating a bite of breakfast everyone headed home and I took a little nap :)



Around 3:00 pm everyone came back over for dinner. Thanks to my nap I was running a little behind, but it was no big deal. Dinner was nice and everyone ate way too much :) . Afterwards Sabrina and I went looking for a good Christmas puzzle. We all went to working on it except for Reggie and Andre. After a little while a huge silly string war ensued. It was such fun and everyone had a good time.








Eventually Andre wondered down and even managed to get a few pieces of the puzzle in!! Every time Dan put a piece in Armon did a little chant it was so funny! After the puzzle was as complete as it could be (seeing as Sabrina took home a piece with her) we went in and watched The Dark Knight (Andre got this for Christmas). It was a full complete day.


BTW some of my favorite memories were:

Dan opening our new silverware and having to take it all out and sort it before he would open the next present.

JoJo sitting in Andre's lap during the present opening and Andre asking why she looked so sad. I said let her open her present. That was all it took she, had her toy and was so happy

Sabrina telling me her favorite part of Christmas was just having the family together. (Isn't she the sweetest)

Armon cheering for Dan whenever he put a piece of the puzzle in.

Melinda and Mom being upset that they hadn't gotten any silly string in their stockings and they wanted to play too!! Next year everyone will get silly string and I will get 2 cans lol

Jennifer

Christmas Eve....

OK I seriously over committed myself with these blankets!! I have been sewing forever and there is no way I will be finished...Next year I am starting sooner, like in January. I have been sewing until 2 in the morning and last night Armon stayed downstairs with me and we stayed up until 5:00 am so I could finish another one. It is seriously crazy!! Every time Andre sees me start one he asks is that one for me? I thought that I had plenty of time and in my own defense Andre's blanket was one of the first ones I had done, but he wanted one that was bigger so he got put on the bottom of the list. Flash forward to Christmas Eve and I am working so hard on Andre's quilt and I run out of red flannel. I am so bummed that there is no way for Andre's blanket to be done. It is 1/2 way done so that will have to be enogh for Christmas morning.

Dan has been a wrapping fool!! I haven't wrapped one present (who has time to wrap when I have to sew?) yet and I probably won't have time to. Armon helped out some, but then he had to leave and go to his moms. Can I just say I am soo lucky to be in this family!! Everyone is willing to pitch in when ever help is needed.

Dan took a ton of pictures and wanted to make sure that I posted some so here are a few:



And no Christmas is complete without the Charlie Brown Christmas Tree:
Some of our favorite ornaments:


I hope everyone has a wonder Christmas and a Happy New Year!!

Jennifer

4th Anniversary

Today is Dan's and my 4th anniversary!! No way does it feel that long. I have to say that I feel blessed to have Dan in my life. Everything seems so much better/funner when I am doing things with him. We weren't sure how we were going to celebrate our day. We have been spending so much time together lately that we thought it would be fun if Melinda and Sabrina came over.

Sabrina had never seen Grease so we watched that first, Dan is such a good sport!! Unbelievable Sabrina didn't like Grease we decided that we don't know who she is and someone must have been switched at birth lol! Then we watched Momma Mia which Dan said was much better this time (we had watched it on Tuesday) because Sabrina had changed the setting so that the words to the songs came on as they sang them. Now that was fun Sabrina, Melinda and I dancing around singing at the top of our lungs while Dan just laughed at us.

Then we sent Armon to Super H Mart (the Chinese Grocery down the road) for chicken fried rice and everyone had a feast of chicken fried rice. Then we finished hanging the ornaments on the Christmas Tree!!

It was a really good day! We had so much fun and we realized how lucky we are to have each other.