Merry Christmas from Sacramento!

Merry Christmas to All and to All a Goodnight!

Christmas Eve and Christmas with the Sizemore's and all of our extended family.  With love and good tidings to all.

Happy New Year!!!

What did you do for New Year's Eve? Mike & I went to the movies to see Avatar. Great movie. Then we came home & watched the ball drop in times square via the TV. Brandon stayed home & played video games. Jesse went over to his girlfriends house to watch movies.

Today we are not doing much. Will probably take down the outdoor Christmas lights. And cook a ham dinner. What are your plans?

Do you make resolutions? I don't. I know better. I'd break all of mine. So I just don't do it.

Happy New Year!!! From my family to yours. Hope your 2010 is a good one.

We wish you a Merry Christmas!!!

It's Christmas Eve day!!! Santa comes tonight. Have you been a good boy or girl?

I want to wish all of you a very Merry Christmas. I'm glad that more of you have participated in this family blog this past year. Here's to hoping that more of you will join in.

Here is a little Christmas joy from my family to yours.

Singing:

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Dancing:

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

Cast:
Kim, Mike, Brandon, Jesse, and our grandson Gunner.

Merry Christmas!!!!

Thanksgiving-Kim's version

Can you believe that it has already been a week since Thanksgiving? And Christmas is only 3 weeks away. Yikes!!!! I better get my act together.

Since Jodi already posted some photos of Thanksgiving at my house, I thought I'd give you my version.

We had a small Thanksgiving this year. It was Mom, Dad, Jodi, my family & Danica (Eric's oldest daughter). Andrea & Eric's families spent Thanksgiving with their inlaws. At least that was the excuse they gave for not coming. Todd had a lame excuse too. His excuse, he lives in Utah & had to work.

Danica was the only one from Eric's family who came to my house for dinner, but only because she had to work at 4pm. So she couldn't go with her family to Borrego Springs for their family dinner with Jeannette's (Eric's wife) extended family.

We were lucky that Mom, Dad & Jodi could attend. They almost weren't able to as mom fell and hit her head and had to be rushed to the hospital in an ambulance the Monday before Thanksgiving. Luckily she was alright. Nothing broke. She just wanted to steal the spotlight away from Aunt Joan who had been in the hospital for hip replacement. At least that is what Aunt Joan said. She said it jokingly to Mom, but I'm sure there was a smidgen of truth in it as well.

Lucky for me, my hubby Mike loves to do the turkey & stuffing. Mom and Dad provided the turkey. I just had to pick it up from their house the week before Thanksgiving so that it had time to thaw out in the fridge.

Here is this years turkey. It's a Butterball!!! Nothing but the best for our family. Did you notice how the legs are all tucked in nice and the wings folded under. Mike's dad was a butcher, so he learned all these neat tricks from him.
I spared you the photo of Mike's tummy. He stuck it out real fat to look like the turkey. I took a photo, but I thought it was too much for you all.

Here is the stuffing all mixed up. We use Mrs Cubbison's cornbread stuffing. This is 2 boxes which is 4 bags of stuffing.
Here is Mike stuffing the turkey. He got all the above stuffing in this 17 pound turkey. Sorry that the photo is blurry.
Cooking corn, mashed potatoes and gravy. The large pot on the right in the back was used for boiling my yams before putting them in the oven to make candied yams.
Thanksgiving is the one time a year I wish I had a 5 burner stove and a double oven. But I don't. Boo hoo! But lucky for me Mike has a ton of Calphalon cookware. The one lone silver pot is mine & it is 27 years old. But it is still my favorite, even over the Calphalon.

And here is how our turkey turned out. Yummy!!!! This was Mike's best turkey to date.

We didn't want to squeeze in 8 people at one table. So I did up 2 tables. This table is in my kitchen/family room. If you want to see more photos of this tablescape, you can click here.
And here is the table in my living room area. I also did a post about this tablescape on my Starshine Chic blog. If you want to see more of this tablescape, click here.
Mike carved up the turkey & placed a lot of it on his favorite Lenox china serving platter.
Here is my plate of food. I did not artfully arrange it. The photo was an after thought after I piled everything on my plate. You're just lucky I remembered to take a photo before wolfing it all down.
We had turkey, mashed potatoes and gravy, candied yams, corn, stuffing, green bean casserole and our annual Thanksgiving green jello salad. I did forget to take a photo of that.

