I don't have a title for my post, so I just put the first thing that came to my mind. It's true all the time, of course, but I must say that I've been blessed to FEEL it a lot in the past week or so. God has been helping me in so many ways--in my prayer life, in my relationships, WITH MY MOUTH (I've been praying every morning, "God, set a watch before my mouth and keep the door of my lips!"--and He is miracle working God!!! Ha!) and even with my face, I hope. I've gotten better over the years about holding my tongue, but have still had little to no control over my facial expressions. (Another one of those gene things. Thanks, Mom--HA!) And the Lord has really been helping me be more diligent and make better use of my time. Nevermind the fact that I'm blogging and that I have a new template... Ha! Really, He's been helping me and I'm so, so, soooooo thankful.
I've been able to scratch several things off of my "to do" list this week and it feels sooooo good. It's the best idea in the world to get all of the house cleaning, laundry and ironing done on Monday (and in my case Tuesday and sometimes on into Wednesday--ha!) and then you have the rest of the week to ACCOMPLISH things and simply "maintain" the house. I finally sat down and wrote in our Christmas Memories book... for 2009 and 2010! I'm SUCH a slacker! Ha! I had to go to my blog entries from December 2009 to refresh my memory so I'd know what to write about. It was nice to remember what a fantastic Christmas we had with Mom and Dad last year--"wrapping" them in that giant box for the kids to open, watching movies, doing puzzles and playing games with Mom, fixing broken bows and restringing guitars with Dad... I love memories like that. :-) So now I'm actually CAUGHT UP on that book and I can't possibly fall behind again for almost another year. Wa-Hoo! That feels GREAT. :-)
I also sat down and wrote out thank you cards for the Christmas gifts and offerings we received. Well... most of them. Hopefully all of them, but I just don't know. I had been recording everything in my "Christmas 2010" file (the list of who we sent cards to, who we received cards from, what gifts we got and who to thank for what...), but when I pulled it up today it was incomplete. It was THERE, but not the finished version of it. I had gone through the stack of cards after Christmas and made note of who we received from as well as the gifts we got, but the finished list is GONE. All I have is the list I had begun in early December--with about 8 names on it. Oopsie. I have no idea how that happened. Anyway, I really THINK that I got thank you cards to everybody I was supposed to... but now there's no way to be certain. If you did anything wonderful for me or my family and don't get a card, THANK YOU!!! Ha! Can I blame the computer for it???
I also made up Ladies' Retreat applications today. :-) It seems like it's been ages since I've done anything like that. I just love jobs of that nature. I like to dink around on the computer and it makes me feel good to be able to do it for a Church reason. Is that selfish? That I like to do it because it makes me feel good?! Ha! Anyway, I'm waiting on one little bit of information. I'm hoping to get the apps and fliers finished up, printed, and in the mail tomorrow. We're less than two months away now!
Let's see... what else? Last week sometime we discovered that we had an "extra" stereo up in the attic. It's one I used in my office in Texas, but we didn't have a place for it here. I pulled it down and put it in the boys' room because they're always wanting music in there. I got it all cleaned up and super glued (long story), set up just right, speakers plugged in... and then we discovered that the CD player doesn't work. It won't even open. (No, I wasn't using any super glue around that area.) So I pulled out a stack of my old Cathedrals tapes. Joe was soooooo excited. He loves the Cathedrals. He was thrilled to suddenly have access to a bunch of songs he'd never heard before and I've really enjoyed hearing some that I hadn't heard in many years. Tapes. My kids love tapes and records.
One other thing. I told Mom about it the other day, but I really wasn't sure how well it would blog, you know?! We were in town last week and Sam saw a VW Bug painted yellow with giant round "ears" strapped on top and a "tail" coming out of the back of it. He asked why it was "dressed" like a mouse and I explained to him that those cars belong to an extermination service. If you have mice or rats or bugs or snakes, you can call that company and they'll come to your house and get rid of them for you. There was a long silence before he finally ventured, "So... if the mice see that giant car dressed like a mouse, does it scare them away?" HA! HA! HA! Apparently I hadn't been clear in my explanation that the car was dressed like a mouse for the sake of advertising--to get your attention and make you remember their company so you'd know who to call when you needed an exterminator. He was trying real hard, in my failure to explain the necessary aspect of it, to come up with a reason why the car would look like a mouse. Once I explained further he started laughing, finding great humor in his own question. "Maybe it would scare them away! Ha! Ha! Ha! That's so great!" I love that kid so much!!!
Okay, that's it. All the news around here. Not very exciting, but it's what I've got. :-)
Friday, January 21, 2011
Tuesday, January 18, 2011
It's Been Half a Week
But I thought I'd go ahead and post again anyway. :-)
Saturday was a great day. James came to me and asked if I'd like a little time alone. ?! Is there a reason he would need to ask??? ;-) He took the kids and headed to town--and they were gone for about 5 hours!!! WOW! I didn't know what to do with myself!!! So I dusted. What's up with that?! I don't know what came over me, but that was the first thing I did. I hadn't dusted our bedroom in who knows how long and it was pretty thick and nasty. After the dusting I decided to vacuum the whole house. Once I had the house looking and feeling nice and clean I headed to the bedroom to work on Ladies' Retreat stuff for a couple of hours. It was soooooooo nice!!! Even Charlie was good for me and slept the whole time I was doing the "spiritual" stuff. ~sigh~ What a grand and glorious day. I'm feeling like I'll probably do the devotions at Retreat myself and I was able to get some thoughts and scriptures put together--which sort of freaks me out. Retreat is two months away. I'm NEVER prepared early. I'm far from done, of course, but I usually don't even BEGIN until way closer--regardless of all my good intentions to plan ahead. Anyway, it feels good to know that I've BEGUN. And I just got confirmation tonight that Sister Bishop will indeed be our Special (even though she's not exactly a "guest") Speaker. I think that's how I'll put it on the applications. ;-) I know it's weird to have her do it because she's FROM Alabama, but she's really the only one that kept coming back to my mind that I kept feeling real good about. That means one of two things. 1) She's the one God has for us this year. 2) I need to meet more people. HA!
Sunday we only had a morning service. Since Brother Chris was away at Men's Retreat we had our Sunday School and morning worship, then Sister Yolanda did her VLB service (that had been scheduled for that night) immediately afterward. After service we went to the Whole Hog Cafe. James was not impressed. They have one of the best pulled pork sandwiches I've ever had, but after trying James' brisket I understood why he didn't think it was so great. Oh well.
We came home and had the rest of the day free, which always feels a little weird on a Sunday. I told James that my #1 priority was to FINISH THE PUZZLE!!! Before laundry or ironing or anything else, I was going to finish that crazy puzzle that I started, when?, the day after Christmas or something?! It's been sitting out in the den, then rolled up and put in the chuckwagon table, then sitting on that table, for at least two weeks, I'm sure. It is soooooo pretty, but a CRAZY difficult puzzle! So that's what I did with my Sunday evening. And I did succeed. Wa-Hoo!!! Don't know if I'll ever try that one again though--at least without Mom around to help out. :-)
Yesterday must have been a pretty regular day because I can't remember much about it. Brother Chris and Carlos worked on the replacing the pond liner. James made lunch for everybody--chicken enchiladas and homemade, super greasy tacos. Yum. :-) We weren't hungry at dinner time, so we let the kids scrounge. Left-overs or sandwiches--whichever. When James and I finally got hungry at about 9:00 I cooked up some scrambled eggs and we had scrambled egg sandwiches just like Dad used to make. :-) Then a bowl of cereal for dessert. HA! I almost felt like a real failure of a housewife over that one... ;-)
Today was a great day for the kid-o's. We had devotions, then spend the morning doing housework. We left late-morning and headed for the library--always the highlight of the week around here. From there we went to Pizza Hut to get the kids free pizzas for being such great readers (BookIt!), and then to Krispy Kreme with the report cards I had printed out a few days ago. Did you know that they give a free doughnut for ever "A" on a report card?! Katie has 6 subjects and the boys each have 5 -- and they have all been very successful in all -- so that means we came away with 16 free doughnuts today! Whoa!!! James says we ought to print out a report card for them every week. HA! That's so wrong. Anyway, it was GREAT.
When we got home today I got a call from Mom saying she'd just finished up on the E.L. and needed it proofread pronto. So I devoted the rest of my day to that, in between taking the VERY WELL TRAINED PUPPY outside (he's been perfect for... oh, I don't know--a week or two?) and helping kids with school stuff. Katie was kind enough to make dinner for us tonight so I wouldn't have to stop for that. She made tuna noodle casserole, peas, and brownies ALL by herself. I love that girl. :-) Her only mishap this time was accidentally grabbing the wrong measuring cup and putting twice as much Parmesan cheese in the topping (Parmesan, breadcrumbs, and melted butter) but, hey, it's hard to have too much Parmesan. :-) It was GREAT.
The other excitement around here is that James bought a typing program for the kids a few days ago. I've been wanting to get them one so they can work on using the proper fingers for the right keys and all that. They LOVE it and, truth be told, so do I. :-) My best score was 86 WPM last night, but it was a total fluke. I'm much more consistently about 65 WMB. And when they throw in a bunch of weird symbols (on the number keys) I go way down to about 45 WPM. Ha! But it's lots of fun. Even Sam has been doing it. I figure it will make things that much easier for him when he starts into computer school. He's doing GREAT with his reading, by the way. ~sigh~ All my kids are getting so grown up! Katie keeps saying she thinks I should join the Pregnant Overseer's Wives Club. Joe heard her the other day and said, "That's dumb, Katie--she can't join that! She's not pregnant!" HA! Nuthin' gets past that kid, I tell ya'. ;-)
Saturday was a great day. James came to me and asked if I'd like a little time alone. ?! Is there a reason he would need to ask??? ;-) He took the kids and headed to town--and they were gone for about 5 hours!!! WOW! I didn't know what to do with myself!!! So I dusted. What's up with that?! I don't know what came over me, but that was the first thing I did. I hadn't dusted our bedroom in who knows how long and it was pretty thick and nasty. After the dusting I decided to vacuum the whole house. Once I had the house looking and feeling nice and clean I headed to the bedroom to work on Ladies' Retreat stuff for a couple of hours. It was soooooooo nice!!! Even Charlie was good for me and slept the whole time I was doing the "spiritual" stuff. ~sigh~ What a grand and glorious day. I'm feeling like I'll probably do the devotions at Retreat myself and I was able to get some thoughts and scriptures put together--which sort of freaks me out. Retreat is two months away. I'm NEVER prepared early. I'm far from done, of course, but I usually don't even BEGIN until way closer--regardless of all my good intentions to plan ahead. Anyway, it feels good to know that I've BEGUN. And I just got confirmation tonight that Sister Bishop will indeed be our Special (even though she's not exactly a "guest") Speaker. I think that's how I'll put it on the applications. ;-) I know it's weird to have her do it because she's FROM Alabama, but she's really the only one that kept coming back to my mind that I kept feeling real good about. That means one of two things. 1) She's the one God has for us this year. 2) I need to meet more people. HA!
