Christmas at home

Christmas was spent here at home in Fort Worth. It was just our family this year and then we had Robert (my brother) and Casey and family over for Christmas dinner. This year it actually snowed on Christmas Eve which was very excited as we don't usually get snow. The kids played outside for a few minutes but ended up getting to cold. We aren't used to the cold weather. I think Buffy (our dog) liked the snow the best. She was so excited jumping around the snow and eating it.

Poyfair Christmas Card

Outside of the card



Inside of the card


Sorry I didn't send out a Christmas card this year. I worked really hard on it and then went to print it and my printer gave me problems. I went to Kinkos and tried forever to get the outside to line up with the inside and ended up giving up. I realized this was going to cost me over a dollar a card!
Just double click on the inside card so you can read it.

HAVE A MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!
LOVE, SHAWN, JANET, CALLIE, HAYDEN AND MASON

poyfair family calander

This is for the Poyfairs- heres a preview of what the calander is going to look like this year. Each year we scrapbook a family calander to give to grandma and grandpa and this year we decided to try digital scrapbooking. I have to say I love doing it digital! It is so much better. I love not having the mess of all the papers.
Everything is just at the click of a button!

update

Volleyball- Fall 2009
Callie made the 7th grade volleyball team this year. They just finished the season and did really well. She is now playing on the basketball team for her middle school.


Halloween 2009
Haydens a hippy, Mason is Luigi from super mario brothers and Buffy is a witch
Callie was also a hippy but she was with friends so I didn't get a pic of her.




Soccer season for Hayden- Fall 2009






And heres just a cute picture of Mason who brings so much joy to our family

My new YW

It is will deepest sorrow that I regret to tell all of you that my oldest child- Callie Rae is now old enough to be in the Young Womens program at church! Where did the time go? I know everyone says this and everyone out there not here yet will say this- Where did the time go? How did this happen so fast! Before you know it they will be gone, out of the house and married and I will be an OLD grandma! It felt like yesterday I was living at home with my parents going to my own YW activities. As you can read I am feeling very sorry for myself because what this all really means is I am getting old!
So here are her pictures from her first young womens activity where they had "messy olympics". Callie was very shy being with all these teenagery girls so she didn't get into all the fun. Hopefully as time goes on she will feel more comfortable with everyone. .

Callies 12th birthday party.
She had a great idea to have a scavenger hunt at the mall where we divided into three groups and each group had twenty dollars to try and buy/get as many items that start with each letter of the alphabet. The group that came home with all items and most money left won. They had a great time. Callie planned the whole thing, made the invitations and sent them out before I even saw them- on her invit she stated her "wish list" was money! I hope parents didn't think I did it! So thats what she got and the next day we went out and she bought herself a new phone.

summer project

I had many projects planned for my summer and got a few done but the one I am most proud of is this. My SIL found this idea on the internet and showed it to me and I had to make it since I had the same stairwell with nothing on it. Basically it is molding and rosettes that I hammered into the wall and then painted the inside of the frame and then hung rod iron pictures in it.
Thanks to all those who voted for my burgundy kitchen. Shawn finally agreed to it unwillingly but now I am having my doubts because I have decided I want to paint my cabinets a darker color and it would but just a really dark blob kitchen so its back to square one (not that I will have anytime to paint since I am back to work). - Projects for Thanksgiving Break, I am already making a list!

our trip to Washington D.C.

Kitchen paint

Ok, I have been wanting to have an accent wall in my kitchen and I want it to be burgundy to bring that color in from our living room into the kitchen and I cannot get Shawn to agree with it so I need everyones opinion.

When you walk in our house you go straight into the living room-



and then our kitchen is off to the right so the two rooms flow together.