Here is everyone that ate in the family room. Dad, Danica, Mom, Mike & me. But I did not take a photo of myself.

Eating at the living room table is Brandon, Jesse and Jodi. This was the kid's table.
Our goal was to eat at 2:00pm as Danica had to leave by 3:30pm to be to work by 4:00. We didn't actually eat until about 2:45pm. So Danica was able to eat before leaving for work. She was starting to get a little worried.

After dinner, Jodi and I put away the left overs and did the dishes. Then we messed around with her Cricut cutting machine that she had brought up with her. She left it for me to use, but so far, I haven't had the time.

We ate pumpkin pie for dessert (what is Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie?). Then Mom, Dad & Jodi left some time after dark. I think it was about 5:30 or 6:00.

It was actually a very nice and relaxing Thanksgiving. I enjoy having all my family around to celebrate, but it was also kind of nice to have a small gathering as well.

So that is what we did for Thanksgiving. What did you do? Eric already posted about his. If you missed it, you can see it by clicking here. And if you missed Jodi's version, you can click here.

And I final thing before you go, I'm having my first giveaway on my other blog Starshine Chic. I'm giving away all this:
Click here, to see how to enter my giveaway.

And come back tomorrow. I plan on posting about Jesse's birthday last night. We went to the Old Spaghetti Factory in downtown Riverside as well as the Mission Inn to see all the Christmas lights.

Thanksgiving at Kim's

Dad After Dinner

Jessie

Brandon Thinking tooo much!!!

Mom (Dorothy) and Danica

Here are some pictures I took at Kim's house on Thanksgiving. It was kind of weird with only 8 of us. There was Kim & Mike, Brandon & Jessie, Danica, Mom, Dad and Me (Jodi). Hopefully there will be more people for Christmas!!!!

Decked the Halls

Hey All,
I just posted pics of my Christmas Decor on my blog (thepopers.blogspot.com). Come check it out! If you don't have access to my blog, email me and I'll add you to the reader list. Merry Christmas to all of you!
Love,
Kira Pope
(Joni's Granddaughter/Marti's 3rd Oldest)

thanksgiving in the Desert

WE WENT TO BORREGO AGAIN FOR THANKSGIVING THIS YEAR. WE GO OUT AND MEET WITH JEANNETTE'S PARENTS, THEY LOVE TO CAMP EVERY WINTER DOWN THERE. WE HAD QUITE ALOT OF JEANNETTE'S FAMILY SHOW UP'. HER AUNT ELSA AND UNCLE BOB, AND 2 OF THEIR KIDS AND THEIR FAMILIES WERE THERE, ALONG WITH HER UNCLE RICHARD AND HIS WIFE AND J'S SISTER. IT WAS A BEAUTIFUL DAY, ABOUT 75 DEGREE'S AND SUNNY. WE STAYED AND TALKED WITH EVERYONE AFTER DINNER, WE HAD A CAMPFIRE AND IT WAS FUN TO JUST RELAX AND TALK WITH JEANNETTE'S FAMILY. NEEDLESS TO SAY WE ALL GAINED ABOUT 10 POUNDS FROM ALL THE FOOD WE ATE. WELL, I GOTTA GO. SEE YA!! HOPE YOU ALL HAD A GREAT THANKSGIVING!! LOVE, ERIC

Happy Thanksgiving

I hope that everyone is having a Happy Thanksgiving. Don't eat too much food. You don't want to get heartburn. Oh heck, live dangerous. It's Thanksgiving.

And don't forget to be thankful.



What are you thankful for today?

I am thankful for all that God has given me. Especially my family. Family is my most important treasure. And I love that this family blog has connected us once again. I am really enjoying getting to know my cousins again and their kids.

I just wish we could have a big family reunion and all get to meet one another in person. Maybe some day. I'm just thankful that some of you are willing to participate in this blog or on your own family blogs.

I hope that each of you will post about what your family did for Thanksgiving and what you are thankful for.

I love each of you very much. I'm glad we are all a part of this crazy Manning Family Tree.