Sunday we only had a morning service. Since Brother Chris was away at Men's Retreat we had our Sunday School and morning worship, then Sister Yolanda did her VLB service (that had been scheduled for that night) immediately afterward. After service we went to the Whole Hog Cafe. James was not impressed. They have one of the best pulled pork sandwiches I've ever had, but after trying James' brisket I understood why he didn't think it was so great. Oh well.
We came home and had the rest of the day free, which always feels a little weird on a Sunday. I told James that my #1 priority was to FINISH THE PUZZLE!!! Before laundry or ironing or anything else, I was going to finish that crazy puzzle that I started, when?, the day after Christmas or something?! It's been sitting out in the den, then rolled up and put in the chuckwagon table, then sitting on that table, for at least two weeks, I'm sure. It is soooooo pretty, but a CRAZY difficult puzzle! So that's what I did with my Sunday evening. And I did succeed. Wa-Hoo!!! Don't know if I'll ever try that one again though--at least without Mom around to help out. :-)
Yesterday must have been a pretty regular day because I can't remember much about it. Brother Chris and Carlos worked on the replacing the pond liner. James made lunch for everybody--chicken enchiladas and homemade, super greasy tacos. Yum. :-) We weren't hungry at dinner time, so we let the kids scrounge. Left-overs or sandwiches--whichever. When James and I finally got hungry at about 9:00 I cooked up some scrambled eggs and we had scrambled egg sandwiches just like Dad used to make. :-) Then a bowl of cereal for dessert. HA! I almost felt like a real failure of a housewife over that one... ;-)
Today was a great day for the kid-o's. We had devotions, then spend the morning doing housework. We left late-morning and headed for the library--always the highlight of the week around here. From there we went to Pizza Hut to get the kids free pizzas for being such great readers (BookIt!), and then to Krispy Kreme with the report cards I had printed out a few days ago. Did you know that they give a free doughnut for ever "A" on a report card?! Katie has 6 subjects and the boys each have 5 -- and they have all been very successful in all -- so that means we came away with 16 free doughnuts today! Whoa!!! James says we ought to print out a report card for them every week. HA! That's so wrong. Anyway, it was GREAT.
When we got home today I got a call from Mom saying she'd just finished up on the E.L. and needed it proofread pronto. So I devoted the rest of my day to that, in between taking the VERY WELL TRAINED PUPPY outside (he's been perfect for... oh, I don't know--a week or two?) and helping kids with school stuff. Katie was kind enough to make dinner for us tonight so I wouldn't have to stop for that. She made tuna noodle casserole, peas, and brownies ALL by herself. I love that girl. :-) Her only mishap this time was accidentally grabbing the wrong measuring cup and putting twice as much Parmesan cheese in the topping (Parmesan, breadcrumbs, and melted butter) but, hey, it's hard to have too much Parmesan. :-) It was GREAT.
The other excitement around here is that James bought a typing program for the kids a few days ago. I've been wanting to get them one so they can work on using the proper fingers for the right keys and all that. They LOVE it and, truth be told, so do I. :-) My best score was 86 WPM last night, but it was a total fluke. I'm much more consistently about 65 WMB. And when they throw in a bunch of weird symbols (on the number keys) I go way down to about 45 WPM. Ha! But it's lots of fun. Even Sam has been doing it. I figure it will make things that much easier for him when he starts into computer school. He's doing GREAT with his reading, by the way. ~sigh~ All my kids are getting so grown up! Katie keeps saying she thinks I should join the Pregnant Overseer's Wives Club. Joe heard her the other day and said, "That's dumb, Katie--she can't join that! She's not pregnant!" HA! Nuthin' gets past that kid, I tell ya'. ;-)
Friday, January 14, 2011
The Friday Update
Another whole week since I blogged?! ~sigh~ What a loser.
Okay, what's gone on in the past WEEK... Well, on Saturday we went into town to meet Erika & Tayde for lunch! They were here to do some Chili Fanatic business (and bring us some chili, the dears) so we met at Dion's for pizza. It was so nice seeing them and catching up!
That night I made fried chicken, potatoes, corn, and the BEST gravy ever!!! I know that probably doesn't seem blog worthy to most people, but for me it is a major accomplishment. I have real problems with gravy--you just never know how it's going to turn out. But this was PERFECT and oh-so-tasty. If only I could do it again...
That night James started shuffling through all of his old vinyl records and--for some yet undetermined reason--he pulled out his old Mousercize album. (The more I've thought about it the more disturbed I've become over the fact that he EVER owned such a thing...) He put it on and had Katie and Joe "work out" with him. HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! I laughed sooooooo hard--and was soooooo embarrassed! (The most embarrassing things are when other people don't have the good sense to be embarrassed for themselves. ~ahem~) Poor Joe. Katie, uninhibited soul that she is, jumped right in there and had a blast, but Joe was totally mortified. He begged and pleaded with James with all his might ("Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease, Dad! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease don't make me do that!!! Spank me if you have do, but PLEASE, PLEASE don't make me!!!!"), but to no avail. He was forced to participate a little bit. My heart was breaking for him--I know the dread and humiliation he was feeling! Joe's a much better sport than I am though and managed to not burst into tears OR get a spankin'--things I'm not sure I could have pulled off at that age. Ha! I don't know where Sam was, but he managed to miss the entire ordeal, so at least one family member won't be scarred for life by the experience of watching their Dad "exercise" to Mickey Mouse's instructions. :-)
Sunday... I don't remember much about Sunday, just how much I'm enjoying the Sunday School lessons. I especially enjoyed the story about Jack the sheep who just kept breaking through the hedges and running away and putting himself in great danger; the shepherd finally--because of his love for the sheep--had to break his leg, then carry the sheep until he was healed. In the end, Jack straightened up and became the most loyal sheep he ever had. I wonder how many times I fail to learn my lesson and continue to make the same mistake. Sometimes God has to "break our legs" and bring some deep suffering into our lives--but oh, the love of God that would cause Him to do that for us!!! I pray I will always respond correctly when God loves me enough to chasten me.
Monday was a great day because I had all of the laundry AND ironing done by noon. Wa-Hoo! I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's a first in my lifetime. Scrubbed bathrooms that day and who knows what else.
On Tuesday Brother Chris brought Cainan with him to work here at the house. The kids thought that was fantastic. :-) We took Cainan with us and headed to town at about noon, went to the library, used our McDonald's gift card (so glad to be done with THAT!), then went to Penney's to pick up Sam's new helicopter that had come in. The one he got for Christmas was defective, so we returned it and they had to order a new one. From there we made another stop or two on our way to Sadie's birthday party at 3:00 at the Clarkson's house. We had a lot of fun, but I'm not sure Sadie did. She spent most of the day getting herself in big trouble and suffering the consequences for it. Not a good way to have your own party! In the end, we all had cake and ice cream, Sadie opened her gifts, and we had time to squeeze in a couple of games before we left.
Wednesday was a regular ole day around here, save the haircuts. I cut all three kids' hair--they were all looking horrible and were way past due. I've never trimmed Katie's hair before (just bangs), so I watched a tutorial on YouTube to figure out how you're supposed to do it. Ha! I'm not sure it helped. I ended up taking off way more than I intended and way, way more than Katie was prepared to loose! She shed lots of tears over it and handled it in her typical "the world is coming to an end" drama-queen sort of way. I would say it still classifies as long hair easily enough (it HAD been all the way down to her rump), but since I took 6-8" I'm wondering why I didn't just go ahead and take 10" and send it to Locks of Love--then at least Katie would feel there was some purpose in her losing her glory. ;-) I'm just happy that I can actually get a brush through it again. It looks and feels sooooo much better.
Yesterday we pulled Brother Chris in from his work and made him help clear out the left-overs we were trying to get rid of. He did a great job and we enjoyed the fellowship, as always. He's such a goofball and keeps us laughing!
We left early for church yesterday so we could return Sam's new helicopter to Penney's. Sad, isn't it? The first one had a defective power charger outlet thingie (technically speaking) and this one's lower propeller stopped working almost immediately. It's such a shame--it was a COOL toy and Sam was so crazy about it. But rather than try a third one we just took the money and ran. I hate it when Sam has money. He reminds of of the Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight, a super villain in a certain animated TV show we've seen. He tries to act normal and low-key so as to not get caught, but he's so bad he just can't pull it off: "Who, me? I'm just washing my hands and I, uh... I'm, um... I'M GONNA BLOW THIS PLACE UP, BABY! IT'S GONNA BLOW! HA! HA! HA!" Sam starts out well, but just can't seem to stick with it. "I'm going to put my money into savings and then I, uh... I'm, um... I'M GONNA SPEND IT, BABY--SPEND IT ALL TODAY!!!!" --Whatever happens to be for sale right in front of him is what Sam simply HAS to have. If you manage to walk him around to another aisle his passion changes and he must now blow his money on whatever is in front of him there. He has no self control whatsoever. It's exhausting for practical parents! Ha!
This morning James went into town to take a bag of stuff to Brother Chris. I forgot until we were at church last night that I had some things to send up to Colorado to be passed along to the Smiths. So last night I dug through Katie's closet and dresser in search of clothes that are too small that could be sent to Abbie. I stuffed everything into the biggest, froofiest, girliest bag I could find in hopes that Brother Chris will actually remember to give it to Jon. Surely he'll be anxious to get rid of it, right?!
And that's about it, except for pictures. I finally pulled the pictures from my camera--first time in two weeks or more. Crazy. Let's see what I've got...
Uh-oh. As I'm sure you feared, most of the pictures are of the dog. ~sigh~ Sorry! If he'd stop being so stinkin' cute I'd stop taking so many pictures of him! I'll tell the kids they're going to just have to step up their own cuteness a few notches so as to not be outdone by Charlie. ;-) Anyway, here we go!
First we have the boys engaged in a deep and serious battle of wits. Looks like Sam had been playing cops that day. I love it when he dresses up. :-)
Okay, what's gone on in the past WEEK... Well, on Saturday we went into town to meet Erika & Tayde for lunch! They were here to do some Chili Fanatic business (and bring us some chili, the dears) so we met at Dion's for pizza. It was so nice seeing them and catching up!
That night I made fried chicken, potatoes, corn, and the BEST gravy ever!!! I know that probably doesn't seem blog worthy to most people, but for me it is a major accomplishment. I have real problems with gravy--you just never know how it's going to turn out. But this was PERFECT and oh-so-tasty. If only I could do it again...