We have a long bar area that divides the rooms. I painted the living room the color- burnt almond and right now the kitchen is just the plain light cream color that the whole house was when we moved in. My idea is to bring the burnt almond into the kitchen (the two side walls) and then have the main wall (the one with all the cabinets, stove, fridge) an accent color- burgundy and Shawn thinks it should stay just the same plain cream color. Please vote on the poll and I won't be upset if you vote for Shawn!

ode to 80's sitcoms (some 70s also)

As I was adding new songs onto my playlist I thought I would find theme songs to old TV sitcoms that I enjoyed. As a child I always would sing to them along with all the commercials too. It was so fun to listen to these old theme songs from tv shows I loved as a child, they bring back so many memories! It makes me so happy to hear songs I love. Somedays I just love to get out my karoake and sing until my throat hurts. I love to sing even though I am not very good.

Ok, here is my tribute to some of my favorite TV sitcoms back when I was a kid. Family Ties (alltime favorite!!!) I loved Alex P. Keaton in Family Ties and his sister Mallory too- in fact if I had two more kids my boy would be Keaton and my girl would be Mallory.


FAMILY TIES


Growing Pains- I think I liked the show so much because of Kirk Cameron. Wasn't he the cutest! Everybody was in love with him back then and we all had our teeny bopper magazine pin ups hanging in our rooms.

And my last tribute to classic TV- Welcome Back Kotter. What a great show! I was to young to be in love with John Travolta but I thought Arnold Horshack was the funniest character on the show. He was the nerd who always snorted when he laughed. I would always call my brother horshack as an insult.


.

Crazy Busy Weekend

School is almost out and it seems we cram all the fun the last weeks of school. We started out on Thursday going on a field trip to the AGI gymnastics in Arlington and I came along to help out. It was lots of fun for the kids and we were all exhausted after it was over.





Friday Hayden had field day all day and Mason was honored for good character- trustworthy so they got to sit at special tables with their parents at lunch and got a medal and certificate.





Friday night we had a sleepover for the 3rd and 4th graders. They were promised that they would have one if the school ended up being Exemplary on the TAKS tests this year and they did it! Here in Texas once you start 3rd grade up until 12th the students have to take these standardized tests and basically that is how the schools are rated so this year we had over 90% of the students pass which ranked us exemplary. It started at 7 pm and they had dinner and then they could do several different things until bedtime at 11pm. There was karaoke (which I was in charge of), hair and nail salon, video games, bounce houses, and crafts. The kids along with me had a great time. I didn't get a whole lot of pictures of Hayden because I was in the Karaoke room but I did video this cute little boy who pretty much stayed in the karaoke room with me and sang the whole time. He was hilarious! At first we couldn't tell if he was for real- check it out for yourselves.

Saturday we had Callies last volleyball game and they ended up this season in 1st Place. They got their trophy's but the coach took them back because she promised to get their names engraved on them if they got 1st place.

After the game we rushed home, we made treats and got everything ready to host a baby shower for my sister in law- Nikki. She lives in Lewisville so we had it at her house. It was lots of fun and my mother in law drove from Tyler to come to it and help out. Notice the diaper cake I made and the blanket, bibs, and burp cloth that I embroidered. Next week is another sister in laws shower- lots of babies this year! Next Saturday will be the 5th baby shower in 2 weeks!!! I've have been doing alot of blankets lately.

Paint job

We have lived here in our house for 8 years now in Fort Worth, Texas. This is our first house and I think we will probably be here for a while so I am having a blast remodeling and redecorating. We bought the house new but after 3 kids and buying a cookie cutter house we have a lot of new plans to fix up our house like an HGTV home. (Shawn & I's favorite channel). I am in the process of redoing just about everything from buying new furniture to a new roof (due to hail storm),replacing baseboards, doors, light fixtures and flooring. The house was in great need of a new paint job so we hired a friend of ours to do it and these are the before and after pictures. I sure hope I don't have to do this every eight years. Although I'm sure it will take me that long to get everything done I want to do!

new haircut

After a long time decided what to do with my hair I finally bite the bullet and paid for a good haircut. I was talking to the ladies at work and told them it was time to get my haircut, that I wanted it shorter, with some color and that I would just go to the haircuttery place by Albertsons and they freaked out and said I needed to find a good hairdresser so my friend Amy called her hairdresser in WEATHERFORD and made an appointment for me. She told her all about my hair and how I need help to find a good hairstyle. We spent the whole week looking up new hairstlyes on the internet. This one isn't the one I picked but I like it and it is easy to do.

