Burnette Wedding

Mr. and Mrs. Steven Burnette

This weekend Brandon's cousin Steven got married and all of the family had jobs to do. Abigail was the official snow girl, Emily was a junior bridesmaid, and Brandon was a groomsman. I have to say I have quite a handsome family!


Wedding party



Abi waiting on showtime!

My beautiful daughter as a bridesmaid

Steven and his mom Kay.  I love this picture of Kay, she looks so happy as she grasps Steven hand for a picture before the wedding.



Elaine before the wedding

 

Emily, Mellie, and Abigail

Me and my darling children!

 

Regional Science Fair

Emily waiting on science fair judging

We were in Salisbury all day today for Emily's Science Fair Project deal.  After an all day affair she didn't get advanced to the state competetion, but we did have a good day.  It was good to see Emily hanging out with her fellow classmates and having a good time.  I always worry about her social skills, but she seemed to be doing just fine today.  She didn't seem to be upset that she wasn't advanced to the next level, but we had plans to celebrate afterwards either way it went.  We went out to eat and then off to the movies to see Warm Bodies (a zombie/comedy/love story for those of you that don't keep up with these things).  It was a really good movie and a nice end to our long day.  Tomorrow will we have to hit it hard and do all the things around the house that should have been done today.  We need to put tin on our hog building and get the pig pen put back together.  Seems like Suzy Lou wasn't quite ready to go to slaughter back in December and she tore up some stuff before she left out of there!  There is always something to do...

Me and my lovely kids

New Year, New Adventure!

We are only 1 month into this year and I can already see that things are going to get interesting for the Burnette household.  As you all know I LOVE my vacation time and my paid time off.  Come to find out I am going to have plenty of vacation time (more than any year before) but no paid time off!!  It's funny how this works you know.  Last month we found out that our positions at work are being moved to Burlington.  We have wondered for many years when this would happen, and now we know.  About half of our department decided to commute or rent a place up there, and the other half of us are going to try our hands at something new.  I just cannot bring myself to drive 4 hours a day to work and I definitely can't see myself renting a motel room and leaving my family all week.  Sooo with that being said I am going to polish my resume, network with some people, and take advantage of my time off.  I already have a list of things that I would like to accomplish and I am excited to have a change in pace for a while.  I officially have 4 more weeks left to work.  I have found new insurance for me and the kids, scheduled my first mammogram, scheduled dentist and orthodontist appointments, sent out half a dozen applications, scheduled a transfer for my 401K, signed up for a class on running a farm business, and planned how to make a 13 week severance package last 26 weeks!  I can not wait!!! I would have never left this job on my own, so this little "push" has set me free!  I am feeling so many emotions since we were told.  I am saddened to think that I will never again see these people that I have spent so much time with the past 12 years.  They drive me crazy sometimes, but they will be missed.  I am anxious about the job market and knowing for every application I put in there are 100s of other desperate people wanting it too.  I am excited that I may get to try something totally different.  I am hoping that employers will see my resume and have enough faith in me to let me prove that I can do the job.  Time will tell, but until then I am planning for vacation!

Here are a few pictures of our most recent activities.

Me and my little nerd

 

The girls and 1 of our November babies

 

Me and a set of 3 day old twins.  With kids that look like this I couldn't tell you who the baby daddy is...

Emily was 1 of the winners in the science fair at school, at the county, and now we will be spending next Saturday in Salisbury at regionals!
 

Long Weekend Fun

The kids had a 4 day weekend this week so I took Friday off to enjoy an extra day with them.  I was so excited that Thursday night we had a snow shower and we had no worries of going into work the next day.  We did however have a trip to West Virginia planned.  We went to Winterplace to go snow tubing for the day.  Boy did that turn out to be an adventure!  Brandon went through an emergency stop fence, down an embankment, and out into a road while on his tube!  His hat and 1 glove was ripped off and stayed halfway up the bank.  Some little girl had seen it happen from the road below and climbed her way back up to retrieve his lost items for him.