That night James started shuffling through all of his old vinyl records and--for some yet undetermined reason--he pulled out his old Mousercize album. (The more I've thought about it the more disturbed I've become over the fact that he EVER owned such a thing...) He put it on and had Katie and Joe "work out" with him. HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! I laughed sooooooo hard--and was soooooo embarrassed! (The most embarrassing things are when other people don't have the good sense to be embarrassed for themselves. ~ahem~) Poor Joe. Katie, uninhibited soul that she is, jumped right in there and had a blast, but Joe was totally mortified. He begged and pleaded with James with all his might ("Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease, Dad! Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease don't make me do that!!! Spank me if you have do, but PLEASE, PLEASE don't make me!!!!"), but to no avail. He was forced to participate a little bit. My heart was breaking for him--I know the dread and humiliation he was feeling! Joe's a much better sport than I am though and managed to not burst into tears OR get a spankin'--things I'm not sure I could have pulled off at that age. Ha! I don't know where Sam was, but he managed to miss the entire ordeal, so at least one family member won't be scarred for life by the experience of watching their Dad "exercise" to Mickey Mouse's instructions. :-)
Sunday... I don't remember much about Sunday, just how much I'm enjoying the Sunday School lessons. I especially enjoyed the story about Jack the sheep who just kept breaking through the hedges and running away and putting himself in great danger; the shepherd finally--because of his love for the sheep--had to break his leg, then carry the sheep until he was healed. In the end, Jack straightened up and became the most loyal sheep he ever had. I wonder how many times I fail to learn my lesson and continue to make the same mistake. Sometimes God has to "break our legs" and bring some deep suffering into our lives--but oh, the love of God that would cause Him to do that for us!!! I pray I will always respond correctly when God loves me enough to chasten me.
Monday was a great day because I had all of the laundry AND ironing done by noon. Wa-Hoo! I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure it's a first in my lifetime. Scrubbed bathrooms that day and who knows what else.
On Tuesday Brother Chris brought Cainan with him to work here at the house. The kids thought that was fantastic. :-) We took Cainan with us and headed to town at about noon, went to the library, used our McDonald's gift card (so glad to be done with THAT!), then went to Penney's to pick up Sam's new helicopter that had come in. The one he got for Christmas was defective, so we returned it and they had to order a new one. From there we made another stop or two on our way to Sadie's birthday party at 3:00 at the Clarkson's house. We had a lot of fun, but I'm not sure Sadie did. She spent most of the day getting herself in big trouble and suffering the consequences for it. Not a good way to have your own party! In the end, we all had cake and ice cream, Sadie opened her gifts, and we had time to squeeze in a couple of games before we left.
Wednesday was a regular ole day around here, save the haircuts. I cut all three kids' hair--they were all looking horrible and were way past due. I've never trimmed Katie's hair before (just bangs), so I watched a tutorial on YouTube to figure out how you're supposed to do it. Ha! I'm not sure it helped. I ended up taking off way more than I intended and way, way more than Katie was prepared to loose! She shed lots of tears over it and handled it in her typical "the world is coming to an end" drama-queen sort of way. I would say it still classifies as long hair easily enough (it HAD been all the way down to her rump), but since I took 6-8" I'm wondering why I didn't just go ahead and take 10" and send it to Locks of Love--then at least Katie would feel there was some purpose in her losing her glory. ;-) I'm just happy that I can actually get a brush through it again. It looks and feels sooooo much better.
Yesterday we pulled Brother Chris in from his work and made him help clear out the left-overs we were trying to get rid of. He did a great job and we enjoyed the fellowship, as always. He's such a goofball and keeps us laughing!
We left early for church yesterday so we could return Sam's new helicopter to Penney's. Sad, isn't it? The first one had a defective power charger outlet thingie (technically speaking) and this one's lower propeller stopped working almost immediately. It's such a shame--it was a COOL toy and Sam was so crazy about it. But rather than try a third one we just took the money and ran. I hate it when Sam has money. He reminds of of the Midnight Bomber What Bombs at Midnight, a super villain in a certain animated TV show we've seen. He tries to act normal and low-key so as to not get caught, but he's so bad he just can't pull it off: "Who, me? I'm just washing my hands and I, uh... I'm, um... I'M GONNA BLOW THIS PLACE UP, BABY! IT'S GONNA BLOW! HA! HA! HA!" Sam starts out well, but just can't seem to stick with it. "I'm going to put my money into savings and then I, uh... I'm, um... I'M GONNA SPEND IT, BABY--SPEND IT ALL TODAY!!!!" --Whatever happens to be for sale right in front of him is what Sam simply HAS to have. If you manage to walk him around to another aisle his passion changes and he must now blow his money on whatever is in front of him there. He has no self control whatsoever. It's exhausting for practical parents! Ha!
This morning James went into town to take a bag of stuff to Brother Chris. I forgot until we were at church last night that I had some things to send up to Colorado to be passed along to the Smiths. So last night I dug through Katie's closet and dresser in search of clothes that are too small that could be sent to Abbie. I stuffed everything into the biggest, froofiest, girliest bag I could find in hopes that Brother Chris will actually remember to give it to Jon. Surely he'll be anxious to get rid of it, right?!
And that's about it, except for pictures. I finally pulled the pictures from my camera--first time in two weeks or more. Crazy. Let's see what I've got...
Uh-oh. As I'm sure you feared, most of the pictures are of the dog. ~sigh~ Sorry! If he'd stop being so stinkin' cute I'd stop taking so many pictures of him! I'll tell the kids they're going to just have to step up their own cuteness a few notches so as to not be outdone by Charlie. ;-) Anyway, here we go!
First we have the boys engaged in a deep and serious battle of wits. Looks like Sam had been playing cops that day. I love it when he dresses up. :-)
This must have been a day when Katie was sick because she never misses out on a chance to play in the snow, but I only have pictures of the boys. They were sledding on cardboard boxes. :-)
Charlie LOVES the snow. It's so funny to watch him bound through it, grabbing mouthfuls of it with every landing.
When I was doing the big un-decorating for Christmas thing (a two day project with the deep cleaning that accompanies it) the kids went through a huge stack of James' old book and record sets and thought they were the coolest thing ever. They listened to these ALL DAY LONG. I think everybody's favorite one is Lazy Jack. They also like the Flintstones, Popeye and Swiss Family Robinson.
Ha! This was taken on a Monday night sometime. It's Joe's job to gather all the trash every Monday night, get it into the dumpster, then haul the dumpster down to the street. He usually tries to get it done before dark, but he failed this time and needed a flashlight to find his way. With both hands pushing the dumpster he had none left for a flashlight, so Katie let him borrow her book light. So here we have Joe sporting the angler fish look. :-)
And finally, Charlie doing what he does best: wreaking havoc and interfering with whatever anybody is trying to do. When he thinks he needs attention, he needs it NOW. :-)
Joe had great plans with this length of yarn--it was to be a rope of some sort, no doubt to be used in creating a booby trap of some sort... if only Charlie would leave it alone. :-)
Looks like that's about it for the pictures.
This weekend my goal is to NOT think about the guys being a Men's Retreat in Colorado (not James this time, of course) and how it's the weekend of The Girl Party that I love so dearly. ~sigh~ I was doing great and actually hadn't even had a twinge of "wish I could go" at all until Jamey called me last night--then it was suddenly killing me that I'll be missing it again! Ha! I hope they have a GREAT time and that the guys have a fantastic Retreat. I know I'll hear more about the Retreat than all of the girls who actually have husbands there because Brother Chris will be coming back here--and he shares more than all of the rest of the guys combined. :-) I'll have to depend on Emilee to fill us in on The Girl Party (even though it's just the Emilee & Jamey Party this year) on her blog. I would say that was a reminder for her, but I'm sure she gave up long ago on this blog--I ramble way too much to keep her attention to the very end! :-)
Friday, January 7, 2011
Blogless
Not to say I no longer have a blog. Just that I am "less" anything to blog. Can't think of a thing. I hate it when that happens.
The only news of consequence is that I am now the director of Ladies' Retreat in Alabama. I've actually known that since sometime in December, but in the past week or two I've really been trying to focus on it and get some direction. I've just been trying to hone in on a theme and a guest speaker, figuring that would be the starting point. So far it's yielded no results whatsoever. Ha! I'm already starting to feel some excitement about it... just no direction. :-) It's tricky, too, because I don't know anybody in Alabama. So trying to think of who to use for staff leaves me a little dumbfounded. That means that the few people I know are doomed. You know who you are. ;-)
We had a house showing today. One of those really frustrating ones. Jason called and said they'd be here in 45 minutes. The house was NOT show-worthy, so I spent that time running in circles getting things put away and floors mopped and vacuumed and all that stuff. I was still at it when they arrived--though things were looking good by then. I opened the door and saw three men. A realtor, the client, and a friend. Men. Three men. I went on a mad cleaning frenzy for three men!!! They were in and out pretty quick. Jerks. Ha! Who knows though. There have been plenty of people go through the house and take their time and declare how much they loved it, and nothing has come from it. Maybe the jerks who breezed through with smirks on their faces and had no questions about it whatsoever will surprise us with an offer, right?! Ya' just never know. I can't very well pray and ask God to send people to look at the house, then be skeptical when He answers because they don't fit my mind's picture of the kind of people who would like the house! Ha!
In other news, Brother Chris is now finished with the roof and it looks terrific. He replaced the boys' broken winder (I caught that typo, but thought it appropriate to leave it since we'll be Alabians soon--ha!) a few days ago and now he's staining the house, office, and shed. We're so used to having him outside here it's going to feel a bit strange when he's not there anymore! :-) He's doing a great job and it's fun to watch him work because he is SUCH a perfectionist. And the kids just love having him around. They spend lots of their day outside talking to him and (probably) harassing him. Most days we're able to talk him into coming in for lunch so we all get some fellowship time. :-)
James is in the market for another vehicle. We've been without a second vehicle for over a year and a half now, if I remember correctly. Most of the time it's been okay, but it's certainly not ideal. Since it's looking like James is going to have to take one more trip to Alabama before taking the whole family with him (bummer), it seems like it would be a really good time to get another vehicle. We went to town and looked at a few things this afternoon and James will be going back in the morning to do some haggling over the one or two that he's got his eye on. We'll see what happens. Praying for God's will on that one.
