A sad day…

Two sad things happen today!  We had to take Collin to the MD to find out he has shingles.  He broke out in a rash middle of last week and I thought it was a little impetigo, then it spread and we though herpangina (like the mouth sores you get).  Nope. On Monday it was diagnosed shingles…poor guy.  It hurts and itches and he gets to go to school anyway.  Evidently someone with chicken pox can cause shingles, but having shingles does not make you contagious!

Sad thing #2: Christmas tree down.  As fun as it is to put it all up…it is not fun to take it down!  It even looks like it’s frowning!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On a happy note, what a beautiful sunset.  Erin had gymnastics tonight and worked her tail off on her front hip circle.  I shot this on the way.

Sunday Lunch & a Christmas train

  We are thankful to have continued a relationship with Mike’s mom Nancy as she comes to our church for a visit every so often.  We thoroughly enjoy the times we invite her for lunch afterwards even though I do not do it often enough.  I really appreciate her warmth and wisdom as a Christian woman.    The boys played piano for us as we finished lunch preparations and she even endured having her picture taken with the Nintendo DSi’s and altered.

I even snuck a photo in during dessert.  She made a butterfinger cake for us which was to die for!!!!!!!!!!!!!  What  a sweetheart!  We’ll see what kind of will power I have! 

After getting into a size 5 jeans the other day (first time in 5 years) I have this amazing cake in my fridge!  Oh the irony!!!

I’m not sure why exactly, but Alan HAD to get the Christmas train out this year.  It usually goes up with the downstairs tree, which no one but me wanted to put up (so we did not).  Tonight the train came out.  There were no C batteries in it and I told Alan that they were probably put away last year and forgotten.  Ten minutes later I hear the whistle blowing and found my back porch cupboard open and rooted through. Can you say determination?

Celebrating the New Year

We spent some time on New Year’s Day with Bill and Paula and Remington.   Paula had foot surgery to repair some Vulcan toes and has been off her feet or in a boot since then.  This was their first time hosting as she can put weight on her foot. In true brother Bill form, he prepared smoked pork which our kids absolutely devoured!!!  No sauerkraut though which made Chris happy, I am sure!  I’ll get some sauerkraut in..probably today!
It has been a sweet Holiday.  Since we did not travel to either PA or South Africa, there was a part of me disappointed.  After the super busy fall we had, it was priceless.  I made up for the lack of busy-ness by enjoying Christmasy things.  We baked cookies, sent cards,  went all out decorating, watched our favorite Christmas specials, enjoyed all the programs, read our favorite Christmas books and listened to Christmas music up until 1/1/11.  As I was reading Michael Card’s devotional on Christmas it warned me not to love the romance of Christmas more than the meaning of Christmas.  Well, I am a true romantic at heart and I do love the soft lights, pretty-ing things up, and the whole Christmas cheer thing!  In the dark evenings of winter, I love Christmas lights!!!  Yet, I hold firm that without CHRIST there is no Christmas.  The precious gift of God sending His son to earth as a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes to die for our sins and be raised from the dead and seated in heaven to prepare a place for us is something that should be celebrated ALL year long.    It’s the greatest love story EVER! Why not be romantic?  We who hold Him as Lord are His bride!

Happy New Year! 1/1/11

Inspired by Staci’s blog book, I decided to try harder to blog a little something almost every day.  After all, as far behind as I am in my scrapbooks, this may be an imperative way to record the memories I can scrapbook later…and if I choose to make a book instead…well that is OK too!

I am one of those people that love natural beginnings.  I like to change things up every now and again, so things like New Year’s resolutions do not quite have the sore taste in my mouth that other’s hold.  I see it as exciting to start something new or do something different starting…NOW!    Sometimes it works out, sometimes not, but that does not necessarily mean failure it just means re-evaluation. 

Speaking of new things, this New year’s Eve was quite different in that Erin and Collin were not with us.  They are now involved in Youth Group with our church and they had their own gathering last night that lasted until 1 a.m. and Dwayne Wilson brought them home afterwards.  We had our own little gathering here at the house with the Rich’s, the Whites and Cristi Gale.  It was fun to spend the time with friends and although today I am sleepy, it was fun to hear Collin and Erin’s stories of hide and seek in the church and the “unspeakable” game, that they cannot tell me about even though Collin really wants too! 

It actually snowed the day before, so Alan was obliging as to go out and get snow flakes for me!

 

He evidently needed a bit of a nap before the party!

We have a Wii that “Santa” brought us, so the boys enjoyed a little bowling close to 11:30 p.m.  After that we watched the “ball” drop on TV “live” from Time Square in NY.  Cristi hung out with us until 1 a.m.  She is a night owl!

The way it is

Something strange has been going on since spring 2010 and I’m not sure what to make of it.  See the summer was….long!  See, school got out early due to  budget cuts and started late because we were building a new school and it took until the last minute to get it done.  Five minutes have been added to the school day to make up for it.  Yet, I was grossly unprepared for summer.  I had the usual things in mind; the pool pass purchased ahead of time for the better deal, plans for zoos, outings, baseball etc.  I will have to sit for a licensing exam this spring so i intended to study for that.  What happened instead: discontentment.  Pre-teen girls do not mix with home body boys intent on shooting everything up.   Oh yeah, and junior high students don’t go to the pool…unless they are absolutely certain their friends are there.  So poor Alan was stuck at the pool with mom.  Even Hans quit going because either his friends weren’t there or he was afraid Erin and Collin were having too much fun at home alone!  Gasp.  So much for studying while they were all at the pool having fun.  There goes fun activity number 1.  It was a mess, the summer drug on and on.  No one wanted zoos or parks or trips to town and the highlight of the summer (baseball)  became a disaster for Alan as his team got pounded every single game.