Kim

HALLOWEEN !!!

KIM, YOU ARE CRAZY!!! WHERE DO YOU FIND THIS STUFF? I LOVE YOUR MONSTER MASH CARD!! IT WAS NICE SEEING YOU THIS MORNING ON THE ROAD. ANYWAYS, WE HAD HALLOWEEN AT THE CHURCH AND WE HAD A GOOD TIME! JASE DRESSED UP LIKE THE BURGER KING GUY, WHAT A FREAKY COSTUME, NO ONE KNEW WHO HE WAS AT FIRST, THEN THEY ALL FIGURED IT OUT, BECAUSE HE IS SO TALL!! JEANNETTE AND I WENT AS BROKE PARENTS, HAH, HAH, AND TAYLOR WAS A NINJA ASS-SASAIN. DANICA WAS QUEEN VICTORIA OR SOME OLD LADY, CAN'T REMEMBER(OLD TIMERS DESEASE).
CADE WAS SICK AS A DOG ON HALLOWEEN, SO HE GOT TO PASS OUT CANDY AND THE H-1 N-1 VIRUS ALL AT THE SAME TIME!!! I ENTERED A PIE EATING CONTEST AND I LOST TO A 11 YEAR OLD KID, BOY CAN HE EAT FAST!! ANYWAYS, HERE'S SOME PHOTOS OF OUR LITTLE PARTY. SEE YA, ERIC

Sunday Favorites-Halloween 2008

This week for Sunday Favorites I thought I would repost what my family did on Halloween last year. I'd like to thank Chari over at Happy to Design for having this weekly blog party. I always enjoy reliving fun memories and I enjoy seeing what everyone else is sharing as well.

Since this is about my family, I am reposting it here on my family blog instead of my decorating blog Starshine Chic. But if you want to see my Halloween decor from this year. Be sure to hop on over to Starshine Chic and check it out.

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Well Halloween is finally over. I'm sort of sad, but exited that Thanksgiving is just weeks away & then Christmas!!!

So what did we do for Halloween? I baked Halloween cupcakes at 10pm on Thursday night. Jesse loves Funfetti cake & when I saw this Halloween Funfetti cake mix I knew I had to get it.

Here is me licking the beaters. The only problem with making these cupcakes was that I forgot to put in the funfetti candies into the cake mix before putting mix in each cupcake tin. So I had to add the candies after the fact & mix up each cupcake individually. Luckily I caught my mistake before baking the cupcakes.
Here is the finished product. Looks yummy!!! (Don't look at my dirty grout)
Here are photos of our grandson Gunner. He is dressed up as a horse. He wasn't too happy to wear his costume. So they didn't get any great photos. We didn't get to see him in person, boo hoo.
Brandan with Gunner

Gunner doesn't look too upset in this photo. He's a cute horse!!!Here is Mike & Jesse passing out candy from our front porch on Halloween. We had a fog machine going so it got quite hazy. At times you couldn't even see them. Mike needs to learn to button up his shirt. I guess he was dressed up as an old geezer.


This year we set up our projector in the living room & played a Halloween DVD that projected onto our front window for everyone to see. The DVD was called "Hallowindow". I found it by accident while surfing the internet. It is pretty cool. It has two 2 minute clips of various Halloween graphics. I videotaped it from outside to show what the trick or treaters got to see coming to our house.

The 1st video below is what I taped outside of the Hallowindow video. The 2nd video shows the front of our house on Halloween with all the lights. You can't see real good as it was quite dark. Plus the fog machine made it even darker for filming as there was a haze.




We had about 250 kids come to our house. Everyone loved how our house was decorated & the Hallowindow video in the window was a hit. We were told that we had the best house around. This was music to my ears. Even if we were about the only house in our neighborhood passing out candy.

I don't know what the problem is, but it seems more & more people are not celebrating Halloween. I love Halloween and I feel bad that kids are missing out on some great memories.

On Saturday I invited Eric's family over for dinner & to watch "Bram Stoker's Dracula" out in our backyard. Thanks Danica for bringing it over for us to watch. No Halloween is complete without watching it. We had a great time. Everyone in Eric's family came over. I cooked pork roast, baked potatoes, corn & broccoli. Jeannette brought over a fabulous salad. For dessert we had pumpkin cobbler.