We're doing something a little different with our morning devotions now. I'm doing one of those read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year things with the kids. I read to them from the New Testament, the Old Testament, then a couple of verses from Proverbs, then Katie and Joe get their Bibles and go to their rooms to read the passage from Psalms and pray while Sam and I read it together and pray. I'm loving it and the kids seem to be enjoying it, too. I have Sam do as much reading as he can in the Psalm and he's doing great. So far it's a hit with all of us. :-)
The Charles is doing well. We now leave him in The Box (his little dog crate) when we leave the house. I hate doing that, but he totally spazzes out when we lock him in the bathroom. He shreds the pad I leave out for him--or toilet paper if he can reach it--and just makes a royal mess of the room. It's like he panics when we leave him alone and decides to tear up jack. I'm sure he panics just the same in The Box, but he doesn't have anything to tear up in there! He cries when we put him in, but I'm supposing he gets bored quickly and gives up a lot sooner. He's always quiet when we come home, so that's a definite plus. The house training is going well. He had that one terrible lapse last week, but has done terrific since then. He's jingling the bells (yes, I left them up when I took the Christmas stuff down!) to go out most all of the time and has been perfect in the house for several days now. Good puppy. Aside from that, he is a MESS! That dog cracks me up. He has just discovered Sam's hacky-sack and thinks it's the best thing ever. He "fetches" it when you throw it, then darts around you and retreats to his bed with it. Right at this moment he wants to play in a serious way and is driving me nuts. I've stopped several times and wrestled with him and let him chew on my hands and thrown him around the room, but apparently it's not enough. I've given him a ball, a slipper, a cardboard tube--all of which have held his attention for about 30 seconds, then he wants me again. Right now he's jumping up at my chair and giving a "woof" every 10 seconds or so. Pitiful. But, of course, he'll win and I'll pick him up momentarily. He has me well trained. :-) This means he's almost ready for bed, thank goodness. He always gets really hyper and wants to play a LOT just before he crashes at night.
Rats. There I go again, rambling on about the dog. He commands so much of my attention--even on my blog! Ha!
Back to the house thing, Jason told James today that the market is starting to pick up again now that the holidays are over, so we're trying to have high hopes that it will mean good things for us. I am soooooooooooooooooooooooo ready to be in Alabama. Beyond ready. God knows. So help us pray, pray, pray! I want to be where God wants us to be. :-)
That's it. I would check to see if I have any new pictures, but my camera is at the other end of the house and it's just not worth it. Maybe next time.
The only news of consequence is that I am now the director of Ladies' Retreat in Alabama. I've actually known that since sometime in December, but in the past week or two I've really been trying to focus on it and get some direction. I've just been trying to hone in on a theme and a guest speaker, figuring that would be the starting point. So far it's yielded no results whatsoever. Ha! I'm already starting to feel some excitement about it... just no direction. :-) It's tricky, too, because I don't know anybody in Alabama. So trying to think of who to use for staff leaves me a little dumbfounded. That means that the few people I know are doomed. You know who you are. ;-)
We had a house showing today. One of those really frustrating ones. Jason called and said they'd be here in 45 minutes. The house was NOT show-worthy, so I spent that time running in circles getting things put away and floors mopped and vacuumed and all that stuff. I was still at it when they arrived--though things were looking good by then. I opened the door and saw three men. A realtor, the client, and a friend. Men. Three men. I went on a mad cleaning frenzy for three men!!! They were in and out pretty quick. Jerks. Ha! Who knows though. There have been plenty of people go through the house and take their time and declare how much they loved it, and nothing has come from it. Maybe the jerks who breezed through with smirks on their faces and had no questions about it whatsoever will surprise us with an offer, right?! Ya' just never know. I can't very well pray and ask God to send people to look at the house, then be skeptical when He answers because they don't fit my mind's picture of the kind of people who would like the house! Ha!
In other news, Brother Chris is now finished with the roof and it looks terrific. He replaced the boys' broken winder (I caught that typo, but thought it appropriate to leave it since we'll be Alabians soon--ha!) a few days ago and now he's staining the house, office, and shed. We're so used to having him outside here it's going to feel a bit strange when he's not there anymore! :-) He's doing a great job and it's fun to watch him work because he is SUCH a perfectionist. And the kids just love having him around. They spend lots of their day outside talking to him and (probably) harassing him. Most days we're able to talk him into coming in for lunch so we all get some fellowship time. :-)
James is in the market for another vehicle. We've been without a second vehicle for over a year and a half now, if I remember correctly. Most of the time it's been okay, but it's certainly not ideal. Since it's looking like James is going to have to take one more trip to Alabama before taking the whole family with him (bummer), it seems like it would be a really good time to get another vehicle. We went to town and looked at a few things this afternoon and James will be going back in the morning to do some haggling over the one or two that he's got his eye on. We'll see what happens. Praying for God's will on that one.
We're doing something a little different with our morning devotions now. I'm doing one of those read-through-the-Bible-in-a-year things with the kids. I read to them from the New Testament, the Old Testament, then a couple of verses from Proverbs, then Katie and Joe get their Bibles and go to their rooms to read the passage from Psalms and pray while Sam and I read it together and pray. I'm loving it and the kids seem to be enjoying it, too. I have Sam do as much reading as he can in the Psalm and he's doing great. So far it's a hit with all of us. :-)
The Charles is doing well. We now leave him in The Box (his little dog crate) when we leave the house. I hate doing that, but he totally spazzes out when we lock him in the bathroom. He shreds the pad I leave out for him--or toilet paper if he can reach it--and just makes a royal mess of the room. It's like he panics when we leave him alone and decides to tear up jack. I'm sure he panics just the same in The Box, but he doesn't have anything to tear up in there! He cries when we put him in, but I'm supposing he gets bored quickly and gives up a lot sooner. He's always quiet when we come home, so that's a definite plus. The house training is going well. He had that one terrible lapse last week, but has done terrific since then. He's jingling the bells (yes, I left them up when I took the Christmas stuff down!) to go out most all of the time and has been perfect in the house for several days now. Good puppy. Aside from that, he is a MESS! That dog cracks me up. He has just discovered Sam's hacky-sack and thinks it's the best thing ever. He "fetches" it when you throw it, then darts around you and retreats to his bed with it. Right at this moment he wants to play in a serious way and is driving me nuts. I've stopped several times and wrestled with him and let him chew on my hands and thrown him around the room, but apparently it's not enough. I've given him a ball, a slipper, a cardboard tube--all of which have held his attention for about 30 seconds, then he wants me again. Right now he's jumping up at my chair and giving a "woof" every 10 seconds or so. Pitiful. But, of course, he'll win and I'll pick him up momentarily. He has me well trained. :-) This means he's almost ready for bed, thank goodness. He always gets really hyper and wants to play a LOT just before he crashes at night.
Rats. There I go again, rambling on about the dog. He commands so much of my attention--even on my blog! Ha!
Back to the house thing, Jason told James today that the market is starting to pick up again now that the holidays are over, so we're trying to have high hopes that it will mean good things for us. I am soooooooooooooooooooooooo ready to be in Alabama. Beyond ready. God knows. So help us pray, pray, pray! I want to be where God wants us to be. :-)
That's it. I would check to see if I have any new pictures, but my camera is at the other end of the house and it's just not worth it. Maybe next time.
Friday, December 31, 2010
New Year's Eve
For lack of a better title. :-) It seems I've fallen behind again. A whole other week! ~sigh~
We had a nice Sunday, as I recall. We sang some Baptist songs (that's what we call those good old hymns that aren't found in the blue book--ha!) like To God be the Glory and Great is Thy Faithfulness. Some of those songs are soooooo good, but we so seldom sing them in the Church--so I really enjoyed them on Sunday. :-) Then James preached about not losing your spiritual vision, as did Eli.
After service we went to Pizza Hut to redeem our December Book It! coupons. We were almost out of time, you know! I had every intention of coming home and putting the house back together. (It was still trashed from the Christmas madness since I'd been sick most of the day!) By the time we were half way home I knew I was going to take a nap instead! Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. ;-) I had a nice nap, then enjoyed a good CPMA service about the Church being the dove spoken of in Song of Solomon. "My dove, my undefiled, is but one." Sister Galaviz talked about the many characteristics of a dove and how they apply--or should apply--to The Church of God. Very neat.
We got home from church that night and I finally found the motivation I'd been lacking. :-) I got all of the trash collected and thrown out, the clutter sorted through and put away, the kitchen cleaned, and then finally went to try on the new clothes I got for Christmas. Then I went through all of the Christmas cards we received and made a list of them for next year. After the kids were in bed James and I watched “Shop Around the Corner” (an OLD Jimmy Stewart movie) and ran out of steam before I was able to break out a puzzle. As if that would have been too taxing or something.
By Monday morning all of my motivation had snuck away somewhere. I ended up accomplishing very little. A little laundry, I think. I did sit down and help Joe built his robot that day. That was fun. :-) And I did break out my new, incredibly difficult Doug Knutson puzzle. I'm still not finished with it! Ha!
Tuesday contained nothing monumental. I did manage to get the guys off the roof to come in for lunch. Most days they show up at the break of dawn (or before--seriously!) and work until it's too dark to work anymore, without ever taking a break. I feel so much better when I'm able to get them into the house to sit down for a few minutes and eat a good meal. Though I think I just fed them left-overs that day. Whatever. Tuesday was also the day Katie decided to come down sick. We like to share like that around here. ;-)
Wednesday was a different sort of day. Anybody who knows us at all knows that James goes to town all the time. I never, ever, ever, ever go to town--unless it's with the whole family, of course. But alone? Never. But I did on Wednesday. :-) Katie still wasn't feeling well, so we couldn't take the whole family that day. There were a few things that I needed to do in town that James couldn't do for me, so he got to stay home with the kids. :-) I took Charlie in for his appointment (it was time for a haircut--the last one grew out way too fast, so I had them clip him much shorter this time!), dropped James' suit off at the cleaners, then headed to the mall to take care of my business there, returning and exchanging Christmas gifts that didn't fit or work. I went to Penney's then walked to Kohl's, then all the way back to Penney's, then ended up at Kohl's again. I'll spare you the gory details. :-) In the end I was able to accomplish everything that needed accomplished, though it was no easy chore.
Left the mall and headed to Wal-Mart (in Albuquerque--ME?! Who would've thunk it???) to pick up a few things. Went through the drive-through at Wendy's, went to pick up my pitiful, embarrassed puppy who had just received his very first real poodle cut (what a sad thing), then took him to get his last puppy shot. I hate that. I think he'd be better off with no shots at all, but you can't get a license if he doesn't have his shots and most groomers won't clip him if he doesn't have a license. I really ought to just learn to clip him myself. It would save us the money on paying to have it done AND we wouldn't have to give him all of those nasty shots. Anyway, at the clinic Charlie met a 9 week old Saint Bernard. Charlie was almost as big as his head. Ha! He was soooooo cute. :-)
Made it home just after 3:00, I think, and the snow had begun to fall. The roofers had to leave early because it was getting so cold and windy and snowy. Poor guys.
Yesterday Katie finally started feeling a little better, though she's still not 100%. At least she was able to eat something (hadn't done that in a couple of days) and she was able to keep it down--that was a definite improvement. She still slept most of the day away, however, and never went out to talk to Brother Chris. That's the truth teller right there. There is NO WAY that girl would miss a chance to talk to Brother Chris if she were well! The guys had to leave early yesterday, too, because it was snowing more and more and they couldn't keep the roof cleared off enough to continue shingling up there. They've worked through so much bad weather--no normal roofers would have even tried until the weather cleared up. James had gone to Edgewood to get some things from Wal-Mart (we were suddenly out of everything!) and he had a hard time getting home. The roads were horrible, there were several accidents already, and the Interstate was being shut down. He was able to make it here, but could only get the van partially up the drive-way. It kept snowing all throughout the afternoon, making it obvious that we'd be missing church again. Crazy!
