Happy Thanksgiving

HAPPY THANKSGIVING

I hope you all had a wonderful time of rest and visiting with the ones you love. We gave thanks this year for so many things. Even when the rest of the world is in turmoil we can still be thankful for the blessings God continues to provide. When all else fails, His love endures forever and is for each and everyone of us. For this, I give thanks.

Punky Girl made this fantastic turkey to greet everyone that came to her grandparents' house.

This is her preparing to "shoot" the turkey. Who knows why she wanted to pretend to do this, but she did.

Punky Girl and her cousin Smiley. Punky Girl loves having a little one to boss around at all the family gatherings. It is a good thing Smiley has a little bit of "punk" in her to hold her own.



We ended the day with a kill. Buckaroo shot his first rabbit with a gun. He had already killed one with his bow when he was 4, but for some reason a bb gun hunt was more of a challenge. How many of you can say you ended Thanksgiving with a rabbit kill?

The Year of the Appliances

When Nimrod was getting ready for his big hunt, he asked if we had a coffee pot. (He doesn't drink coffee but his dad wanted it for the hunt).I don't use our little coffee pot on a regular basis so I had to dig through the cupboards. Guess what I found? A roasting oven. I didn't even know I had one. It was brand new. I think Nimrod's grandma gave it to us when we got married 13 years ago. So, since I had so much luck with the toaster oven (LOL) I thought I should try using it.

We love 7 bone roast and don't really enjoy having the oven on for 3-4 hours so this was going to be my perfect solution. I put the roast in and 10 hours, yes 10, later and the roast was done. I would like to say that the roaster oven was defective because it had never been used but that would be a lie. As with the toaster oven, I learned something. It helps if you put the oven on the correct temperature. Cooking at 225 degrees takes twice as long as cooking at 325 degrees.

We had cereal that night for dinner.

THE BIG ONE

He did it! I told you how Nimrod had gotten the tag of a lifetime. NOW, he has the deer of a lifetime. This is a 33 inch buck that just may make the record books. He has yet to have to officially scored but I'm rooting for him. Don't you just love the way God painted the sky to make the picture even more beautiful?

But You Said...

A few weeks ago in Punky's Sunday School class they discussed praying. The kids learned they can talk to God about ANYTHING and pray when they are sad, happy, scared, frustrated, and just about any other emotion.

Later that night when it was time to get ready for bed, she did NOT want to take a shower. This surprised me because she usually loves taking showers. She gets in there and "teaches" and plays. I mean she has a running dialogue that could last hours if I would let her stay in there. Anyway, I finally get her in there with tears and screaming. She starts talking to her students and crying about not wanting to be there. FYI-this was day 7 of Nimrod being gone and I had little patience. So I leave her in there to go get Buckaroo started with his shower. I come back and she has stopped crying. She is still going on and on in her monologue. I figured she was whining to her "students" about how mean her mom is. I flippantly say as I walk in, "Are you still whining?" She immediately stops talking-"NO! I am not whining." I let it go and have her finish the shower.



A little while later Punky Girl comes into the kitchen and in her little girl voice says to me, "Mommy, you hurt my feelings when you came in and asking me if I was still whining. I wasn't whining." I kindof rolled my eyes and half-heartily apologized for her hurting her feelings and then quickly followed up with, "It sure sounded like you were whining. If you weren't, then what were you doing?" "I was praying to God and YOU said in Sunday school we could talk to go about ANYTHING so I was telling him how mad I was at you 'cuz you frustrated me when you made me take a shower and I didn't want to."



Oh...maybe I should rethink my lessons so they don't come back to bite me.

Halloween Fun

Halloween started with the carving of the Pumpkins. Punky Girl wanted a "scary" looking one. See left pumpkin. Buckaroo wanted a "vampire teeth" pumpkin. See right pumpkin. I drew, Nimrod carved and the kids scooped. They loved the guts of the pumpkin.

Our resident "fierce" knight

Punky Girl is the CUTEST police officer I know. We made the costume from things around the house that we had. It was fun to do together. Gotta love wonder-under.




Our friend loaned her his real police hat and her daddy bought her handcuffs so that made it extra special.

