Merry Christmas 2010

Our 2010 Christmas Card Picture

Waiting was SOOOO hard so we passed time playing Dominoes

Finally our Christmas morning started at 6am.

Probably earlier for G, but we wasn't allowed to

wake anyone else until 6!

G got W a new ping pong paddle!

G got his much loved

Memphis Tiger shirt!



W catching some more zzz's while he waits



W was awake but still lounging on the couch!

Santa brought him a new warm hat.

The much anticipated Nerf Stampede!

Hubby's new look!

Hat from G

shades from W

(notice the blurr? G got anew scooter!)

The aftermath from the Nerf Stampede!

G played Farkle with Grandma and Dad

2010 Family Christmas Picture

12 days of Christmas Tree ~ #12

12 days of Christmas Tree ~ #11

from Granny's pink tree

Life on Thursday

hmmmmm I haven't gotten to tell about W getting a 'new to him' car. Since he's living at home and driving everyday to school he got a car that would get better gas mileage. I licensed and insuranced it on Dec 7.

Early Thursday morning, just around midnight, W hit a deer. He was almost home when he topped a hill to find a doe standing in the road.

I hadn't even gotten the bill for the insurance before I had to call them.

Fortunately, our day's excitement was early and the rest of the day was calm and normal.

I had physical Therapy on my arm.....still stuck!

I got lucky finding a parking place at Costco, only to find the lines to the check out will SOOooo long. I went to see if they had the book I was looking for had a couple of samples and left without purchasing anything!

I came home to relax!

Had everyone home for frozen pizzas & salad for supper.

W and G have THE cold! so they laid low last night!

12 days of Christmas Tree ~ day #10

Yesterday we got a box of memories from Hubby's Sister!

and among the memories were ornaments from Granny's tree!

thanks Auntie M

12 Days of Christmas Tree ~ #9

Champion of the Elementary School World

G is the best

BOY CUP STACKer

in his Elementary School!

They had the contest yesterday (in semi private ... no crowd aloud!).

and then he was quietly awarded the prize Cup Stacking Backpack!

Way to go Stacker G!

12 days of Christmas Tree ~ #8

12 Days of Christmas Tree ~ #7

12 days of Christmas Tree ~ #6

12 days of Christmas Tree ~ #5

Life on Thursday

Yesterday I was recovery from this horrible cold.

Last night W told me that I looked much better than I had in the morning. He said (and I quote), "this morning you looked sorta like a pile of mush."

I managed to get a shower and several naps.

My friend, Stephanie brought us supper and some milk! Good think she's looking out for us, because I only seem to be worried about if I have enough tissues!

Today, Friday is either the day that I get much better or much worse! seems this cold has been only on my left side (left sinuses, left eye etc) BUT today it's over on my right side. At least if I'm going to do this again I'll know what to expect!

12 days of Christmas Tree ~ #4

12 days of Christmas Tree ~ #3

Snowflake from Grandma!

12 days of Christmas Tree ~ #2

12 days of Christmas Tree ~ #1

working with Virginia

I have been given as a Christmas gift to Virginia!

Virginia is the mother in law of a friend of mine. Virginia is 85ish (shhhh she'd kill me if she knew I knew this number and that I was telling it), she broken her hip last summer. She doesn't want to slow down, but in reality is not able to keep up with her house. Her daughter in law lives across the street from her so Virginia calls her every few minutes (daily) for help. This is driving the daughter in law crazy.....thus I've been given as a gift by the daughter in law to help both her and Virginia!

It's a slow process of getting Virginia to tell me what she wants done. She has let me sweep and mop her floors, dust, do laundry and run the sweeper. Her grandson had spilled her jewelry drawer a couple of weeks ago, so we sit and match earrings when she won't let me do anything else.

When I told the daughter in law that we sit for a long time looking for earring matches she just started to laugh. Not knowing what was so funny about this story, I asked .......

Seems when they (Virginia's son) moved the jewelry box (it's a big jewelry stand, you know like the free standing piece of furniture), they just stood it up in the back of a truck, turned a corner and the whole thing tipped over, earrings spilling all over the truck bed. Some of the earrings ended up in the street! So now I sit trying to find matches that I know are not there, but can't tell Virginia!