When we figured out we wouldn't be going anywhere, I somehow decided that I should start taking down the Christmas decor. That was dumb. But I kept thinking it would be a good time to do it. The house is a total catastrophe for a day or two when I do that and I've been worried--what if Jason called and said somebody wanted to come see the house in the middle of the mess?! When the mini-blizzard hit I figured it would be the best possible time to jump in there and get it done. Not many people are going to put chains on their tires to go look at houses, you know. ;-) So I spent all afternoon and evening tearing down the Christmas stuff, sorting it, and packing it much better than I usually do. Packing it to MOVE this time, not just sit in a shed. Felt good to do something that somehow felt like one tiny, little step on the road to Alabama. :-)
Of course, I ran out of steam at about 10:00 last night. I had all of the Christmas stuff down and packing in boxes and bins... that were still all over the living room and dining room. Ah, yes. Amidst the chaos of de-Christmas-ing the house, Charlie was HORRIBLE yesterday. He's been doing sooooooo good with the house training (4 or 5 days with no accidents at all, then just a couple, then 4 or 5 more perfect days) and had SEVERAL accidents in the house yesterday. I was ready to KILL HIM!!! But I was all caught up in the big, messy project and didn't have the time or attention to give him--except to yell and beat him and throw him outside when it was too late! Ha! Anyway, today we've been treating him like we did the very first week--watching him every waking moment and taking him outside over and over and over again. And he's done much better. I hope to have him entirely back on track by tomorrow. We'll see.
Today James helped me haul the bins and bins and boxes and boxes of Christmas stuff out to the shed in the frigid weather. I think it was 6 degrees at the time. (Perhaps that, coupled with the incredibly messy house, had something to do with Charlie not wanting to do his thing outside?!) Then I spent the rest of the day moving furniture, sweeping, mopping, dusting, and redecorating. I hate that job, but it feels soooooo good when it's all over with. :-) I did take a few breaks to spend some time with Charlie, hoping perhaps that would help with his "issues" as well. James keeps reminding me that I wanted a lap dog. Charlie is the lappiest dog I've ever seen! He loves to play, but when he's ready to sit he seems to think the only sensible place to do that is in my lap! He spent a good deal of time playing with the kids today and had to settle for Katie's lap most of the time. That was no problem, really, since the kids spent ALL DAY today sitting next to the stereo. James had pulled down his old books and records (you know, "turn the page when you hear the bell") and they thought they were just the coolest thing. So they sat there for hour after hour listening to records and flipping through books--Lady and the Tramp, The Fox and the Hound, The Flintstones, Popeye, Davy Crockett, Sinbad the Sailor, and dozens more. I love it that my kids think those old things are so great! Ha!
I made some fantastical ham and beans for dinner tonight. The chicken and noodles from last night turned out great, too. I just love making things like that when it's cold and snowy outside! Makes ya' feel nice and cozy and toasty warm. :-)
We let the kids stay up late tonight since it's New Year's Eve. It's not quite 11:00 right now, but they've all crashed in the past hour. It's just as well. New Year's Eve has never been that big of a deal where I come from. I recall some really great ones when we would pray in the new year at church, or have a party with all the young people... But when nothing like that is going on, what's there to do?! If I'm still up at midnight it won't be because I tried; it'll be because it just happens. Right now I'm not quite tired enough to go to bed. And I have a nice, warm, fuzzy poodle snoring in my lap and I'm rather enjoying it. :-)
In any case, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I resolve to be a better blogger. Not really, but it's a nice thought. :-)
We had a nice Sunday, as I recall. We sang some Baptist songs (that's what we call those good old hymns that aren't found in the blue book--ha!) like To God be the Glory and Great is Thy Faithfulness. Some of those songs are soooooo good, but we so seldom sing them in the Church--so I really enjoyed them on Sunday. :-) Then James preached about not losing your spiritual vision, as did Eli.
After service we went to Pizza Hut to redeem our December Book It! coupons. We were almost out of time, you know! I had every intention of coming home and putting the house back together. (It was still trashed from the Christmas madness since I'd been sick most of the day!) By the time we were half way home I knew I was going to take a nap instead! Sometimes you just gotta do what you gotta do. ;-) I had a nice nap, then enjoyed a good CPMA service about the Church being the dove spoken of in Song of Solomon. "My dove, my undefiled, is but one." Sister Galaviz talked about the many characteristics of a dove and how they apply--or should apply--to The Church of God. Very neat.
We got home from church that night and I finally found the motivation I'd been lacking. :-) I got all of the trash collected and thrown out, the clutter sorted through and put away, the kitchen cleaned, and then finally went to try on the new clothes I got for Christmas. Then I went through all of the Christmas cards we received and made a list of them for next year. After the kids were in bed James and I watched “Shop Around the Corner” (an OLD Jimmy Stewart movie) and ran out of steam before I was able to break out a puzzle. As if that would have been too taxing or something.
By Monday morning all of my motivation had snuck away somewhere. I ended up accomplishing very little. A little laundry, I think. I did sit down and help Joe built his robot that day. That was fun. :-) And I did break out my new, incredibly difficult Doug Knutson puzzle. I'm still not finished with it! Ha!
Tuesday contained nothing monumental. I did manage to get the guys off the roof to come in for lunch. Most days they show up at the break of dawn (or before--seriously!) and work until it's too dark to work anymore, without ever taking a break. I feel so much better when I'm able to get them into the house to sit down for a few minutes and eat a good meal. Though I think I just fed them left-overs that day. Whatever. Tuesday was also the day Katie decided to come down sick. We like to share like that around here. ;-)
Wednesday was a different sort of day. Anybody who knows us at all knows that James goes to town all the time. I never, ever, ever, ever go to town--unless it's with the whole family, of course. But alone? Never. But I did on Wednesday. :-) Katie still wasn't feeling well, so we couldn't take the whole family that day. There were a few things that I needed to do in town that James couldn't do for me, so he got to stay home with the kids. :-) I took Charlie in for his appointment (it was time for a haircut--the last one grew out way too fast, so I had them clip him much shorter this time!), dropped James' suit off at the cleaners, then headed to the mall to take care of my business there, returning and exchanging Christmas gifts that didn't fit or work. I went to Penney's then walked to Kohl's, then all the way back to Penney's, then ended up at Kohl's again. I'll spare you the gory details. :-) In the end I was able to accomplish everything that needed accomplished, though it was no easy chore.
Left the mall and headed to Wal-Mart (in Albuquerque--ME?! Who would've thunk it???) to pick up a few things. Went through the drive-through at Wendy's, went to pick up my pitiful, embarrassed puppy who had just received his very first real poodle cut (what a sad thing), then took him to get his last puppy shot. I hate that. I think he'd be better off with no shots at all, but you can't get a license if he doesn't have his shots and most groomers won't clip him if he doesn't have a license. I really ought to just learn to clip him myself. It would save us the money on paying to have it done AND we wouldn't have to give him all of those nasty shots. Anyway, at the clinic Charlie met a 9 week old Saint Bernard. Charlie was almost as big as his head. Ha! He was soooooo cute. :-)
Made it home just after 3:00, I think, and the snow had begun to fall. The roofers had to leave early because it was getting so cold and windy and snowy. Poor guys.
Yesterday Katie finally started feeling a little better, though she's still not 100%. At least she was able to eat something (hadn't done that in a couple of days) and she was able to keep it down--that was a definite improvement. She still slept most of the day away, however, and never went out to talk to Brother Chris. That's the truth teller right there. There is NO WAY that girl would miss a chance to talk to Brother Chris if she were well! The guys had to leave early yesterday, too, because it was snowing more and more and they couldn't keep the roof cleared off enough to continue shingling up there. They've worked through so much bad weather--no normal roofers would have even tried until the weather cleared up. James had gone to Edgewood to get some things from Wal-Mart (we were suddenly out of everything!) and he had a hard time getting home. The roads were horrible, there were several accidents already, and the Interstate was being shut down. He was able to make it here, but could only get the van partially up the drive-way. It kept snowing all throughout the afternoon, making it obvious that we'd be missing church again. Crazy!
When we figured out we wouldn't be going anywhere, I somehow decided that I should start taking down the Christmas decor. That was dumb. But I kept thinking it would be a good time to do it. The house is a total catastrophe for a day or two when I do that and I've been worried--what if Jason called and said somebody wanted to come see the house in the middle of the mess?! When the mini-blizzard hit I figured it would be the best possible time to jump in there and get it done. Not many people are going to put chains on their tires to go look at houses, you know. ;-) So I spent all afternoon and evening tearing down the Christmas stuff, sorting it, and packing it much better than I usually do. Packing it to MOVE this time, not just sit in a shed. Felt good to do something that somehow felt like one tiny, little step on the road to Alabama. :-)
Of course, I ran out of steam at about 10:00 last night. I had all of the Christmas stuff down and packing in boxes and bins... that were still all over the living room and dining room. Ah, yes. Amidst the chaos of de-Christmas-ing the house, Charlie was HORRIBLE yesterday. He's been doing sooooooo good with the house training (4 or 5 days with no accidents at all, then just a couple, then 4 or 5 more perfect days) and had SEVERAL accidents in the house yesterday. I was ready to KILL HIM!!! But I was all caught up in the big, messy project and didn't have the time or attention to give him--except to yell and beat him and throw him outside when it was too late! Ha! Anyway, today we've been treating him like we did the very first week--watching him every waking moment and taking him outside over and over and over again. And he's done much better. I hope to have him entirely back on track by tomorrow. We'll see.
Today James helped me haul the bins and bins and boxes and boxes of Christmas stuff out to the shed in the frigid weather. I think it was 6 degrees at the time. (Perhaps that, coupled with the incredibly messy house, had something to do with Charlie not wanting to do his thing outside?!) Then I spent the rest of the day moving furniture, sweeping, mopping, dusting, and redecorating. I hate that job, but it feels soooooo good when it's all over with. :-) I did take a few breaks to spend some time with Charlie, hoping perhaps that would help with his "issues" as well. James keeps reminding me that I wanted a lap dog. Charlie is the lappiest dog I've ever seen! He loves to play, but when he's ready to sit he seems to think the only sensible place to do that is in my lap! He spent a good deal of time playing with the kids today and had to settle for Katie's lap most of the time. That was no problem, really, since the kids spent ALL DAY today sitting next to the stereo. James had pulled down his old books and records (you know, "turn the page when you hear the bell") and they thought they were just the coolest thing. So they sat there for hour after hour listening to records and flipping through books--Lady and the Tramp, The Fox and the Hound, The Flintstones, Popeye, Davy Crockett, Sinbad the Sailor, and dozens more. I love it that my kids think those old things are so great! Ha!