One Motley Crew-an original purple bird, a policegirl, a "harried" mom and a fierce knight. Guess which one didn't have to make up a costume?

Fall Break 2009

For Fall Break, my friend, her girl Pickles, the kids and I decided to take a road trip to Colorado. Why? To see the leaves of course. The kids have seen the leaves change color one other time in their little lives, so I thought they needed to experience again and there is no better place than Colorado. We did a little touristing-I know, not a real word, but mostly played, played and played! Our big surprise was the snow fall that arrived the night before we got there. We went to the mountains and the kids got to play in the snow, yippee! I would post pictures of that but I took the pictures in RAW and I am still learning (I use that term VERY loosely) how the process works and cannot convert the RAW pictures into jpeg to post. So that will be another blog. But these few give you an idea of what fun it was.

Pickle, Buckaroo, and Punky Girl having their first leaf fight!

Creative Gene

By nature, I am NOT a creative person. My mother is a creative guru in her own right with an amazing artistic ability. My dad can build anything out of wood, dirt, rocks, you name it-he can do it. Somehow these genetics skipped me. But, I have managed to cope by being a copycat. I oooooohh and aaaaaaahh over all of my friends' fabulous creations for their kids and their homes. Then, I try my own version of what they have created. Most of the time it is a less flattering version of what the original looked like. However, I can live with it and luckily my family doesn't know what the wonderful original looked like. For example, these shirts. My friend Lees made these ADORABLE shirts for her twins 2nd birthday. I fell in love with them and wanted to make some for Punky Girl and my new great-niece. (Yes, I said great-If we were in the South I would be a Grand Tante'-cool, huh?) Anyway, I made these shirts and impressed myself with how they came out. Punky Girl got two, one for random wear and one for football games. It is hard to tell on the C shirt but those are doggie paw prints.

Another project was this blanket. Punky Girl got a sewing machine for her birthday and she REALLY wanted to make a blanket. We went through my scraps leftover from previous rag-tie blankets and found some patterns that fit her perfectly. There was leftover firemen print from her apron my aunt's friend made her. A sports print from some blankets I made my great-nephews. A puppy dog print from my nephew's blanket. Lastly, some blues from who-knows-where. We laid it out together and she loved it. I think it is rather, ummm, "colorful"--moving on...Punky did the straight sewing on all the pieces. I am so proud of her. She put for her best effort on her first sewing project. We also got to spend quality time together making it which is the best part about this project. Maybe she will be the ONE that will end up with the creative gene.

Dear Jesus and God,...

A few years ago I was at my friend's house and she was using her toaster oven. I said, "Oh, I have one of those, but I don't know how to use it. It just sits there and collects dust." She almost FREAKED out. She told me she used it for EVERYTHING. I had no idea all the things you could cook in a toaster oven. So, a few days later I decided to use my own and see what wonderful things I could cook in my toaster oven. I was talking on the phone to my friend Ber while my food was cooking and I was bragging on how I was using my spiffy toaster oven instead of the big oven. Suddenly there were flames coming out of the toaster oven. I yelled, "I gotta go, my toaster oven has flames coming out of it!!" I slammed the phone down and grabbed a towel to beat down the flames. I then unplugged it and checked out the damage. Yep, the food was burnt. But there was no damage to the toaster oven or the cabinets next to it. Apparently I should have cleaned out the dust before I started cooking in it. Who knew? After all this commotion, I turned around and there was Buckaroo. He had watched the whole entire fiasco. Hmm, what do I say to a five year old at this point? I opted for nothing and hoped he didn't ask any questions about why it was on fire. He didn't. When we sat down for dinner that night (a new, non-burnt dinner) Buckaroo bowed his head and prayed in his little boy voice, "Dear Jesus and God, thank for not letting my mommy burn down the house today. Thank you for this food, amen." As soon as I looked up, Nimrod was looking at me with huge eyes. I guess I forgot to mention to him what happened earlier. I tried to explain but couldn't through the laughter over Buckaroo's prayer. Eventually I told the story and all was well. However, for the next few days Buckaroo was cautious when entering the kitchen and prayed this same prayer for awhile. I think I may have traumatized him a little. When it was all said and done, we got a great laugh out of it.

