Maybe homemade Christmas cards aren't such a good idea....

This is what happens when I bribe make special arrangements with the boys in my family to gather around the fireplace and Christmas tree so that I can attempt to take a nice picture to make homemade Christmas cards with.....

 Seriously Moose?   Seriously??

 Next year I think I'll just use this picture instead.  Timmy's two baby's had curled up together on the recliner together in front of the fireplace last night.

 And I didn't even have to bribe them to make them look cute! 

Oh there's no place like Hometown Christmas for the holidays....

What a wonderful weekend!

It was the Hometown Christmas Celebration this Saturday and what a fun afternoon/evening of food, activities and entertainment.  The event took place on Commercial street (which is just around the corner from our house).  All of the buildings along the street were transformed into a winter wonderland of a Kids Activity Room, a Christmas Cafe, a Christmas Boutique, a Gingerbread House, a Mrs. Clause reading room and Santa's workshop.

First stop......The Christmas Cafe'.

This is where the handsome Aaron Jean worked a double shift feeding the Christmas gathers .

 Also located at the Christmas Cafe was my bestest girls Berit and Lizzy.  They graciously voluteered for me at the Free Kiddee Treat counter by handing out popcorn, hot chocolate and cotton candy.  I'm not sure they enjoyed it but if I got to pick a place to be stationed at all night, it would be the cotton candy maching :)

 How cute is this girl?!!?

 Second stop....The Christmas Boutique where Tim's mom Carol hocked her wares

 She was selling her homemad velum Christmas cards, bags and tags.

 Third stop......a preview of the Kid's Activity room before the chaos began.  This is all the closer I dared get before the berage of children hit!

 Santa arriving on the fire truck  I never did make it down to get a picture of the Santa room but it was absolutely adorable!

 I have made note that Mrs. Clause is a bit ticked that the Mr. arrived on a fire truck and the Mrs. showed up in the most unglorified manner.  That WON'T happen next year, that's for sure!

 The super, awesome 4th grade led by the even more super awesome Mrs. Netz in a round of Chrismas songs. 

 How do I know that Mrs. Netz is super awesome? Because I walked down the street with her and we couldn't get two feet without some sweet child yelling "Hi Mrs. Netz!!"

 That would be one of Mrs. Netz's offspring......Chaston in the light grey coat singing along with his fellow fourth graders.

 My favorite part of the whole shebang?  

 MRS. CLAUSE!!

 She looked great.  She read a darling book.  The kids loved her.  I loved her.  She could definately turn it into a full time job.

 And my part of the party.....The Grinch.   Bob Peterson, The Awesome Tiffany Netz and JR Hopkin did a readers version of "How the Grinch Stole Christmas as I embarrassed my self as the Grinch with Chaston as Little Cindy Loo Hoo and Brennon as Max the Dog. 

 Can you see Yo  Bob's reflection in the mirror on the left.  He observed our performance from outside.  Why dad?  Do I embarrass you?

 The roast beast

 Cindy Loo Hoo asking what I'm doing with her Christmas tree.

 Max the Dog doing a little pre-show texting

 Cindy Loo Hoo all tucked into bed with her Left Foot Right Foot dolly.

 I'm sure it was not pretty watching me stuff myself in and out of the chimney. 

 Tim's mom on my left and Tim's dad on my  right.  Unlike Yo Bob, they came  all the way into the building to watch.

 A picture of my full make up BEFORE my nose started to run and ruined everything from my upper lip on down.

 The whole event was a blast!  If you weren't there you missed out on a such a fun-fun night. 

Sweet Sixteen

Happy Sweet Sixteen to this monkey

There just isn't a decent photo around of this kid where he isn't pulling some sort of goofey face.

Our new pad

Our new parking pad that is......

We've been under construction at the Lafitte farm for a couple of weeks while we worked on a new parking pad.

We have "re-landscaped" the area next to our driveway with some extra concrete so that boys would have a place to park other than the street this winter once the snow starts to fly.

 For those of you paying attention at home.....this is the part where Mr. Wiggle added a little something "extra" to my concrete project.  If you thought I was kidding.....I WAS NOT KIDDING!!

 He's all better in this picture.

 And his special additive has been buried. NICE!!  I hope I didn't get charged extra for that!

We now have a pretty little parking pad for Lydon and Aaron and they won't be swept away by a snow plow this winter.

So not fair!

Life at the Lafitte house is not fair!!

I hauled Timmy off to a boutique a couple of weekends ago.  The word "boutique" means:  buying lots of girly stuff.  So you would think that Timmy and I would walk out of the "boutique" with lots of fun crafts and treats for Stacy.

NOT TRUE

Stacy walked out with a Scentsy bar.  Timmy, on the other hand, struck gold and spoiled the true loves of his life. 

I give you exhibit A:

 Doggie Sweaters.  Timmy bought doggie sweaters.  Sweaters.  For the dogs. From the boutique.  Not fair.

Moose is now sporting the finest of this seasons selection of knitted hoodies.

 And Pancho will stay warm in this lovely high necked houndstooth sweater in vibrant red and white which off sets his black and white nicely dontcha think?

Not fair at all!

Busy Busy Bees

Our bees have been super busy!

Just before Halloween, Tim and Carol busted open the hives, pulled out the frames and extracted the honey.  I missed the part where they actually pulled out the frames (cuz you know there would have been photos!)

Once the  frames were out, Tim had to slice off the "caps" (whatever that means) with a hot knife.

The un-capped frames were then dropped into the spinning do-kicky machine

 which was heated by 85,000 watts of flame throwing heat and spun by Alan until the warmed honey was flung right off of their frames .

 Once the honey was spun clean off the frames, it was drained from the kettle and through a filter (in order to get all the dead bee body parts out).

 In the end we got nearly four gallons of honey.  What a beautiful sight!