I made some fantastical ham and beans for dinner tonight. The chicken and noodles from last night turned out great, too. I just love making things like that when it's cold and snowy outside! Makes ya' feel nice and cozy and toasty warm. :-)
We let the kids stay up late tonight since it's New Year's Eve. It's not quite 11:00 right now, but they've all crashed in the past hour. It's just as well. New Year's Eve has never been that big of a deal where I come from. I recall some really great ones when we would pray in the new year at church, or have a party with all the young people... But when nothing like that is going on, what's there to do?! If I'm still up at midnight it won't be because I tried; it'll be because it just happens. Right now I'm not quite tired enough to go to bed. And I have a nice, warm, fuzzy poodle snoring in my lap and I'm rather enjoying it. :-)
In any case, HAPPY NEW YEAR!!! I resolve to be a better blogger. Not really, but it's a nice thought. :-)
Saturday, December 25, 2010
Christmas 2010
Christmas Day rules around here say the kids aren't allowed to get up until at least 6:00. At 4:30 in the morning I heard a very happy Sam who had just awoken and seen that the stockings were stocked. I told him he was way early, he'd have to go back to bed. I dozed off, only to hear him a minute or two later whispering, "Joe... Joe, there's stuff in the stockings!!!" while he was tapping Joe's forehead trying to wake him up. Ha! I had just dozed off again when I heard little footsteps. Sam was going to the kitchen to get a drink. He was so wired and excited, he never did fall back asleep--and I didn't exactly get much rest either!
At 6:00 on the dot the boys were both buzzing around making sure everybody in the house was awake. I went to the bathroom to brush my hair and wash my face, but didn't have time to finish before Sam was knocking at the door saying, "Mom, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease hurry!" in a desperate, pleading voice. I guess he'd been out in the living room telling James, "Dad I've been looking at my stocking for AN HOUR AND A HALF!!!" Ha!
We finally got everybody in the room, had our Christmas morning prayer, then told Sam he could go get his stocking--at long last. He was a little happy about it. Ha!
The kids got real stuff in their stockings this year instead of just junk. They got junk, too, but it wasn't ALL junk. Katie was so thrilled with all of hers she laid them all out for a picture.
She got some clay and clay tools, Joe got a rubber band gun and a wood burning kit, Sam got a slingshot with foam balls and a remote controlled tank he'd fallen in love with at the dollar store last week. My stocking had great socks and a new hairbrush, white chocolate covered pretzels--great stuff like that. James' stocking had nothing but junk. Ha! I never think about stocking stuffers until it's too late to really figure out what to do aside from a quick trip to the dollar store!
One of his gifts from his parents (that he ordered himself with the $ they'd sent) was a series of Bob Ross videos that came with a free Bob Ross t-shirt. The bottom of the shirt even says, "Happy Little Clouds." HA! I'm dyin' over it! It makes him so happy. :-)
At 6:00 on the dot the boys were both buzzing around making sure everybody in the house was awake. I went to the bathroom to brush my hair and wash my face, but didn't have time to finish before Sam was knocking at the door saying, "Mom, pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease hurry!" in a desperate, pleading voice. I guess he'd been out in the living room telling James, "Dad I've been looking at my stocking for AN HOUR AND A HALF!!!" Ha!
We finally got everybody in the room, had our Christmas morning prayer, then told Sam he could go get his stocking--at long last. He was a little happy about it. Ha!
The kids got real stuff in their stockings this year instead of just junk. They got junk, too, but it wasn't ALL junk. Katie was so thrilled with all of hers she laid them all out for a picture.
She got some clay and clay tools, Joe got a rubber band gun and a wood burning kit, Sam got a slingshot with foam balls and a remote controlled tank he'd fallen in love with at the dollar store last week. My stocking had great socks and a new hairbrush, white chocolate covered pretzels--great stuff like that. James' stocking had nothing but junk. Ha! I never think about stocking stuffers until it's too late to really figure out what to do aside from a quick trip to the dollar store!One of his gifts from his parents (that he ordered himself with the $ they'd sent) was a series of Bob Ross videos that came with a free Bob Ross t-shirt. The bottom of the shirt even says, "Happy Little Clouds." HA! I'm dyin' over it! It makes him so happy. :-)
He found this in his stocking and immediately dove into his best Roger Ammons impersonation. :-)
Sam got some drums (the kind that hopefully won't break easily!) and was soooooo excited...
Almost as excited as he was over the remote controlled helicopter that really flies. He had a BLAST with it for 15 or 20 minutes before the power jack broke. He was heartbroken and even shed a few tears over. James is going to see of they'll take it back at the store. Who knows.
Joe was beyond ecstatic to finally get his very own bb gun!
Katie, loving her new art set.
This is James' gift from me. It was a bocce ball (taken from our set) wrapped in a cylinder (to give me something of substance to wrap--it did make for an interesting package to arouse curiosity!)... and underneath the ball was a picture of the suit I bought for him. :-) Actually, it's the suit my folks bought at that fantastic sale they have once a year in Cleveland. Still owe 'em for it, come to think of it. Anyway, the suit is still in Cleveland. We'll have to move to Alabama to get close enough to go retrieve it. :-)
Joe with his solar powered built-it-yourself robot.
Ha! The look on Katie's face was sooooooo great when she opened up this package from her Grandma Wanda and pulled out a nightgown almost identical to the one she was wearing!!!
This box has six different projects to build and paint--right up Sam's alley. James helped him make the tank this afternoon.
Katie got a keyboard of her very own and was soooooooooooo happy. So Sam got drums, Katie got a keyboard, and Joe got a new guitar--a full size guitar this time--all from James' folks. They were all very excited about them and there has been lots and lots and LOTS of music and music-like noise around here today. :-)
This is James' gift from my parents... It's a picture of another suit that he can pick up whenever we move to Alabama! Ha! This one was wrapped up with the kids' shape block cube. :-)
Joe had been hoping for a bb gun for Christmas and we were afraid the shape of the box might give it away, so we didn't want to put it under the tree. Same thing with the guitar (it's hard to wrap a guitar in such a way that you can't tell what it is!), so I wrapped up two gifts that had notes explaining that it wasn't really his gift--he'd have to ask for it. He thought that was the coolest thing! Especially since the first one was just an empty pencil box with the note and the second was a bag of Ramen. Though he was excited about the Ramen, too. Ha!
Here's Joe all bundled up to go outside and try out his new bb gun, Bertha. I think that's what he told me he named it. His old guitar was "Old Johnny" and he named this new one "Jacob." I even heard him introduce the two of them a few hours ago. HA! Anyway, you can see Katie and Sam making music in the background...
Joe spent most of the day outside with that gun. In fact, I never saw for myself, but James said his trigger finger was completely raw and even bleeding at one point! Ha! He's a happy, happy boy. Blasted a 7-Up can, a few targets, and several plastic cups.
I had to laugh when I opened this gift from James--the very same movie I had got for Mom for Christmas! He had ordered it for me before I had decided to order it for Mom. I also got Mom a puzzle--and I received two puzzles today. And I just found it ironing and unfair that we're both sitting there with a great movie to watch and fun puzzles to put together while we watch... but we can't do it together! What a gyp! Ha! Some day. :-)
It was a nice Christmas. I think each of the kids had 5 gifts to open: one of clothes, one of shoes, one really nice instrument, and two toys/crafts that they truly loved. That's nice. :-) I hate it when they have piles and piles of things to open--it just seems to frivolous, you know?! But they had just enough and seem to be truly grateful for it all. That's more like it. :-) I, on the other hand, feel like I got way too much! Ha! I think I had five or six things to open, but James has a way of cramming several gifts into one bag so it ended up being a lot of stuff! He always over shops for me... but he's a great shopper and always gets great stuff. :-) I got some Coca-Cola pj pants and a Coke puzzle from his folks (that he picked out), a beautiful Christopher & Banks sweater and great denim skirt (which he tells me he paid $8 for--wa-hoo!), a turtle-neck, great socks, the Emma movie, shoes, a shirt/jacket, a puzzle--and probably a couple of things I'm forgetting.
We had a really, really nice time opening all of our gifts (even Charlie got a squeaky steak, a rope toy, and a pack of treats--all purchased by JAMES, I'll have you know!), then we cleaned up some of the trash and packaging and headed to the kitchen to make bacon, eggs, and pancakes for breakfast. I finished up the dishes and was soooooooo tired (I hadn't slept well at all--and had been up most of the time since 4:30, remember!) and decided I was going to lay down for a few minutes. I took Charlie, who was also ready for a nap, and laid down thinking how wonderful it was that I had no meal to prepare--just a pot of tasty clam chowder already made and ready for whenever we got hungry, as well as the left-overs from our big meal last night. I woke up after about an hour and a half (!!!) and felt a little sick to my stomach. Within the next 30 minutes I kept feeling worse and worse until I was finally in awful pain with these horrible stomach cramps that would last for 15-30 seconds, then ease up a bit, then hit again. I felt nauseous and just SICK. I crashed on the couch at 11:30 and didn't budge for the next 6 hours! Crazy! That is NOT the way you're supposed to spend Christmas! Ha! Still, I was soooooooo thankful that I had felt well all day yesterday and was able to make a nice dinner for my family and that I felt fine when we were doing presents today. The sickness didn't hit until after all of that and I'm so glad! James and the kids watched some Christmas shows and just sort of vegged out and I pretty much slept most of the day away. At about 5:30 I was feeling a lot better and was able to get up and try to get a few things cleaned up. There's still a whole lot to be done, but I only had enough energy for about 5 minutes at a time before I'd find myself panting and shaking and weak. Weird. Oh well--it'll all get done soon enough! I'm just so thankful that I'm feeling better and I've only had a few of those horrible stomach cramps in the past few hours--they were awful!
So there you have it--our Christmas. :-) Looking forward to church in the morning. We'll miss the Clarkson family (they're in Colorado for Christmas and will be visiting one of the churches up there tomorrow), but James is on to preach--I rarely get to hear him! Do say a prayer for Sam. Getting up at 4:30 wasn't very smart (!) and he's been running on Christmas adrenaline all day, then crashed at about 7:00. I found him asleep on a chair in the living room. I took him to bed and he's been there ever since, but he's woke up crying a few times saying he feels sick again. I'm trusting that he'll sleep well tonight and wake up totally healthy in the morning--and me, too! :-)
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Friday, December 24, 2010
Christmas Eve
I had a great big list of things to accomplish yesterday that would make today so much easier. Unfortunately, very few of them actually happened yesterday! I managed to boil the eggs for the pea salad and deviled eggs (quite an accomplishment, I know) and make Christmas cookies. But truthfully, Katie did most of the work on them!
We headed into town early because James had an Olive Garden gift card that he was itchin' to use. Yum. It's been a few months since we've been there, so it tasted extra good. Enjoyed a good church service and some bonus fellowship time with Sister Galaviz. :-) We came home from church and I got busy doing all of the things I had planned on getting done during the day--made an apple pie, clam chowder, pea salad, and deviled eggs. It felt good to finally mark a few things off the list!