So, the other day Nimrod and I were in the kitchen talking while I was making dinner and he says, "Dear Jesus and God." My head whips around to the toaster oven and there is smoke coming out of it! While he is laughing, I am fighting the toaster oven, again! Luckily, no flames this time. Apparently, you need to clean the toaster oven out occasionally. It has only been three years of me using it without this happening. How come there are no rules written down about how to use the toaster oven? Everyone says it is the easiest appliance to use but I have experienced otherwise. "Dear Jesus and God, give me the wisdom to use a toaster oven."

A House Divided Cannot Stand

I think this quote comes from Abraham Lincoln, a man who lived through some of the darkest days our country has experienced. For my generation, September 11, 2001 is our equivalent to the tragedy of the Civil War. Today, as I dropped the kids off to school I noticed all the flags our town has put up in remembrance of that day. The radio station I listened to played clips of the news reports and statements made by government officials on that day. I started having flashbacks to the emotions from that time. I remember sitting in shock in my classroom trying to sift through what I saw on the news two minutes before I walked out the door. I kept thinking it was a movie stunt and COULD NOT be real. I was instructed by my superintendent to keep the school day as normal as possible and provide a calm atmosphere for the kids. While I faked my way through the day, all I really wanted to do was grab my son and husband and curl up in my bed and never let them go. My reaction was not abnormal, as most of us wanted our loved ones near us. We as a nation were in shock for days, weeks, months. We could not wrap our mind around what had happened. One of my strongest memories is that the skies were deadly quite as all aircraft was grounded for days. It was almost eerie that there were no planes flying in our blue sky. I remember being in a fog and not really believing that something like that could happen. But it did. Then, we a nation cleared the fog from our head, pulled up our boot straps and came together. It has been written that the terrorist attacks were a wake-up call for America. We as nation were shaken out of our complacency and became united in our patriotism, our love of our country and our willingness to stand up to those who wanted to disrespect our country.

But where are we now? Eight years later and I am not sure that the patriotism is still there. The flags are being waved, the photo/video montages are being shown. We still honor the firemen, policemen and good citizens that risked their lives to help others during the attacks. In fact, at school yesterday, my kids wrote letters to policemen and firemen in our community to thank them for the help they give and pay tribute to those that helped with the events around the attacks. My daughter wasn't even alive then, but that day still affects her life, our lives, our country.

Or Does It?

With the recent presidential election our country has changed. We have turned on one another. Americans have become piranhas and are eating each other alive. Politically speaking, lines in the sand have been drawn and no one is crossing them. I have been trying to read different websites to understand what is going on with the politics our country because it is important to me and the future of my family to know how my country is being changed. There has been more name-calling and slandering against our own citizens than I can ever remember. If you are for President Obama and his policies you are considered a liberal-socialist. If you are against him you are called a conservative-racist. I am a believer in standing up for what you believe in, but does that mean you attack those who disagree with you? We as nation are NOT united. We no longer know what it means to be Americans as a whole. A house divided cannot stand and neither can a nation divided. As evidenced in the Civil War, nobody wins, especially not our country when we as a nation are divided. It grieve my heart that we have lost the feeling of patriotism and what that truly means. The patriotism that replaced our complacency has now been replaced with hostility. Will it ever return?

Today I am saddened for the families personally touched by the terrorist attacks. My hope is that those lives lost will AGAIN be a reminder of an America that is UNITED and we will not continue to be a nation divided.

The Elk Is Back

Nimrod picked my elk up today from the taxidermist. I had forgotten just how big elk are. Now he takes over our entrance way and pretty much fills up the room. He definitely adds color to our vanilla walls (sigh....someday I will paint them a color other than white...)

So now when you walk into our house, this is what greets you. Very welcoming, don't you think?

This is a view from the other side (the small side of the elk). See the mismatched horns? My bull is a little unbalanced, just like me :)

Here is my elk with my deer I killed several years ago. Check off another thing from my To-D0 List.

*Kill deer-check

*Kill elk-check

*Paint color in my house...hmmmm no check-I think my priorities need to be changed.