After dinner we went out to the backyard to watch Dracula. Brandon & Jase stayed in the house & played video games and Taylor played on the computer instead of watching the movie. The rest of us enjoyed the movie. Danica, Jeannette & I all love this movie. Mike & Jesse had never watched it before but enjoyed it as well. I was surprised when Mike said he had never seen it before. How can we have been together for all these years & he never see it? I watch it every year.

It was quite warm out on Saturday night. It was cloudy & we saw some lightning, but warm enough to watch a movie & not need blankets. The men folk watched from the jacuzzi.

So my Halloween ended up being filled with great memories. And now I have shared them with you. Now on to Thanksgiving!!!

For the rest of this month, our Monday show and tells will be about Thanksgiving. You can post Thanksgiving decor, recipes, photos or write your memories of past Thanksgivings or share what you are thankful for. Anything to do with Thanksgiving or thankfulness.

Sunday Favorites-Halloween Show & Tell

Sorry that I haven't posted anything new to either of my blogs in the past week or so. But I've been sick. I've had the flu. Probably H1N1 aka: Swine Flu, but I don't know for sure since I didn't go to the doctor. And does it really matter? The flu, is the flu. Your sick, you hopefully get better. Which I am doing.

But now hubby is sick. And when he gets sick, it's like he is dying (not literally), he just acts like he is. Men don't know how to be sick. Lucky for him I am feeling well enough to take care of him. No one took care of me while I was sick, I still had to make dinner & clean up. But I guess that is my fault, I trained everyone.

So for this weeks Sunday Favorites hosted by Chari at Happy to Design, I thought I would continue with my Halloween posts from last year. This post originally posted on 10/27/08:


The most dreadful day of the week is here again. It's Monday!!!! Time for show and tell. This weeks theme is "Anything Halloween".

I was trying to think back to my favorite Halloween and you know what? I can't remember a specific Halloween being the best. Probably as my memories of my childhood have faded. I remember my favorite costume was the year I was a greek goddess. I also do remember going trick or treating and worrying that someone might egg us or run us over. And that we were suppose to only go to houses of people we knew so we wouldn't get something poisoned or a needle in our candy (we never followed this rule & we never did get poisoned & never found a needle in our candy). Yes even then, Moms had to be a little paranoid.

I remember going to the school carnival each year. I remember loving Halloween and dressing up and we couldn't wait for it to get dark so we could go trick or treating. I remember coming home after trick or treating & all of us kids sitting on the living room floor, emptying our loot of candy & trading candy with one another. I always wanted the Snicker bars. This was the best part of Halloween. I remember Mom telling me that I was too old to trick or treat when I turned 16, but I still dressed up and went out trick or treating with my friends. All in all, I have nothing but warm loving memories of Halloween.

And then when I became a parent, Halloween was still fun as now I had to be the one to make the Halloween costumes, take Brandon out trick or treating and be the paranoid Mom. When we lived in El Cajon, I would always take Brandon over to Mom & Dads neighborhood for trick or treating. We lived in an apartment building & never went trick or treating there. Everyone knows the good candy is in the residential neighborhoods with houses.

To this day, I still love Halloween. My favorite movie to watch this time of year is "Dracula" with Gary Oldman & Winona Rider. There is something about this movie that I love. I haven't watched it yet this year, but I still have a few days until Halloween. I'll have to borrow it from Danica as I can't find my copy.



I'm so looking forward to this Friday night when all the ghosts and goblins come trick or treating to my door. I have about 1000 pieces of candy to pass out. My boys are hoping that we have lots of candy left over. We'll see.


To get you in the mood for Halloween, enjoy a few more Halloween costume photos I found this past week.
This photo is dated May 1966. But we all know that Halloween isn't in May. My Mom must have been a procrastinator and didn't have the photo developed until some 7 months later. So the photo must have actually been taken in Oct 1965. The house in the background is our house on Ellen Lane. I remember wearing my Greek Goddess costume. It was my favorite costume of any Halloween. Probably would have looked better if I had been a little older & had boobs. From left to right: Eric, me, Jodi, Todd. Andrea wouldn't have been born yet.