This morning we had cookies for breakfast because it's Christmas Eve and it just seemed like the thing to do. :-) I took a shower, then trimmed the boys' hair (just where it was hanging down over their ears--I HATE that!) and Kate's bangs. I ran one last load of laundry, then did the ironing (on Christmas Eve?! What is wrong with me?!?!?) and made a cherry cobbler before we cleared out ALL of the left-overs (wa-hoo!) for lunch. Then it was time to start on dinner. But before I go on...
A great big thank you to the best and wisest sister-in-law of all time, Emilee Smith!!!!
She has just totally revolutionized my holiday and I love her dearly for it! I've always been very staunch about keeping traditions and, for the most part, I still am. I love traditions. :-) But it does tend to make you a little inflexible and you can end up living in a rut without realizing that a new tradition might be much better than an old one. I heard that last year Emilee made their Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day... and the more I thought about it the more I realized what a truly grand and glorious idea it was!!! We always have clam chowder for our Christmas Eve meal, then get up way early on Christmas morning, open presents, help the kids with whatever toy/battery/assembly help they may need, head to the kitchen to start on Christmas dinner, work throughout the morning, have an early afternoon meal, then spend way too much time cleaning it up, then you're desperate for a nap--and sometimes it's too late to take one! It's always been fun, of course, but so exhausting! Why not have your big dinner on Christmas Eve, get it cleaned up and enjoy the rest of the night, get up Christmas morning, open presents, then ENJOY THE REST OF THE DAY without spending 6 hours in the kitchen!!! It's inspired, I tell you. :-) Have clam chowder for lunch and left-overs from the night before for dinner. It's fantastic! THANK YOU, EMILEE!!!!!! :-)
ANYWAY...
On to the pictures. This was actually taken a few days ago. James needed a picture of the kids so he could order a photo mug for his Mom for her birthday next week. ~sigh~ I have such good looking kids. :-) As a side note, we uploaded the photo to Walmart.com, placed our order, and about two hours later we got an e-mail saying it had been SHIPPED!!! Whoa! Talk about efficient!
Ah, yes. I'll warn you now. Get ready for more Charlie overload. I just can't help it. We don't have any babies to take pictures of anymore, you know?! He's the little one, the new one, and the one who's always doing something adorable or crazy, so he's the one who gets pictures taken all the time! Here he is playing in the laundry basket. Don't be fooled--he's actually enjoying himself immensely.
Ah, yes. Had to post this picture. I found this note in my pantry when I went to start dinner this afternoon. Can anybody say MICRO-MANAGER!!!!!! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! That man. GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN, JAMES!!! Don't you have a shed or something to tend to?!?!? ;-)
Katie took this picture as we were trying to transfer the ham to the platter. We don't get many pictures of the two of us together, so I thought I should post it. :-)
And here is Christmas Dinner. On Christmas Eve!!!! What an epiphany! :-)
If you're wondering about Sam's blanket, he's still a little under the weather. Hasn't been SICK today, but hasn't been totally well either. Mostly he's just lethargic. He has had the energy, however, to ask about 30 times, "Mom, how long 'til bedtime?" Ha! He's been dying to go to bed so he could get up and open presents. :-)
Charlie was sooooo good and slept right through dinner with no begging at all. Even when he woke up he just laid there and looked cute for a while. He did have a few bites of ham, which made him a very, very happy puppy. :-)
As has become tradition around here (though I still maintain that it's a sin to open presents before Christmas morning, according to my upbringing--ha!), the kids opened their gifts from each other tonight. Sam got some little airplanes from Katie and a little video game thing from Joe. Sorry about the quality. Our camera usually does pretty well, but it's not as dependable as it used to be!
Here's Joe, acting surprised about the baseball that Katie got him. Ha! He saw her with it in the store when she bought it and has been dying to play with it since then.
And a battleship from Sam...
Katie was happy about the word search book from Sam and THRILLED with the little sewing kit from Joe.
James got a picture from Joe (of the two of them together) and some screwdrivers from Sam. Katie wanted her gift to be added to his stocking, so he'll get that in the morning.
Here's Charlie, chewing on my new favorite fuzzy socks. He seems to like them just as much as I do, but for totally different reasons.
So far he is loving Christmas. All sorts of excitement, and papers and boxes galore to chew on. He won't know what to do with himself come morning!
Charlie was in desperate need of a bath, so I did that real quick before we started our traditional Christmas Eve movie, It's a Wonderful Life. Giving him a bath and blow drying him revealed just how desperately he's in need of another haircut! Ha! It's sort of like those little capsules that expand when you put them in water, you know?! When I got him dry and brushed out he was suddenly twice as big as he had been before--a massive fluffball! HA! Anyway, here are the kids watching the movie and Charlie chewing on Katie's braid, one of his favorite pastimes.
We read through the Christmas story and had a good devotion, then got all the kids bedded down in the living room. Fun. :-) It took them quite a while to wind down, of course. Especially with a hyper dog chewing on them.
James likes to hold Charlie like this and say, "Awwwwww, look at the little baby..." I had to share that for a certain someone's benefit. I'm sure he's throwing up now. HA!
We headed into town early because James had an Olive Garden gift card that he was itchin' to use. Yum. It's been a few months since we've been there, so it tasted extra good. Enjoyed a good church service and some bonus fellowship time with Sister Galaviz. :-) We came home from church and I got busy doing all of the things I had planned on getting done during the day--made an apple pie, clam chowder, pea salad, and deviled eggs. It felt good to finally mark a few things off the list!
This morning we had cookies for breakfast because it's Christmas Eve and it just seemed like the thing to do. :-) I took a shower, then trimmed the boys' hair (just where it was hanging down over their ears--I HATE that!) and Kate's bangs. I ran one last load of laundry, then did the ironing (on Christmas Eve?! What is wrong with me?!?!?) and made a cherry cobbler before we cleared out ALL of the left-overs (wa-hoo!) for lunch. Then it was time to start on dinner. But before I go on...
A great big thank you to the best and wisest sister-in-law of all time, Emilee Smith!!!!
She has just totally revolutionized my holiday and I love her dearly for it! I've always been very staunch about keeping traditions and, for the most part, I still am. I love traditions. :-) But it does tend to make you a little inflexible and you can end up living in a rut without realizing that a new tradition might be much better than an old one. I heard that last year Emilee made their Christmas dinner on Christmas Eve instead of Christmas Day... and the more I thought about it the more I realized what a truly grand and glorious idea it was!!! We always have clam chowder for our Christmas Eve meal, then get up way early on Christmas morning, open presents, help the kids with whatever toy/battery/assembly help they may need, head to the kitchen to start on Christmas dinner, work throughout the morning, have an early afternoon meal, then spend way too much time cleaning it up, then you're desperate for a nap--and sometimes it's too late to take one! It's always been fun, of course, but so exhausting! Why not have your big dinner on Christmas Eve, get it cleaned up and enjoy the rest of the night, get up Christmas morning, open presents, then ENJOY THE REST OF THE DAY without spending 6 hours in the kitchen!!! It's inspired, I tell you. :-) Have clam chowder for lunch and left-overs from the night before for dinner. It's fantastic! THANK YOU, EMILEE!!!!!! :-)
ANYWAY...
On to the pictures. This was actually taken a few days ago. James needed a picture of the kids so he could order a photo mug for his Mom for her birthday next week. ~sigh~ I have such good looking kids. :-) As a side note, we uploaded the photo to Walmart.com, placed our order, and about two hours later we got an e-mail saying it had been SHIPPED!!! Whoa! Talk about efficient!
Ah, yes. I'll warn you now. Get ready for more Charlie overload. I just can't help it. We don't have any babies to take pictures of anymore, you know?! He's the little one, the new one, and the one who's always doing something adorable or crazy, so he's the one who gets pictures taken all the time! Here he is playing in the laundry basket. Don't be fooled--he's actually enjoying himself immensely.
Ah, yes. Had to post this picture. I found this note in my pantry when I went to start dinner this afternoon. Can anybody say MICRO-MANAGER!!!!!! HA! HA! HA! HA! HA! That man. GET OUT OF MY KITCHEN, JAMES!!! Don't you have a shed or something to tend to?!?!? ;-)
Katie took this picture as we were trying to transfer the ham to the platter. We don't get many pictures of the two of us together, so I thought I should post it. :-)
And here is Christmas Dinner. On Christmas Eve!!!! What an epiphany! :-)
If you're wondering about Sam's blanket, he's still a little under the weather. Hasn't been SICK today, but hasn't been totally well either. Mostly he's just lethargic. He has had the energy, however, to ask about 30 times, "Mom, how long 'til bedtime?" Ha! He's been dying to go to bed so he could get up and open presents. :-)Charlie was sooooo good and slept right through dinner with no begging at all. Even when he woke up he just laid there and looked cute for a while. He did have a few bites of ham, which made him a very, very happy puppy. :-)
As has become tradition around here (though I still maintain that it's a sin to open presents before Christmas morning, according to my upbringing--ha!), the kids opened their gifts from each other tonight. Sam got some little airplanes from Katie and a little video game thing from Joe. Sorry about the quality. Our camera usually does pretty well, but it's not as dependable as it used to be!
Here's Joe, acting surprised about the baseball that Katie got him. Ha! He saw her with it in the store when she bought it and has been dying to play with it since then.
And a battleship from Sam...
Katie was happy about the word search book from Sam and THRILLED with the little sewing kit from Joe.
James got a picture from Joe (of the two of them together) and some screwdrivers from Sam. Katie wanted her gift to be added to his stocking, so he'll get that in the morning.
Here's Charlie, chewing on my new favorite fuzzy socks. He seems to like them just as much as I do, but for totally different reasons.
So far he is loving Christmas. All sorts of excitement, and papers and boxes galore to chew on. He won't know what to do with himself come morning!
Charlie was in desperate need of a bath, so I did that real quick before we started our traditional Christmas Eve movie, It's a Wonderful Life. Giving him a bath and blow drying him revealed just how desperately he's in need of another haircut! Ha! It's sort of like those little capsules that expand when you put them in water, you know?! When I got him dry and brushed out he was suddenly twice as big as he had been before--a massive fluffball! HA! Anyway, here are the kids watching the movie and Charlie chewing on Katie's braid, one of his favorite pastimes.
We read through the Christmas story and had a good devotion, then got all the kids bedded down in the living room. Fun. :-) It took them quite a while to wind down, of course. Especially with a hyper dog chewing on them.
James likes to hold Charlie like this and say, "Awwwwww, look at the little baby..." I had to share that for a certain someone's benefit. I'm sure he's throwing up now. HA!