Perhaps it became poor parenting on my part, but I have not been this out of control of a time period in a long time.  Why am I going on and on about this now???  I’m exhausted!  I started back to work with meetings and trainings in early August even though the kids did not go back until August 31st.  School started at the college the week before, the same week as 2 a days for volleyball and football which were not at the same time!  We have not stopped running since.  Monday: home at 6 after practice; Tuesday: piano and gymnastics after vb and fb; Wednesday: AWANA after VB and FB; Thursday: game day for both VB and FB; Friday collapse or go to the HS FB game. 

Last night Erin got to go with the B team for a tournament.  She is C team, so to go with B team was a good things we/she thought.  She collapsed in tears last night.  Not only did the team lose all 3 games (badly), she did not play.  She was put in for maybe 3-5 minutes at a time.  Long enough to have balls slammed at her that she did not always get because she had barely gotten her feet on the court.    She collapsed in tears when she got home begrudging her only home night of the week and feeling like the whole night was a waste.  Collin was down this weekend because he has yet to have a ball thrown to him as 3rd string receiver even though the first 2 drop balls all the time, are not as fast as me, or as strong… 

Sigh, the late night feedings, diapers and crying may be exhausting in infancy, but this stage of parenting… has it’s own perils..

Help me Father God and thank YOU for getting me through each day!

Week 1

It has begun: a new sports season.  Sydney talked Erin into trying Volleyball this fall (something mother could not do)!  Between Collin’s football and Erin’s volleyball it’s a busy time!  I am excited to see them busy and learning new things.

The first week was against Lyons.  JrH play their games on Thursdays at the same venue (nice!).  The volleyball started at 4;30 pm with the “B” game.  At first, ok throughout the afternoon, I was surprised that Erin did not even warm up.  I was assured that she would play in the “C” game. (you know right when Collin’s game was!)  Fortunately I got to see the first half of Collin’s game before I scooted to see the “C” game.

The 8th graders take turns with the captains at the coin toss and Collin got to be there the first night.  He had some good tackles but was always on the other side of the field.  Should I go over there for good photos?

I took this photo to show how much Collin (#11) has grown,  if you look at last years photos Coach Comley has to bend down to talk to him (Collin plays option and takes the plays in).   See here 

Then at half time it was back to the High School for Erin’s game.  She did well for her first volleyball game…EVER!   I was so proud of her I could burst.  Early in the summer she was convinced she could/ would not do this and here she is warming up!  I was still adjusting camera settings when I took this one.  It’s blurry, but kind of cool!

Ready!    

This baby went over!!!  She does not have her serve down very well, but we are working at it.  Swatting mosquitoes in the yard Saturday she stayed out there until she finished with some good serves!

You go girl!

She did it

Erin is officially taller than me… here’s the proof!

What’s a mom to do?

Are you ready for some football?

We are!  Volleyball too.  Both Erin and Collin are doing fall sports this year, so we are gearing up for some major “cheering” on Thursday afternoons!  Whooo hooo.

I spared my daughter taking photos at preview (again, the shame!).  My friend Linda took some, maybe she’ll share one of these days!  Here are a few from football preview.  They were easier and less conspicuous to take!

Collin caught an interception and off he goes!

A New School Year

Well, the summer is officially done and school is back in session.  Can you believe this camera crazy  mom did NOT take her camera to the grade school…the new $12 million grade school and take pictures at the open house??????  I’m so ashamed!

I do have a few tear down photos of the school worth sharing and saving in blog history.  It was kind of sad for the kids and even me to see the thing come down.  I have memories of seeing kids flood the hallways, searching for my own  kids and seeing them across the way.  Strange the things that grab your heart.    I’ll rectify the new school photos soon enough!

Surprises

Our neighbor was having trouble with pigeons and barn wallows messing up his horse hay, so he asked the boys to shoot the pigeons that were in his barn AND HE PAID THEM!   So here go 2 very happy country boys off to hunt birds with their BB guns.  Inside Collin has some fun making card forts and then of course shooting them!

 

Random dog photo???????

Guard goats

So  Erin and I were teasing Pop pop that the goats were tap dancing on his pick up while it was parked at our place.  To our surprise, they were out when we got home from feeding the harvest crew and the goats were out and waiting on the porch for us, right next to Lacey, the guard dog!

Harvest

We had a very big rain (8 inches) the weekend before we expected harvest to begin.  Still they managed to get started Wednesday evening.  They always catch me off guard!  Alan always has to get right on the combine with dad. 

Rural traffic jam  

Chris was interviewed by a reporter from the Sterling Bulletin.  They feature a farmer each year.  It was kind of fun and broke up the monotony of an average harvest day.    It was funny that she was dumbfounded that I took food to them 2x a day….