 

Mind you, he did this on our 3rd slide down.  When we reported the broken cable holding the fence down they closed down half of the tubing paths.  Great!  It wasn't very crowded that day, but when they had to shut half the lines down it began to back up.  I was disappointed because we got there late and then the park wasn't operating at optimal level (because of us).  It was a beautiful ride up there though.  Virginia was absolutely beautiful.  They had 8-10 inches of snow but the power was off right in the area when we needed gas,  We found a gas station right along with the other 24 cars that needed gas right away.  We had a good day and still had an entire weekend to look forward to.

 

 

Saturday I followed Brandon around as he ran errands and got some things done around the "farm".  We went to see our new baby calves and pcked up a truckload of animal feed.  We ended up sending Pawpaw John off with the girls to go eat at Jay's seafood restaurant while we grabbed a bite to eat and a movie.  We went to see Django Unchained.  It was a good movie, but VERY long!  It had been a long time since we had been to a movie without the kids so we enjoyed every minute. 

Sunday I got a few things done around the house and tried to enjoy the beautiful weather.  I could use a week of weather like this.  We made a quick trip to Tractor Supply.  Brandon and Emily stacked some firewood while Abigail and I messed around with the bow and arrow.  I made a batch of goats' milk soap to test out.  In April we have to take goats to the Green Goats and Garden festival and I plan to take some soaps there to see what people think.  I am pretty sure that I couldn't have squeezed one more activity in this weekend.  I am ready to go back to work so I can get some rest!!!

Boone in a Day

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We took a day out of our vacation to make a quick trip to Boone.  I had watched the weather and aimed for a day when there would be snow.  We stopped by Dan'l Boone Inn for lunch and then over to the Mast General store.  We went and found some snowy areas on the Parkway so the kids could sled a little while.  The high temperature for the day was 27 degrees and Brandon's truck has no heat!  Hahaha!  What were we thinking?  We had the heat off the engine, but there was no warm blowing air to thaw us out when we got back in.  We all had snow bibs and blankets so all was good.  We played till we were all exhausted and we made it back home before 9pm. 

Christmas Time!

 

Ready for Christmas

 

This is what Santa did for us.  I bet he was up till 2am doing this!

Silly girls on Christmas morning

Papa John with the girls and Brandon's cousin little boy

Me and my little Zombie girl

 

Birthday Party! WOO HOO!

 We had Emily's birthday party today.  We had a great time with our friends that were able to come out to the skating rink.  Here are a few pictures from Wayne's World.  We went over to Pizza Hut afterwards and had pizza and cupcakes.  Emily's friend Sam came home with her and we had a weinie roast and made smores. 

Last week I went on a soap making spree in preparation for Christmas.  I am trying to make gift baskets for several people and I needed to get the soap made so it would have time to cure and dry out before gift giving time.  I thought the cops were going to be called last weekend when I purchased every bit of lye on Tractor Supply's shelf!  Here are a few of the results.

This is what I call the Christmas soap, it is peppermint scented and colored with powder algae and red jojoba beads.

Bergamot!  I colored the orange with paprika that I soaked in olive oil and the strained through a coffee filter.  My intentions were to swirl this orange up and down into the white, but after I already had the log wrapped and covered up I realized I had forgot to swirl the colors, so I just left it the way it was.  Kind of disappointed with myself, but the soap is still going to be fabulous to use.
 

 I also did a run of spiced mahogany scented, pumice soap.  I colored it with turmeric and put it in a silicone mold that was shaped like leaves and pumpkins.  Brandon needed an abrasive soap for getting grease off his hands and I wanted to experiment with this mold.  The color came out perfect! It has the look of pumpkin pie.  I don't have a picture of these yet. Now I need to think about what creative ways I can package the soaps.  I went to Mitchael's and Hobby Lobby to try to get some ideas and basic items to start with.  We will see how that turns out.


Here are some other things we have been up to:

Emily with her science fair project.  It is not due until November 19, but we didn't want to be burdened with it over her birthday week, so we set a goal to have it done by Friday of this week, and ta-da, here we have it!

Never I thought I would Allow this in My House!!