Tonight was a big night in Charlie's life. It was his first time ever to get the rips!!! Ha! I LOVE THAT!!! You know, when a dog gets super excited and just starts tearing through the house full speed, back and forth--it's hilarious! Hershey used to include lots of jumping and bounding. I remember him bouncing off the back of the couch on his route! Ha! Anyway, Charlie got all worked up and slipped and slid all over the tile and wood floors, zipping from one end of the house to the other for several minutes tonight, making us all laugh heartily. :-) ~sigh~ It's so nice having a dog again. They add so much to your family! So, so fun. Especially at Christmas. :-)
Well, it looks like all of the kids are finally conked out, so it must be time to fill some stockings. :-) I love Christmas!!! Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night! :-)
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Nothing to Blog
But am I going to let that stop me??? No! I'm tired of looking and seeing that it's been nearly a week since my last post, so I thought I'd sneak up on it this time. Tricky.
Sam continued to be sick throughout the day on Tuesday with short breaks where he would be up tormenting the dog, but soon enough he'd be laying down again or frantically searching for his sick bowl. He sipped on some 7-Up and ate about half a cracker all day long. He was a little feverish, too, but not for long. I really believe the Lord touched him--and he woke up perfectly well and mischievous yesterday morning.
The only notable happening yesterday is that we got a phone call from a realtor saying he'd like to come "preview" the house. Preview? We've had several showings, but I'd never heard of a preview before! Ha! He said he'd be here in about 45 minutes. "Sure, that will be fine," I said as calmly as I could as I looked around at the mounds of laundry all over the den, the kitchen that was covered in dirty dishes, the boys' room that had a tent built with bins and blankets and stools all over the place, and Katie's room that has been set up as a museum for several days now with displays of all sorts blanketing both beds, the night stands and even part of the floor. HA! I was so very thankful that I had already scrubbed both bathrooms to a shine that morning. It was a bit of a madhouse as we rushed around trying to get everything back into place, but we got it done in the 45 minutes that we had and the realtor arrived just a few minutes later. ~whew~ We're good. ;-)
He introduced himself, stepped in the front door, said he just wanted to take a real quick look-through, and he was off like a flash--zipping from one room to the next in record speed. He made a few statements as he went, all of them favorable, but I was out of breath from trying to keep up with him and probably a little distracted. Ha! No kidding, he was done with the house in just a minute or two (I am not exaggerating!) and was saying his goodbyes. I somehow had the presence of mind to tell him that there is also a finished office out back. I grabbed the keys and led the way, trying to quickly tell him that the hail damage is being taken care of (see the partially finished new roof?) and there's also a shed out back, etc. I did detain him long enough to ask if he had clients who were interested in the house or... why exactly WAS he here?! Ha! He doesn't have anybody looking in this price range right now, he said he just likes to know what's available out there so he's well informed. Weird. When he left after being here a whoppin' five minutes I just stood there sort of stunned. I should have grabbed him by the collar and drug him back into the house and said, "Look, buddy--we just killed ourselves for 45 minutes getting this place put together so you can look at it, so you'd best mosey on through and actually DO that!" HA!
I had thrown together a taco soup sort of thing and had it cooking in the crock-pot all day yesterday. I didn't have a recipe, I just remember making something like it last year and it sounded good so I gave it another try. I browned some burger with onion, salt and pepper and LOTS of taco seasoning, then threw in a can of corn, diced tomatoes, tomato soup... something I'm forgetting... along with the left-over Hormel chili from lunch and some left-over pork loin from several days ago. We served it up on top of chips and covered with cheese and it was soooooo good! In fact, I'm anxious for lunchtime so I can have it again--though I'll have to be the first to get to it because there's not much left! Yum. :-)
I slept on the couch in the living room last night. I've always loved sleeping in the room with all the Christmas lights. :-) Maybe I'll let the kids sleep out there with me tonight. I let Charlie sleep with me last night. That was great. He's so sweet and cuddly. :-) When he FINALLY winds down, that is! He usually gets CRAZY hyper right about the time I'm ready to go to bed each night. Though sometime last week I was up late working on things and I suddenly heard one little "woof." I went looking for him and found him standing next to Katie's bed, looking over his shoulder at me, just waiting for me to come put him to bed. Ha! What a smart puppy. :-) He's completely adapted to that and I'm sooooo glad I didn't continue on trying to make him sleep in that box like we'd started out doing with him--he'd STILL be keeping me up all night! Ha! Now he goes to bed with Katie and will sometimes sleep until 8:00 or better. The house training is going GREAT--I think he went nearly five days without an accident and has only had one or two since then. He's getting really good at letting us know when he wants outside, but I fear we may be in trouble when Christmas is over. We have door hangers on the front and back doors, both of which have bells on them. When Charlie wants to go outside he reaches up and rings the bells, then turns and waits for us to come! Ha! It's GREAT, but what's he going to do when there are no bells anymore?! We'll see, I guess. :-) I must admit that the first week or two we had this dog--as much as I already liked him and enjoyed him--in the back of my mind I kept thinking what have we done?! Ha! He was sooooooooooooooooo much work, totally, completely an all-consuming 24/7 job and there was no light at the end of the tunnel! But in the past two or three weeks things have leveled out and Charlie is learning and picking up on things so quickly. So for anybody who has read about our experiences and resolved that you are NEVER going to get a puppy if that's what you have to go through (Emilee--ha!), it's only completely consuming for two or three weeks, then it gets much, much better and you sort of regain your life again. :-)
We had hoped to have Sister Galaviz up to join us for dinner on Christmas Eve, but she called this morning said that she's having car trouble and not going to be able to make it. We are sooooo disappointed, but we do understand. She'll go spend the evening with her son and his family, so she won't be alone--but still, we'll miss having her. This is the second year in a row she's bailed on us. Some people, I tell ya'. HA! (We love you, Sister Galaviz--I just couldn't resist. I told the kids this morning that you were bailing on us. I think they'll forgive you. Maybe. HA!)
And that's about it from here! Lots of cooking and baking to be done today. It feels and smells very Christmassy around here. :-)
Sam continued to be sick throughout the day on Tuesday with short breaks where he would be up tormenting the dog, but soon enough he'd be laying down again or frantically searching for his sick bowl. He sipped on some 7-Up and ate about half a cracker all day long. He was a little feverish, too, but not for long. I really believe the Lord touched him--and he woke up perfectly well and mischievous yesterday morning.
The only notable happening yesterday is that we got a phone call from a realtor saying he'd like to come "preview" the house. Preview? We've had several showings, but I'd never heard of a preview before! Ha! He said he'd be here in about 45 minutes. "Sure, that will be fine," I said as calmly as I could as I looked around at the mounds of laundry all over the den, the kitchen that was covered in dirty dishes, the boys' room that had a tent built with bins and blankets and stools all over the place, and Katie's room that has been set up as a museum for several days now with displays of all sorts blanketing both beds, the night stands and even part of the floor. HA! I was so very thankful that I had already scrubbed both bathrooms to a shine that morning. It was a bit of a madhouse as we rushed around trying to get everything back into place, but we got it done in the 45 minutes that we had and the realtor arrived just a few minutes later. ~whew~ We're good. ;-)
He introduced himself, stepped in the front door, said he just wanted to take a real quick look-through, and he was off like a flash--zipping from one room to the next in record speed. He made a few statements as he went, all of them favorable, but I was out of breath from trying to keep up with him and probably a little distracted. Ha! No kidding, he was done with the house in just a minute or two (I am not exaggerating!) and was saying his goodbyes. I somehow had the presence of mind to tell him that there is also a finished office out back. I grabbed the keys and led the way, trying to quickly tell him that the hail damage is being taken care of (see the partially finished new roof?) and there's also a shed out back, etc. I did detain him long enough to ask if he had clients who were interested in the house or... why exactly WAS he here?! Ha! He doesn't have anybody looking in this price range right now, he said he just likes to know what's available out there so he's well informed. Weird. When he left after being here a whoppin' five minutes I just stood there sort of stunned. I should have grabbed him by the collar and drug him back into the house and said, "Look, buddy--we just killed ourselves for 45 minutes getting this place put together so you can look at it, so you'd best mosey on through and actually DO that!" HA!
I had thrown together a taco soup sort of thing and had it cooking in the crock-pot all day yesterday. I didn't have a recipe, I just remember making something like it last year and it sounded good so I gave it another try. I browned some burger with onion, salt and pepper and LOTS of taco seasoning, then threw in a can of corn, diced tomatoes, tomato soup... something I'm forgetting... along with the left-over Hormel chili from lunch and some left-over pork loin from several days ago. We served it up on top of chips and covered with cheese and it was soooooo good! In fact, I'm anxious for lunchtime so I can have it again--though I'll have to be the first to get to it because there's not much left! Yum. :-)
I slept on the couch in the living room last night. I've always loved sleeping in the room with all the Christmas lights. :-) Maybe I'll let the kids sleep out there with me tonight. I let Charlie sleep with me last night. That was great. He's so sweet and cuddly. :-) When he FINALLY winds down, that is! He usually gets CRAZY hyper right about the time I'm ready to go to bed each night. Though sometime last week I was up late working on things and I suddenly heard one little "woof." I went looking for him and found him standing next to Katie's bed, looking over his shoulder at me, just waiting for me to come put him to bed. Ha! What a smart puppy. :-) He's completely adapted to that and I'm sooooo glad I didn't continue on trying to make him sleep in that box like we'd started out doing with him--he'd STILL be keeping me up all night! Ha! Now he goes to bed with Katie and will sometimes sleep until 8:00 or better. The house training is going GREAT--I think he went nearly five days without an accident and has only had one or two since then. He's getting really good at letting us know when he wants outside, but I fear we may be in trouble when Christmas is over. We have door hangers on the front and back doors, both of which have bells on them. When Charlie wants to go outside he reaches up and rings the bells, then turns and waits for us to come! Ha! It's GREAT, but what's he going to do when there are no bells anymore?! We'll see, I guess. :-) I must admit that the first week or two we had this dog--as much as I already liked him and enjoyed him--in the back of my mind I kept thinking what have we done?! Ha! He was sooooooooooooooooo much work, totally, completely an all-consuming 24/7 job and there was no light at the end of the tunnel! But in the past two or three weeks things have leveled out and Charlie is learning and picking up on things so quickly. So for anybody who has read about our experiences and resolved that you are NEVER going to get a puppy if that's what you have to go through (Emilee--ha!), it's only completely consuming for two or three weeks, then it gets much, much better and you sort of regain your life again. :-)
We had hoped to have Sister Galaviz up to join us for dinner on Christmas Eve, but she called this morning said that she's having car trouble and not going to be able to make it. We are sooooo disappointed, but we do understand. She'll go spend the evening with her son and his family, so she won't be alone--but still, we'll miss having her. This is the second year in a row she's bailed on us. Some people, I tell ya'. HA! (We love you, Sister Galaviz--I just couldn't resist. I told the kids this morning that you were bailing on us. I think they'll forgive you. Maybe. HA!)
And that's about it from here! Lots of cooking and baking to be done today. It feels and smells very Christmassy around here. :-)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