Meet Sally

Meet Sally. One day Punky Girl had to take Sally to the dr. because Sally wasn't feeling well. Sally came back looking like this.





The dr. told her mom that she needed glasses, that is why she wasn't feeling well. Being the great mom that Punky Girl is, she went right out and got Sally some glasses. Now Sally feels better. So much better that her mom took her to the library to check out some books (now that she can see them).

After picking out a few books, Sally and her mom sat down and did some reading together.

The End

The ULTIMATE Hunt Is On

Some of you remember my elk hunt from last year and what an experience that was. Well, our family is experiencing something ever bigger than that. Nimrod drew a strip tag--no, it has NOTHING to do with Vegas. The strip is a hunting area that is the most sought after mule deer hunting area in the United States because of the record book deer that come out of it-no exaggeration. He hasn't been drawn for mule deer in 12 years because he has been putting in for this highly sought after tag. So, here we are 12 years later. I am so excited for him to be able to experience this.

Nimrod was in shock the first few days and now he wants the whole world to know he gets to go hunting on the strip. He said to me the other day, "If I am distracted, forget things you tell me or seem out of it for the next 3 months, I apologize now." I just looked at him with a confused look, wondering where the conversation was going. Then he smiles and says, "I got a strip tag. I can't think straight!" I smiled and told him that as long as he didn't neglect me or the kids I could live with him for the next few months being distracted. But, you know what? He wasn't kidding. He has been forgetting lots of things which means he really isn't listening to me that well. What can I do? He has a strip tag!

The only down side is that he will be gone most of November. The kids and I will survive but it will be a challenge. Nimrod is already freaking out about being gone from us that long. Hopefully he will kill the record book deer on the first day and it will cut the hunt short by two weeks. If you feel like praying for that, I am good with it :).

I will post some pics once the big one is killed in a few months.

First Day of School

My baby Punky Girl started kindergarten this week. I always thought I would be okay with it because she has always been independent and into doing her own thing. However, over the last 6 months she and I have grown much closer and she has been the sweetest little girl in the whole wide world. Each day as school grew closer my heart has breaking little by little as I knew I was going to have to part with her and miss out having her around with me all the time. I tried to talk her out of going, but as I said she is a little independent, so she wasn't going to have any of that conversation.

So, I did my best, sucked it up and got my baby ready for her first day of school. She is the cutest Kindergarten girl I have seen in my entire life.

Buckaroo told me all summer that he didn't want to go back to school this year. This from the kid who LOVES school. I guess we made summer too much fun for him and school held no appeal. I will have to change that next summer! Anyway, come the first day of school he was ready 25 minutes before we had to leave. He admitted he was excited to go to school. Whew! I feel better.

We couldn't get out the door without a silly pose.

Punky Girl found her seat right away and quietly sat down waiting to find out what she was supposed to do. She then decided to read a book. That warms an English teacher/mother's heart.

This was taken right before the teacher read a story to the class and her mother broke down into tears. I really did try to hold it together but couldn't make it all the way. Nimrod said we should have stood closer to the door and then I could have made it out before she saw me crying. Unfortunately, she saw me crying and teared up herself. That really made me cry. I was a disaster!

At the end of the day the tears were gone and the first day of school was a smashing hit for us!

Disneyland

Back in March I mentioned that I was working two part-time jobs. One is my regular part-time job of being an online instructor for our local high school and the other one was a tutoring job sponsored by our state. I decided that if the state actually paid me we would take the kids to Disneyland. I didn't expect the state to follow through considering our current economy but the check came in the mail 3 days before we left to CA. I was so excited knowing what was going to happen.

We waited to tell the kids until the day before we left so that they didn't bombard us with the question, "When do we go to Disneyland?" 50 thousand times. They only did it 50 times :)

We drove to the hotel to check in before we headed to the park. When I got to the front desk to check in, the reservations clerk told me I didn't have reservations. I about freaked out. My kids and hubby are in the car waiting for me to come out with a key and he tells me we have no room. I remembered I brought my confirmation sheet I printed out and showed it to him. He then does whatever they do on their computers and said to me, "This is for July 8, 2010. You made the reservation's for next year." I thought I was going to hyperventilate and die. There was no way I could walk out there and tell them we had no room. Then he told me to wait and disappears into his office for at least 5 minutes. I begin praying. I know God is not a genie and doesn't POOF! make it all better but I really was hoping for some divine intervention. He finally comes out and tells me that they do have a room we can have and they honored the price I had paid for already. God is better than a genie! That begins the little miracles that occurred the whole time we were there. Disneyland is a magical place but with God it is even more special. We checked in and headed to the park.