The doctor released Virginia to drive this week. She decided that she probably won't go driving alone the first time, she'll take someone with her! I instantly felt a target on my back!

I immediately called the son .... "if you take your mother driving for the first time I'll never tell her that you lost all of her earring matches! I'll just sit and search of earring matches all day long!"

Unfortunately, the weather turned bad and neither of us have worry about Virginia driving ....YET!

Phones News .....

Today there was a laugh out loud gem of news on my phone......

Mailman delivers mail in nude to a stressed out woman on his route!

Here is the web story

Notice that he says ...."probably was stupid"

Probably? really!? Sir? "probably was stupid!"

Life on last Thursday

Last Thursday I volunteered all day at G's school,

with an exhibit called, Body Venture.

We, the volunteers were placed in different parts of the display (11 parts), I got the Brain! Then we started at 8:30am with groups of 10 every 5 minutes. We got a 30 minute break for lunch and then started back until 2pm. I could barely talk by the time my day was done and when I did talk it was at a high of speed. Seems they give you a 6 1/2 talk to be given in 5 minutes (5 minutes that include moving one group out and another group in! I just couldn't talk fast enough.

This was SOOOOooo Cool, the kids loved it. They were given a food card in the "lunch room", where they learned about the food pyramid, then they traveled to the Brain .......

enter through the left ear and exit through the right!

Then they entered the body through the mouth........

They then, as their food (on the card) slowly

traveled through the digestive system, heart and lungs.

Fabulous program, fabulous Day!

Phone news ....

OK, I have this smart phone, not one that has an I in the name but it's smart still the same. WAAAAYY smarter than me in so many ways, and it has had a mind of it's own lately .... those of you that have gotten repeated, and random phone calls from my phone lately know exactly what I'm talking about!

Last Saturday, for instantly I had called my friend, set my phone down on the counter and went about my day. The house phone rang a half ring, I didn't even get up. W comes up stairs, asking why my phone was calling him (waking him up), I got up and while walking to the phone, I got a text from a friend telling me that my phone was calling her, and then I got a somewhat angry message from my mother, asking "why I wouldn't talk when I called her". AND when I got to my phone I found it was calling G's school! Now that's a smart phone with attitude!

OK, on with the show .....
My phone has a feature where I get news. Some of the news is just news but then some are real gems .....like these I found this week!

"Man, 106 gives up smoking for love" ...
Go here for the web story.
I guess it's never too late to stop or this is some love!

Today's gem,
"Woman bites off husband's (79) tongue during kiss"....
You can read about it here!
Wonder if a divorce is the next story, or a party, maybe???

Life on Thursday

This Thursday included a trip into farmhood for us.

This week we've been collecting eggs

from our friends' mini farm.

When we pull up, get out, start walking back to the animals, dog,

wild Lilly

cats,

G wanted to bring these home every day

chickens and the duck's shed,

once they see us, the all come running, cats, chickens and the duck!

We don't feed them,

They have food out for them already.

we just collect the eggs and love on the little kitties but they crave people contact!

They miss their human family.

As we leave

(except Wild Lily, she has to stay in her pen)

we have a little parade following us.

2010 Book Review #13 ~ "Out of the Dust"

"Out of the Dust" by Karen Hesse 4.5 stars (out of 5)

It's always around this age when my boys come to me with a book they just know I'll love. This one was recommended by G, he really loved it and asked me to read it too!

The story is of a 14 year old girl, living in Oklahoma, during the dust bowl and the great depression. About her struggles, her family, her adventures and her life in the dust.

My boys have never led me wrong.

FieldTrip Saturday ~ WWI Museum and Memorial

Today I took G and his friend Mason

to visit the Liberty Memorial and the WWI war museum!

The day was beautiful and we had a great time.

The boys were in boy heaven with all the weapons!

guns, cannons, gernades, shell casings....

you name it they had and the boys loved it!

all the airplanes!

hanging from the ceiling, the trench!

and the stories!

then we headed to the Liberty Memorial ....

