Snow Play with Air Lacy

If a picture is worth a thousand words, than this post says a  lot!     Are you loving the couch in the background.  It’s our neighbor’s junk pile.  Great for forts, ya know!  

 

1/12/11 Early birds freeze their butts off!

 

Takin g Collin and Erin to the Science Olympiad at 6 a.m. was a chilly endeavor!  I later heard that it was actually –3, but our van only registered 0F. 

I had some fun today.  I saw my friend Kim and her 2 kiddos: Karis and Ian who are growing sweeter every day.  Then Alan went to the dentist for sealant on his back molars and a small cavity repair.  Finally when Collin and Erin got home they could share that the Science Olympiad team won 1st overall.  Erin and Clayton got 1st in Ornithology and her “compute this” team got 2nd (thanks to Brayden).  Buyah!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

Collin was an alternate so his job was to go with the team and help keep things running smoothly, help Mrs. Riffel keep up on her Diet Dr. Pepper and so on.  Even his sister said he was very helpful! 

11 degrees F

Happy 1/11/11!!!!!
This is what greeted me as i came home from work on Tuesday.  Serious icicles!!!


Alan gets home from school and immediately gets ready to go out an play.  Well it is 11 degrees F with a wind chill, so I say oh not today.  Chris over rules me and off collin and erin and alan  go.  After 20 minutes or so I call for them… no answer. I finally hear them about a quarter of a mile away on the RR tracks and they still have to walk home against the wind.  “It’s not that cold” they say!
   
Lacey certainly was enjoying herself!!!  She loves to fetch snow balls or catch them mid air!

Hybernation Day 1/10/11

 Hit play to hear the music while you read!!!
Ok, a snow day has arrived!  Three to five inches for our area, nothing big, kids go to school.  What do we do???????
Chris helps me enter 12 (maybe 9) months of the household check book into the farm program on his computer for the accountant appt on Wednesday.  Halleluiah, he helped me get it done in 1 day!  Praise the Lord, we got to sit by the windows and watch the snow (he even let me take a few photos).  but UGHHHH, why do I not do this 15 minutes throughout the year!!????????????????
  
The goats would  absolutely not come outside while it was snowing or even afterwards.  We saw no hoof prints in the snow.  Alan had to coax them out with alfalfa.
It was a dry sticky snow.  Don’t you love the face on our bird feeder.  I did clean this off so they could eat, but not before a photo!

Waiting

You know, it’s not fair when you’ve had the taste of a “white Christmas” and don’t get one!  We’ve been waiting since Christmas and here it is the 8th and snow is in the forecast so strongly that we would be utterly cheated to not get some.  So we wait…

It gets very windy and dark, the grey clouds hang low in the sky, but no snow.  Close to the time Erin and Collin are to go to prepare for Science Olympiad, yes on a Sunday….it starts to spritz.By the time we have to get them and take them to Youth Group it has begun to snow/ sleet.  Here we go!

 

Yes the Christmas lights are up and on.  We should all keep them up during the dark months of January and February just to cheer things up.  Don’t you think???!!!!

#2

Saturday was one of those days!  We had some errands, Collin and Erin were at the school early getting ready for Science Olympiad and the boys and I hung out at home.  Of course the guys were out deer hunting early and came home only for lunch before heading back out.  Mike must have contemplating using his bow because he got it and his target out for some shooting.                                               Alan jumped all over this and was outside for hours shooting their bow after they left for the afternoon hunt.     Alan also hoped to go with them later in the afternoon, however, that got canceled when Mike got deer #2 early in the afternoon! 

Hunters, we have way to many does around here, make your plans to come hunting in KS next year!  They are tasty too!

Chelsy, our college student came over that afternoon.  We hung out, ate steak for dinner (deer and beef), playing ping pong and Wii. Look closely, Erin is biting the strap of Mike’s controller trying to make him miss.  It was “intense”!

TGIF

                                                                                      It’s a beautiful morning.  Late last night Mike got here from TX to deer hunt for the weekend.  The guys are up and gone early, the kids are off to school, so I make a lovely omelet and enjoy the sunrise!  The sky turned color long before the sun appeared. It was beautiful!
I work on Fridays so I did not get to goof off very long.  I went back to my room to get ready for work and something caught my attention as I was making the bed…  ABBY!  She was all curled up on the mattress on the floor Erin slept on last night.   
We were making stromboli for dinner when the pick pulled into the driveway and backed into the garage…that meant…deer #1!  Mike and Chris wasted no time in getting the first deer, although I suppose it did take all day!!  That left them all day Saturday for deer #2
I was too late for any good posed photos, but here they are goofing with some antlers left over from buck season. 

Chores

On days like today, 59 degrees F in January is a pleasant day to do chores.  For our kiddos that means Erin takes her goats out to graze in the wheat.  Hans feeds the cats and Collin the dogs.  Sometimes they help Chris with gathering fire wood.  The weather is supposed to get COLD over the weekend, but today it’s nice!!!                Erin brings grain out with her to ease getting the goats back into the pen.  Tonight Dolly and Lacy are sneaking out of the container! Lacy wants to get her mouth on Erin’s crachers too!

A Quiet Day

It’s not good when the mamma is sick.  Well, Wednesday, after one day of being at work, I was sick.  I had a low grade fever and a horrendous headache that did not respond to Motrin.  I did not even go to AWANA tonight.  I stayed home and Collin stayed with me.  His shingles are healing so well!!!  He was very chatty and kept me good company.  Then he grabbed his Nintendo and played Mario Cart.               He even chatted with me about it.  At least my headache had finally broke after a nap and MORE motrin!
Happy Birthday to my brother Mike today!!!  60 years whoo hooo!

Back to School

January 4th and the alarm goes off and up we all get, back to work and school today!  I was dumbfounded that on New Year’s Eve Jan asked me when I went back to work and I had put it out of my mind so that it had not occurred tome that I went back the same day as the kids.  Not a big deal, except I had planned to recoup and clean that day.  Nope, off we go! 

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!