We only had two people dress up for Halloween at our house!

Tayzie and…

Flexy! Tayzie is a pumkin and Flexy is a Sith. In case you don’t know what a Sith is, they us the dark side of the force in Star Wars. I told Flexy that I’d rather he be a Jedi, but he wasn’t going for it. 

I said that if you’re going to be on the dark side, you better not smile, you better act tough. So here he is not smiling and acting tough. He’s still very handsome though.

Today was my father-in-law’s 80th birthday!

What a wonderful day! We went on a ride up the gondola at the ski resort and ate lunch up at the top in a beautiful restaurant. It was such a fun experience.

We love him so much and are so happy he is part of our lives.

Happy Birthday Grandpa!

The girls, Kelsey, Melissa and Emily, are having a ball playing “Hand and Foot”! It is such a fun game. Our friends from southern Utah taught us how to play it, and it is one of our favorite things to do when they visit. These are the rules (or at least the way we play):

You will need about 5 decks of cards, all shuffled together.

Before play begins, you draw a small stack from one of the two discard piles. While counting you lay down the cards making two piles in front of yourself. If you get 22 cards (11 in each pile) then you get a bonus 100 points. If not you just make sure you have 11 cards in each pile, you may have to draw a few more cards, or put a few back. One of your piles is your “Hand” and one is your “Foot”. Set your “Foot” aside for later, and start looking at your cards in your “Hand”.

At this point you are trying to build books. The books are called “Perfect” or “Imperfect”. A Perfect is when all of the cards are the same thing, all Kings, all Aces, etc. An Imperfect is when you use the wild cards to complete the book. And example is 4 King’s and 3 wild’s. A complete book is 7 cards total. When the book is complete, you stack them and set them aside. If the book is Perfect then make sure a red card is on top, if it is Imperfect the top card should be black.

The game is played in rounds. At the beginning of your turn, you draw two cards. When you have at least 3 cards that will eventually become a book, you can start putting them down and begin building them in front of you on the table. In order to put them down though, you’ll need to have enough points to put them down. In round 1, you need at least 50 points to put your cards down, round 2=90 points, round 3=120 points, round 4=150 points. The person who puts their cards down first gets a 100 point bonus.

In each round you will need to build 2-4 books. Round 1 you need to build- 1 Perfect and 1 Imperfect, round 2- 1 Perfect and 2 Imperfects, round 3- 2 Perfects and 1 Imperfect, and round 4- 2 Perfects and 2 Imperfects.

You can pick up the cards in the discard pile if you have at least 3 cards matching the card on top of the pile, then you get 7 additional cards off the pile, a total of 8. One thing about taking the cards from the discard pile, is that you have to be able to play the card on top. Which means also having enough points to lay down for each round. Also, you may end up with a bunch of bad cards, it is the discard pile after all.

Wild cards are: Jacks and 2’s.

Red 3’s count against you 500 points.

Black 3’s are 0 points.

Ace’s=20 points, 2’s=20 points,

Jack’s=50 points,

7 & up=10 points, 6 & down=5 points.

After you have played all of the cards in your “Hand” you can go into your “Foot”, and start playing them. Of course you want to get rid of any red 3’s as quickly as you get them. Note: you cannot make a book out of red 3’s or black 3’s.

The person who gets the required books for the round and is able to discard their last card, wins that round and also gets a bonus 100 points.

When someone discards their last card for that round, everyone counts the books they have made: Perfects are worth=500 points, and Imperfects are worth=300 points, count them first. Then count all of the cards you have, including the books you have already counted, using the point system above. If you weren’t the one who went out and you still have cards in your hand, those count against you. Hopefully, you won’t have a red 3 (or more). Total the cards and minus that off what you laid down.

The object of the game is to get the most points. So, fun!! I think that’s all, if it doesn’t make sense leave me a message and I explain it better. We have had so much fun playing with friends and also with family!! Try playing a game of “Hand and Foot”, I know you’ll love it!

I love the idea of a book where you just put all kinds of things in it, pictures, clippings, ticket stubs, and of lots of journaling. I am usually a little particular about how I put things in a scrapbook. Smash books are fun, because it is a little more relaxed. The whole process is to just smash it in there, and have fun! Sounds good to me. I decided for my first smash type book to do, “Memories of 2012”. I always have things and stuff that I want to keep for memories sake and I don’t know what to do with. So here goes:

I decided to do a page for each month to put a few highlights from the month.

I made a book of “Love Notes” for my mom on her 80th birthday. Everyone in the family wrote a note to her telling her how much they love her and how grateful they are she is our mom and grandma and aunt.

She loved it.

My darlin turned 50 this year. He got to do I-Fly. It’s a neat place where you pretend your skydiving, because you’re in a tunnel with air blowing past you so fast that you can pretend you’re skydiving. I put a little book in on a separate ring with additional pictures that wouldn’t fit on the pages.

Hermana Kelsey came home!

I put lots of envelopes in as pockets to hold cards. I have all of the Christmas cards our family received too. I never know what to do with them, but I always want to keep them.

I am super happy with how it turned out. It is about 36 pages long. It is a quick look at the year and a very fun way to keep memories. I plan on doing it every year from now on.