Christmas Morning

 Wesley was so thrilled when she thought she had gotten her own box of mandarin oranges what a disappoint  when  she seen it was s only a pair of shoes!

She was very tickled with her Tinkerbell outfit.

 Noah loves his Dream pet pillow.

 



 Evan's gift was delayed in the mail but was excited to see that he had a compound bow coming soon.



 Khloe pushing around her gift which was giant building blocks,

 that all the kids seemed to like  even the big kids.



Did not to do bad on the clothes I picked out for our teenage girls.

 



 

I  kept asking Alex what I could  get him for Christmas.

 We went back and forth with some ideas finally he told me

" some cologne would be nice."

 What kind of cologne I asked him, he said "chick magnet cologne!"

So I thought about it a while and came up  with this idea .

This is him reading the paper in his hands.

 

Kacy drew this picture of Alex many years ago it makes me smile every time I see it. 

When ever  we go to a park Hadley loves to spin and spin and spin

and Wesley loves to swing.

But which is even odder is that when Hadley goes in a car she gets car sick!

So Dennis and I came up with this idea for them. 

 He brought home a used tire.

 I went to Lowe's and got the hardware and the paint  and we were set.

We put together a tire swing that will spin and swing. 

 

Big kids having their turn with the blocks. 

 

 Even Sadie  likes Tinkerbell.

 

 

Coming up with gift ideas for our grown children is always challenging.

I had Dennis make this old fashioned toilet paper holders, you

know  the kind you might  find in a classy outhouse.

 So we rolled up some money in the paper along with this letter.

  I have no idea what the  craziness is over Zombies these days

 but I know it is good to be prepared.  After the year we have had in the USA.



Installation day  in  Kacy's basement.

 

 

How I dismantle my tree.

 

One. Take of tree topper and store it.

 

 

 Two. Remove pine cones

Three. See the little wood clothes pins, they are being used like wedges to keep tree vertical.

The yellow stuff is spray can insulation. I can not remember how many cans I used.

I lined the tub with a big plastic bag and started to spray the insulation (do this  in a well ventilated area ) I did not  spray all at once. I waited to see how much it was going to expand.  Once it got to the  height I wanted  I had to let it cure. Once it had hardened I went to remove it,  but because it  had been in the plastic bag the bottom of the insulation had not  cured so  I flipped it over took off bag and let the bottom finish getting hard.

 

Four. I wrap it up tight  with an old sheet

.And I pull the tree out some decorations may fall off but the sheet catches them.

Then  I wait to get the metal stand out of the tub. I will  stick the tree back on the stand for storage.

 



Five. This is top view. I used a hole saw that was same size of the trunk

 of the tree, to drill an go through  the insulation.

The dark center is the original metal stand that the tree came with.

 

Six. Pull out the insulation. It really looks like about 50 pounds of fat!

 





Seven. First you see the metal stand with rice in the bottom. The rice is  used to help level out the bottom of the tub because it is warped. So it helps the stand and the insulation to make contact with the bottom.

Eight. I bag up the rice and this all goes back to storage till next year.

 And if times get ruff I have some rice for my food storage!

With some of my other containers like round crocks or canisters.

 I use the rigid blue foam insulation. I can post those instructions later .