Same ol' same ol'

Man, I have really been sucking it up lately. Let's do some updates over the last 4 months Person by Person...

Chase: He finished a semester at School and has started another one. His Major is Geography, not sure if or what he'll do with it. He really enjoys it so that makes school less of a pain. In December he hit his 1 year mark with MPS. We really love that job. It is super flexible and perfect for our family right now. Chase has started riding his bike more and is hoping to do the Tour de Mesa in April (or atleast the shorter version). He recently did training at Discount Cab and will be doing that VERY part time. He just has to work 1 shift every 30 days. So he can keep it during the year and then when summer comes and he's off from MPS he can pick up more hours at Discount Cab. If you or your Hubby apply say Chase referred you! It seems like a nice set up.

Courtney: Just living the life of the wife and mom... and loving it! I wouldn't trade it for anything. I've started an Etsy shop selling homemade greeting cards to hopefully bring in some money. Check it out sometime and feel free to make a purchase if there is something you see. I'm kind of giving it a test run right now, we'll see how it goes. It's something I love doing (cardmaking) so it's fun too! I've started watching How I Met Your Mother during nap time. It's so funny and gives me something to do to relax. I participate in a card night every other month. It is so cool how "big" it's turned out. I started it about 2 years ago. It's so much fun! I also started a Recipe Swap every month. Last month was the first and there was some good food:) Next is Bfast foods. Yum!!!

Ryder: He is no baby anymore... he's 13 months now! He had a puppy themed birthday party that was so much fun! You can read birthday posts on my DIY blog here. He's been walking for a couple of weeks and walks more and more everyday. He is so smart and is learning so much! He says bye bye everytime we put him in his car seat. He's so much fun! He's a pro sleeper now and it has made life so much better! If you are hesitant to try the cry it out method, give it a try. Sleep has been so nice!!!

Tonka & Ella: Well they are still being turkey's getting out every once in awhile, but we can't really blame them. Tonka is now neutered. We took Ella in and found out that she was starting her heat cycle so we have to wait. They love attention and going on walks.

Family: We went to Disneyland in December (Post to come someday maybe). Nothing to big is happening. We started a goal of going on 1 hike a month and take the dogs. Today was actually our second hike and it was a little intense and didn't go very far. Baby steps right? We even bought a hiking baby backpack to carry Ryder in. We try to go with the Packer's that want to come and are working up to our goal of Havasupai Summer 2013. Chase & I have really gotten into the games Dominion and Thunderstone. They are strategic card games and so much fun! If you wanna play let us know. We'd love to!

Life is great and we are having fun and enjoying our time together as a family.

NOVEMBER

I hate to do one large post like this, but having no computer makes it a little hard to stay up to date. So highlights of November:

We had our first ever yard sale. We got rid of a lot of crap which was the point of the whole thing. We also made $35. I learned somethings so if we ever do it again we'll be a little more prepared.

Ryder is now crawling with his tummy off the ground (not sure if I've blogged about that yet.) He is super fast and getting into a lot of things.

We celebrated Thanksgiving with lots of food. We love our family and are so grateful to have most of them nearby.

We did Black Friday! I love it! We got a new camera to replace the one that was stolen. We also bought a few Christmas presents. One of our brother's got a new big screen T.V. so he gave us his old one. THANKS BRIAN & ASHLEE! It didn't fit our entertainment center so we bought a new one off Craigslist for $20! It looks really nice.

Chase celebrated his 24th birthday. It was a busy day. Doughnuts in the morning with some family and (leftover) doughnuts and games at night with some friends.

In between doughnuts we went to the Leslie Family Reunion. It was a lot of gun. I'll do a seperate post on that.

Our brother did give us a computer to use until we get a new one for us, so the Gibson home should be up to date technology wise soon. (well minus the whole no T.V. thing.) Hopefully we'll be more up to date on this thing.

And in case you didn't hear. I started a craft, DIY blog with my sis in law. Check it out and follow us. We need the support.

Happy Holidays!

Yee-Haw a barnyard baby shower

So since the baby is already like 3 weeks old I figure it is past time for me to post this. Hahahaha I received a lot of ideas from looking at other people's blogs so I hope someone gets an idea from me.

So this shower was for my sister Tiffany. She was pregnant with her 3rd boy. However, it has been around 10 years since she last had a baby shower and she has done so much for me, I felt like it would be nice to treat her to one even though she didn't want it.

We decided on doing a barnyard theme. I thought it would be so much fun and Tiff chose either barnyard or frog. The shower was at my house and since it was beginning of June in AZ it was indoors. Here are pics and I'll explain each thing a little bit.





Here is the out side of the invite. I bought the paper from michaels when it was a 5 for $1. I made around 12 invites so it wasn't so bad. The white I originally was going to cut out stripes for the lines and glue but one was a lot of work so I bought a white marker. I made templates out of cereal boxes for the boxes so I just had to trace. It went really fast once I knew what I was doing.




The barn doors opened up to the party info.Here is the info on the inside. The bling cow was from Michael's for $1 but I always used a 40%-50% off coupon. I got all different animals cow, chicken, sheep, horse and pig. Unfortunately this was a seasonal item and they no longer have them.
(For invites with the chicken bling I changed wording to Oink, Cluck, Neigh, Moo)



The napkins we got the horse ones from michaels in the $1 bin, but used a coupon. The brown ones were leftover from My brother & sister-in-laws wedding. We used the zoo pal plates that are barn animal shapes. They were so cute and fit the theme. My sister-in-law purchase these so I don't know what the cost was. Around $5 maybe? They have different animals not just duck. The cup for the silverware was michaels $1 bin also. The checker cloth was just a piece of fabric from Joannes cost me around a buck.


FOOD!!! Always the funnest part:) I decided to give each item a name and it turned out so cute! Everyone loved it!

Deviled eggs


BBQ Beef sadwhiches

How I made these was I made a dough and rolled in a ball. I placed them in a mini cupcake pan and pushed a Mini tart shaper (pampered chef item) and it made them hallowed out. I filled with pudding and put a squirt of whipped cream. They kinda melted a little and were runny. It was pretty tasty still.
We did a punch bowl for water and I bought rubber duckys that were barn themed. I got these from hobby lobby It was 6 for $3.99 I think. It was short notice so I didn't have a coupon. But I gave them to Tiff after so it doubled as a gift:)

These are a fav in my family! It is just the little smokies wrapped in bacon and then sprinkle in brown sugar and bake! So good!!!


Typical veggie tray. We arranged in rows to look more like a garden. We also had a bowl of watermelon. (One of her cravings at the time and Dr.'s orders to eat watermelon)


We did a diaper raffle which in my opinion is one of the greatest ideas ever! She got a ton of diapers. We gave away 2 prizes and $15 walmart gift card and a $5 gift card to Bahama Bucks.

The shower turned out wonderful, everyone was generous and she received a lot of fun stuff to welcome her new baby boy!