We have had a very productive weekend!  All 3 of us girls had our hair cut Thursday evening and then we got ready for the 3 day weekend!  I cleaned up most of the aftermath from the Halloween party on Friday and started doing my 8 hours of continuing education so I can keep my mortgage origination license.  I opted for a self-paced online course this year so I can get it in whenever I have a few extra minutes here and there.  I also rescued my 3 beautiful pineapple plants from the raised beds and relocated them to the basement for the winter.  I have 1 that is almost 2 years old and I would hate to kill it!  I may try to "force" it to bloom, but I think that may be impossible in this climate, but I may research it more and find out.  I have read somewhere about putting a bag over it with a rotting apple and the fumes it gives off with trick it into blooming.  We will see..

Brandon and I got over to the Community college and did our early voting so we don't have to wait in line on Tuesday.  The kids went with us and watched the whole process.  Abigail gave us a blow by blow comparison of the presidential candidates at supper the night before.  I guess this is what happens when one of her best friends is a kid out of a very politically involved family.  A family where the kids have to watch the debates and any presidential speech and then have a quiz on it!   I was surprized at what all Abigail knew about them, but we had to straighten her out about some things!
We also made some progress with Emily's science project.  We had the experiment part done on October 28, but we had to do all the materials, hypothesis, procedure, conclusions, results, and all the graphs to go along with it.  We got these written, got pictures printed, and now we need to get everything organized and fixed onto the board.  We are trying to get this out of the way so it doesn't interfere with our birthday party next weekend and her birthday week won't be spent trying to hurry and get it finished.  It is due November 19, but I hope it is ready to turn in by this Friday.  I hate procrastination and it will not happen on my watch!

I organized my supplies for soapmaking and made a 6 pound batch of peppermint "Christmas" soap.  I also tried to mold some candycane special molds, but I think it may have to be rebatched.  We will see how the 6 pound batch turned out tomorrow morning after it cools for a while.  As many pictures that I take of other things, I can't believe that I have never took pictures of the homemade soap stuff.  I guess it is just because during the process it is nerve racking to just get done what you need to do, let alone document it with pictures!  Here again is something dangerous that I am allowing in my house!


My soap making station.  Hope no one was looking in the basement window-it looks like a drug lab!

Here is my "Christmas" soap.  It should have a green bottom layer and you can actually see some of the green that I swirled up into the top layer at the far end of mold. 

Saturday night we had some friends over for dinner.  I like it when one friend calls to come over and I can call another friend to take care of the menu and I just supply the meeting place!  Hahha!  Thanks Kelly for supper and thanks Debbie for thinking about us while you were in town!  

Emily's birthday is coming up and we went to Old Navy and bought her a few new shirts. The poor child has only a few shirts that she like to wear and she wears them over and over. Honestly, I am tired of seeing her in the same stuff all the time. We went through her closet Saturday morning and took out EVERYTHING that she had either outgrew or just didn't like to wear. It left a few things by the time we were done. So we set off shopping. She got several new shirts to change up her wardrobe. Then today we took her to Tractor Supply to pick out her birthday present. She said she wanted cowboy boots, but she actually ended up picking out a pair of Justin boots that are pretty wild! Of course Abigail wanted new boots too! She didn't complain when we were clothes shopping, but when it came to Tractor Supply boots she was mad! They don't have kids sizes thank goodness, but I pacified her with a junior compound bow. She is like the new Katniss Everdeen from The Hunger Games!

Can't believe I am allowing this in my house!

You would think it was her birthday!

Emily sporting her new boots and her new PJs!!!



Girls are ready for Pajama Day at school tomorrow!

Halloween 2012

We decided to have a weinie roast and stay in this Halloween. We invited people to come over to celebrate with us and several families were actually able to make it. Here are a few pictures of the kids and festivities.

 

One of the lanterns we made with plastic bucket and voltive candle.

 

 

This is what our house looked like from the road.  We didn't have any trick or treaters.  I think they thought, Well it's just a party.  I had a sign out at the road saying Trick or Treat here, but after dark that was pretty useless.

 

Katie as a lion.

 

 

It;s not too often when you can say "I have a dragon in a wagon!"  Sounds like the beginning of a kids' book.

 

 

Abigail as a ragdoll, but we took it one step further...

 

Emily as Werewolf Girl

My cupcake "creation"

Our little actress...

Burger Boy

 

The Wallace Youngins

One of our homemade lanterns