This photo says it is 1966. I don't remember dressing up as a bride, but here is the proof. Funny how I can remember the costume from the year before, but this one I had no memory of. Jodi, me, Todd, Eric.



This photo I don't have a date for it. But from the looks of us, it must have been in the 1970's sometime. Check out mom!!! Dad obviously took the photo. I wonder if he dressed up? I have no clue as to what I was suppose to be. This is the only photo I have from Halloween for all 5 of us kids. Finally a Halloween photo with Andrea.



The next 3 photos are of my Grandson Gunner. He was only a little more than 2 months old when these photos were taken last Halloween (2007).


This 1st photo is so cute. Gunner is wearing the pj's that I got him from Old Navy. It says "Bone to be wild"on the pj top. The bottom had little skeletons all over. He had fallen asleep & must have been dreaming about something that made him happy (probably me).
In these last 2 photos, Gunner is wearing the M&M outfit that Mike & I had bought for him from the M&M store in Las Vegas. It came with a hat. I wonder why he isn't wearing it. This was Gunner's first Halloween costume.
Well that is the end of my Halloween photos. I was going to show you one last photo of the scariest room in my house but the photo didn't turn out. Too bad. It was of what is suppose to be our game room. It had been our storage room for about 2-3 years. This weekend we decided to clean it out and make it our game room. We didn't get it quite done. I will post photos later of our progression if I can get the photos down loaded correctly.

Next Monday you can post on what you actually did on Halloween. Did you go trick or treating? Did you go to a party? Did you pass out candy to the little kiddies? Report on "How I spent my Halloween" on next Mondays Show and Tell. Did you notice that I was milking Halloween for all it was worth?

Happy Halloween!!!!

Kim

I hope that you enjoyed revisiting my post. As you can tell, I love Halloween and I did indeed milk it for all it was worth last year. This year, not so much. Except for the reposting of last year. Oh well.

Now hop on over to Chari's blog at Happy to Design to see all the other participants for this week.

Sunday Favorites-More Halloween costumes from the past

It's time for Sunday Favorites hosted by Chari at Happy to Design. I love this blog party as you don't have to come up with something new. This is the ultimate "green" party. We get to recycle an oldie but goody post from the past.

Last week I showed you a post from last October with Halloween costumes from the past of my son Brandon, my niece Danica, my sister Jodi & me.

This week I will show you part two. More Halloween costumes from the past. This week is mostly my nephews. A few more of my son Brandon and finally one of my sister Andrea.

This originally posted last October as well.


Jodi emailed me the following Halloween photos of Andrea's kids. She didn't want to post on her own blog with the photos so she asked me to do it for her.
This is Zak dressed as a bum for Halloween in 2003.

Andrea's kids: Zak, Nate, Simon & Noah (Peter Pan) . Halloween 2003

Halloween 2003: Nate dressed as ? Andrea wasn't sure what Nate was dressed as. Any ideas?

Halloween 2003: Simon dressed as a nerd.

Halloween 2005: Noah dressed as Star Wars character. Not sure which one. Noah, who are you suppose to be?

Halloween 2005: Noah & Simon

Halloween 2005: Simon dressed as the "Flash". I thought this was Nate, but Jodi said it was Simon. I emailed the photos to Andrea & she confirmed that it was Simon.

I may have more photos to post throughout the week. It depends if Jodi and/or Andrea email some more to me.

Kim


Lucky you, here are some more:
Brandon as a Praying Mantis. (Kim made the costume.)

Brandon as an Eagle (Kim made the costume)

I think this is Noah (not sure it might be Simon). Isn't he a cute cow?

Simon in Brandon's dinosaur Costume

Zak (Clown) Nate (Lion King)

Brandon as a Butterfly Catcher






Andrea's boys.










Last photo is Andrea as a scarecrow.







I hope that you have enjoyed our Halloween costumes from the past. I wish I knew what year each of the photos was taken. All I can tell you is that now, my son Brandon is 26. Zak is 19, Nate 17, Simon 14, Noah 12. That might help you gage how old each photo is. I won't tell you how old my sister Andrea is. She would kill me. And I want to live to see this Halloween.

Next week I'll show you some Halloween costume photos from when I was a kid.

Kim