Easter Pictures

Easter Egg Hunt at Uncle Jasons house

spring soccer and volleyball

Callie and Hayden have started their spring sports. Callie is playing volleyball for the first time. She usually plays softball and loves it and does very well. Last spring she played softball and after the season was over she was asked to play on the all-star team and enjoyed that, other than crazy parents way to involved in winning(thats another story). Our local sports association added in volleyball this spring along with softball so she had to choose. Callie has played for intermurals at school and enjoyed it so after much consideration she choose volleyball. She is doing very well and their team- The Grizzlys are in 1st place right now.

Hayden is in probably his 10th season of soccer. Hayden has tried just about every sport and I think we finally found his nitch. I have tried very hard to keep Hayden busy with different sports/activities outside home and school. If it would up to him he would stay at home and play video games with friends all day long. This season he has the position of full back and he loves it. He is very proud of himself for all of his blocks. He is very quick to tell us that he is the best player on the team!

Open House

Mason's school had its open house so I took Mason to go see his teachers and classroom. We first stopped by Ms. Monroes room. Ms. Monroe was Masons teacher last year and the year before. This year she moved to Resource. We were so sad to not have her as Masons teacher. She is a wonderful teacher and was so good to Mason. They went on lots of field trips and she took tons on pictures. At the end of the year (both years) she made a slide show to music on DVD and gave each of her students one. Mason loves it so much that he will watch it constantly and sometimes even sleeps with the DVDS. It always brings tears to my eyes when I watch the videos because of how wonderful they are to my son. I feel so grateful to have such amazing teachers who have helped Mason become the wonderful child he is. I owe alot to his teachers. He also has a great new teacher this year- Mrs. Welsh. We did't get a picture of her because she unfortuately wasn't at the open house because she was sick. Mrs. Welsh is also an amazing speical ed teacher. She has come up with some wonderful ideas to help Mason stay on task and follow directions that I have even incorpurated them at home. And then there is Ms. O'Connell who is the 1st grade teacher he comes and sees for about 45 minutes a day for social studies that way he can get some socialization with the regular ed. class. He has been with her for two years and loves her. He will move up to 2nd grade next year so unless she moves up with him he will get a new regular ed teacher (Im going to have to request Callies old teacher). We are so blessed to have Mason in our family. When he was diagnosed with Autism it was very hard for us to deal with it and not knowing what the future would hold for our son. His milestones were very lengthy in time and we wondered if it would ever happen. He didn't walk until his was 14 months (the other 2 kids were nine months), he wasn't potty trained until his was four and he didn't start talking until about six years old and now at seven he is talking in sentences and carrying conversations with us. We are so grateful to our Heavenly Father for sending us Mason. At first you are devistated as a parent to discover that your child has a disability and don't know how you will go forward having to deal with such a life long sentence but I now realize that the Lord is trustig me with this special child and I feel honored that He has choosen me to be a mother of a special needs child. Mason is truely a gift from God and he brings so much joy to our family.

Pinewood Derby

Haydens 2nd pinewood derby was last night. He had a hard time when his car didnt get in 1st place and then he just sat there mooping when it wasn't his turn to race. This was my first car to make. We had forgotten about the pinewood derby and when we got an email 2 days before I asked Shawn to help him make it and he wouldnt so I got out the hand saw and went to town. It wasn't to hard but I don't know the tricks of making your car go fast so we didnt place at all. Hayden got the Best Flame award which was thanks to Shawn since he painted it.