The first thing we see next to town hall is....the fire station. Punky Girl is thrilled! We checked out all the cool fire station things they have to see.

We cruised all over the park just letting the kids taking it all in. Unfortunately, so did 50,000 other people. It was crowded! And, most of them are from another country so they walk on the wrong side of the street/sidewalk. It was challenging to avoid getting run over. But, it IS Disneyland so we sucked it up :)

The first ride we went on as a family was the Matterhorn. I wasn't sure how Punky Girl would do but she laughed and laughed through the whole ride. I couldn't stop laughing listening to her laugh. I have decided that is my special moment of the whole experience. The four of us had a blast on that ride.

Here she is with her daddy on It's a Small World right after the Matterhorn. You can tell she is having a blast.

Buckaroo and I went on the teacups, not Nimrod's cup of tea! Do you know how hard it is to take a picture when you are spinning?

Buckaroo loved the Buzz Lightyear ride. Mostly because he got to shoot things and beat his dad the first time. We rode this ride the most because it was fast to get on and the kids loved it.

The whole afternoon and evening we kept trying to get on the Nemo ride because Punky Girl LOVES Nemo and we heard the ride was awesome but the wait was 2 hours and the kids did not want to wait that long on the first day there. We agreed that it would be the first ride we would go on the next day, assuming the line would not be as long. After a spectacular fireworks show we headed back to the hotel anticipating another day of fun at Disneyland.

The next we headed to the park and as Nimrod and Punky Girl headed over to Nemo, Buckaroo and I went to go get fast passes for Space Mountain, my favorite ride. When we got to Nemo, they were waiting for us to get in line. As we stepped in line we noticed the line was a 45 minute wait but we had told Punky Girl we would go on it first so we got in line. The lady working the line leaned down to Punky Girl and said, "Princess, this is what we call a magical moment and you and your family are going to the front of the line. We all looked at each other shocked! So, off to the front of the line we went. NO 45 minute wait for us. (miracle 2)

Here is Punky Girl at the front of the line totally excited. *Sidenote-the ride is worth a 45 minute wait...it is awesome!*

After Nemo, we split up. Nimrod and Buckaroo took off to climb a tree and do something manly. Punky Girl decided she wanted her face painted. Now, for those of you that have been to Disneyland you have seen the little girls with the glitter princess masks and the dresses and the tiaras and the princess walk you know that is all totally opposite of Punky Girl. So when she said she wanted her face painted I about fainted. I was all over that. We were directed to the Bibbity-Bobbity Boutique for this experience. It is a Princess salon for little girls. Punky spent 3 seconds watching these girls get pampered and she bolted. But, she still wanted her face painted. So, off we went to find a stand that did just face painting. About this time, Buckaroo and my fast passes were up for Space Mtn so Nimrod and I switched kids. Dad was in charge of the face painting escapade. Buckaroo was totally into it as we went into the ride. It was a rocket ship and had all the sound affects. He was into it until it got pitch black. I grabbed his hand during the ride and he was totally still. When we viewed our picture after the ride, his eyes were closed. I asked him if he had his eyes closed the whole time and he said yeah, the ride was too fast and closing his eyes helped it go slower. Needless to say, He did NOT like Space Mountain. I ruined him for the rest of the trip. He was not interested in anymore roller coaster rides. After the color returned to his face, we went off to find Nimrod and Punky Girl. This is what I found:

She didn't get a Princess mask, she picked out a flaming football! I knew it was too good to be true. Nimrod swears he didn't coerce her into picking this and it was all her doing. Knowing her, I am sure that is the truth. I am just shocked they even offer that as a face painting. So, we had the ONLY girl in all of Disneyland with a flaming football on her face. I think it was new one for the park.

