Thanksgiving Pics

We had a great week with Mr. J's parents. Here are some pictures that Gma J just sent me. Enjoy!
This little dude is always ready to eat, so I think Thanksgiving might just be his favorite holiday.

Our table, complete with a ship, sweet turkey treats (see below) and hand written place cards done my Miss M!

A thanksgiving tradition, Spinach Dip by Aunt S, was a huge hit, especially of Tom, Deanna and Gpa J. It was so good, there was no leftovers!

Making 89 delicious rolls with Grandma. We still have some in the freezer! Yeah!

Making Sweet Turkey Treats with Gma J. My favorite part was their heads (made of whoppers!)

Miss M's flock.

Miss O's turkeys

Miss O was a big fan of Gpa J

Horsey Rides

P.S. My sister has a really funny blog post about our recent trip to the local Walmart (sorry Aunt S, I had to go, I needed a turkey baster really bad and the commisary and BX didn't have any). It's titled Vegas lesson #274 STICK WITH YOUR BUDDY. She also has a post with the recipe to her super delicous pecan tarts.

Survival Website

Hi Everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend. We are doing pretty good. I am still fighting a cold. But everyone else is pretty much over it. We are looking forward to Mr. J's parents visit tomorrow. They fly in from Montana in the evening and we can't wait! We got to see them for one day this past summer at the Jones Family Fun Day, but other than that it has been since last January that we got to see them. Gma J has a fun craft planned for the kids (they are making Sweet Turkey Treats). She used to teach preschool and always has fun ideas. When she was here in January, the kids got to fingerpaint with chocolate pudding on the table! How fun! Her and Gpa J just celebrated their 35th wedding anniversary. So if your reading this, happy anniversary! Below is a pic of them with all the grandkids (and Mr. J).

I wanted to tell you guys all about another very cool website. I might be a little biased but I think it's great. As many of you know, Mr J is in the air force. He works as a survival, evasion, resistance and escape (SERE) specialist. A few years ago, he had this idea to start a website having to do with survival stuff for both military and civilians. My friend Angie's husband gave him the name of a web program to use, and he has been teaching himself about web design so he could make this website. It is still a work in progress but it has got some great info on there. You should check it out. Also, I recently learned there is a television series on this cable channel called mojo hd all about the survival training school Mr. J. used to work at. It even features many of the guys Mr. J used to work with. You can watch some episodes online. If you go to here, there is a link to it. The address to Mr. J's website is www.serespecialist.com . Below are pics of Deanna and I back in July 05 pretending to be sere specialists at their training area in Washington. We had fun.
Deanna and her slingshot

Me and a kettle

And this is Mr. J, he is being a survivor here.

A new blogging friend

I thought I would let you all know that my great friend from Spokane, who recently moved to Germany, has started a blog!! It's called Memoirs from Narnia and you should check it out and send her some comment love. Here are some pictures of them I found on my computer.

The happy family leaving the hospital. Below is when Tuff and I flew to Spokane for her baby shower (thanks Angie!).

I also wanted to let everyone know that Shannon (my cousin's sis-in-law) who does "personalized blog fashion" is offering free seasonal backgrounds. They are at EightCrazy Designs and they are awesome. I need to figure out how to make my main picture smaller before I can put one on my site. But before Shannon did blog desigining, she made wedding invitations and programs for friends and she did ours! Maybe some day I will scan it so you can all see how beautiful it was.

Our sweet kids

Monopoly Night

Last night, Mr. J had a great idea... that we play a board game together as a family. The game we decided on was Monopoly. This might seem a little old for a 2 and 4 year old, but they actually loved it! They loved picking out their game piece (Miss M was the train and Miss O was the hat), organizing their money and rolling the dice. Their favorite part of the game was going to jail. For some reason, this was a lot of fun for them. They lasted about an hour, at that point we each took over a girls' stuff and continued on to the end. Of course, you need good snacks for a game night and we had chocolate mint cookie and caramel crunch chex mix... yum!

Enjoying the Outdoors

Wow, that looks like she is really high up.... Below is a cool spiderweb they found.

As a family, we love spending time outdoors. Thankfully there is so much more to Las Vegas than just the Strip and we have the benefit of very pleasant weather about 8 months out of the year. On Nov 1st, we went to Redrock and did a short little hike with the kids. On Tuesday, Mr. J had Veteran's day off so he took the two little ones "up in the desert somewhere" and hiked around a bit looking for tarantulas and rattlesnake dens while Miss M and I went to MOPS than out to lunch. It was a great day for all involved, well maybe except Mr. T.. he puked in the car on the way to the hike... but as you can see from the pictures, he still had a fun time.

Family Pictures!

My friend, Danielle from church took some family photos of us last week and they turned out great! These are just a few so enjoy!

Two great new blogs

I wanted to introduce you all to two great new blogs. Both blogs are money saving blogs, which is very practical in today's economy. The first was started by my friend, Jane, that I met through MOPS in Spokane. She started a new blog in September called "all together beautiful". She has some great frugal tips on there, I loved the post called a Holly, Jolly and Frugal Christmas. I encouraged you to check it out.
Another blog I just found out about today is by my great friend Amber, who I know from church here in Las Vegas. She has 2 adorable little girls and is super thrifty. She is always sharing her great money saving ideas at MOPS, so I am so glad she started this blog. It is called "to save a penny." Since reading it, I have already saved 3100 pennys! She has a post on her blog about how to get 2 Victoria Secret bras and one panty for just over 17 dollars! And it really works! To purchase that would have cost me almost 50 dollars but instead it cost me 18 (plus 7.90 for tax ans shipping). This is a fabulous deal and she has all the directions on her blog.
Since I am on the topic of money saving blogs, my friend Samantha, who I went to nursing school with also has one called "the charmed frugal life". However, due to having bad morning sickness and raising 2 toddlers, she has taken a break from writing on it. But there is still many great ideas on it!