We wandered the park and got a fast pass for Splash Mtn. We had two hours to wait so we got some lunch and went to Frontier land. Guess what we found? A shooting game! My son liked the things he could do in his own backyard. Go figure...

After this, we headed to Toon Town. This was our favorite place. Why? They have a firetruck, of course.

After Toon Town we decided to take the park train back over to Splash Mtn. As we were waiting in line, the kids told us that they were tired and didn't really want to go on Splash Mtn. (I told you I ruined Buckaroo). They just wanted to go to CA Adventureland and see Crush and then go back to the beach house. We asked them a dozen times to make sure they really were done and they were. While we were having the conversation the people next to us were telling their boys that they didn't know if they would have time to go to Splash Mtn. because they didn't get fast passes. The boys were willing to wait the 3 hours in line to ride it. Nimrod took our fastpasses and gave them to the family. At first they wouldn't take them. We told them our kids were done and we were definitely not going to use the passes. The mom asked when they were for and we said 2:40-3:40. It was 2:40 on the nose (miracle 3) They were so excited and it was one of the boys' birthday. I said to Nimrod, This is our pay-it-forward moment from the Nemo ride.

Off they went to Splash Mtn. and off we went to see Crush. This was for Punky Girl and her fixation with Nemo. Truth be told, it is one of my favorite movies too. Anyway, we get there right before the show starts, no waiting. We go in and the kids sit on the floor and the parents are in the theater seats. Out comes Crush to talk through screen (if you have never been it is hard to explain) and greets us. Then he tells his assistant on our side of the glass that there is someone in the crowd he wants to chat with. Crush the describes Punky Girl. Of all the kids to pick to talk to, he picks her(miracle 4). Nimrod leaned over and asked me if I paid someone to have him talk to her. No way, this is all new to me I replied. After talking with Punky Girl he wanted to talk with her parental unit. We had to raise our hands as the assistant came over to us with the mic. Then Nimrod had a conversation with Crush, it was quite comical. Totally out of his comfort zone, but he did it. Nimrod and I laughed on the way out because we had nothing else to give away or pay-it-forward for anyone else.

That ended our first trip to Disneyland. Actually, the Mickey Mouse ice creams bars on the way out ended our trip. It truly was magical for our kids.

Beach Bums

Each summer, Nimrod's parents, his sister & her husband, their kids and the four of us show up in CA for a week of sun and fun at the beach. We have come to cherish this family tradition and count the days all year long until the time comes. This year we were there for the 4th of July and so the kids got to see lots of fireworks all over the sky. We had sparklers and little ground ones that we lit off the beach. It was such a great way to start off the week of vacation. While it is hard to catch fireworks on camera, I think some of these pics are neat.

Most of the week is spent eating chocolate donuts, playing in the waves and getting sunburned. Oh, we all start out not trying to get sunburned but eventually all the adults get some type of burn. Then we lecture each other about the hazards of it. We do lots of people watching-my brother-in-law has lots of comments to fill in and "tell" the peoples' stories. It is quite entertaining to listen to him make up stuff about people. The men play poker, the women read and sleep, and sleep, and sleep, and the kids fight the waves.

Here is Lil "trying" to read but someone wouldn't leave her alone

If you could have only heard Buckaroo and Punky Girl. They would stand out in the ocean yelling to the waves, "Come on waves, hit me! Is that all you got?" They punched, they karate chopped, they jumped, they fell, they yelled, and they did it with big smiles. However, the big hit with the kids was the boogie boards. They finally figured out how to do this and had the BEST time out on the waves.

Our own "Bo Derek"

He seriously could not stop smiling the whole time he was on a board

WIPE OUT!!!

Of course, Nimrod and the kids managed to get some fishing in. Catching was another story...

Notice the goggles? An accessory for all occasions.

The kids endured family photo time-they really hate it but they have no choice :)

This Chef "lived" in our kitchen. You would not believe how many people walking along the beach would stop and check out his backside! Some even took pictures...what kind of caption goes with that in your photo album?

This is how my babies fell asleep the last night at the beach. Is this not the sweetest thing ever?

Another year has set on a fabulous family vacation