We started at the bottom .....

Then rode the elvator,

and walked the 45 steps to the top ......

What a view.....

the boys saw a 64 car train all the way from the front to the back !

it was amazing to be up there.

The boys actually looked over the edge ....

I just stuck my camera over the edge and snapped a picture

(to be looked at when my feet got back on the ground).

We had a great time!

Life on Thursday ~ Thanksgiving

It was a quiet Thanksgiving morning.

I woke up to 2 pies (pumpkin and pecan) made by W,

5 cup salad made by G

and a salad made by me!

All done the night before

We weren't eating until late so I got to leisurely got to watch the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. It was very chilly! so I found my coziest blanket to snuggle up with. G came in and out to watch but he was more interested in practicing his ping pong game.

I finally stuck the Turkey in the oven at noon, but quickly returned to watching the Dog Show!

Then I taught G how to play CLUE. He hasn't won yet but he loved it!

When the Big kids got here they played games with G while I finished getting things ready.

We finally ate around 5, but quickly returned to playing Clue and ping pong.

I'm thankful for my family.... all of them!

Life on Thursday

OK, I'm confused. I know that's nothing new but I saved this post yesterday and I uploaded several pictures from my phone for the post.

Today, I can't find the post nor most of the pictures! If I remember I'll upload them again.

Thursday was a busy day on the road all day!

I took the morning off from working out. It's always nice to get a break from working out AND it's always nice to get the daily things done around here early.

At 11 I had a dental appointment to get my teeth cleaned. That went well, I have a filling that needs to be redone. Great thing ... this dentist put it in so he'll replace it free.

I get done at the dentist then rush ... lead foot it to the school, for G's school assembly. He'd earned an exemplary level on this state reading test last year and was getting a medal for that today at 12:30. There's a picture of this floating around somewhere of this!?!?

I get to come home for a few minutes where I love to walk in my front door because I get to walk through this wonderful fall confetti, it just makes me smile. My burning bushes usually don't have time to burn really well, but this year there hasn't been that much wind and the weather has been perfect for them! They've been beautiful this year. I absolutely love the piles of burned leaves!

I run back to school to pick up G. Run him to the Dentist to get his teeth cleaned ... NO cavities!

Then on the drive home we experience the most beautiful sunset.

Wordless Wednesday ~ Emperor Jerry the 3rd

not so wordless ....

Our local paper is having a Pet contest.

G's teacher thought it would be funny for

her class to have Pet Rocks and enter

them in the Pet contest.

So meet Emperor Jerry the 3rd

Great Loss

(As a parent you pray that there will be people in your children's lives that will make a difference for the good. People that you trust and know that they will make your child a better person, just by being around them.

And Derci Pinto was one of those people for W.

He coached W in Soccer for a year but was apart of his soccer life ever since. Derci encourage W to be his best, drawing more out of W than W thought could.

W spend hours trying to implement the things Derci had taught him, from being a better keeper, to spending hours trying to get a ball to bend just right. Every game the sideline was filled with their names in a strong Brazilian accent. We will never forget our "WHEel"

Derci was respected and loved by all his players.

And now will be greatly missed by his players as well as they parents .....

Derci recently went home to Brazil where he died of Pancreatic cancer.

(and just in case you're keeping track this is the 2nd soccer coach this HS team has loss to Pancreatic Caner.)

Sunday Thought

“God help us to be grateful.

Someone has said that an ungrateful man is like a hog

under a tree eating apples and never looking up to see where

they come from.”

(Ezra Taft Benson)

Where I have gone? you ask

I've been no where! I've been sickly. A blasted head cold, it took days to get here, a couple days of head pounding and now a few days to leave.

I subbed on Thursday and Friday. I would work, and then come home and sleep, then back again. It all worked out. I'm still on the mends but at least I can see the light at the end of the tunnel very brightly now!

Hubby kicked me out of the bed a couple nights for snoring! I then told him that that was my bed and I was sleeping in it, he needed to just bury his head if he didn't like the snoring!

I really thought I'd stopped snoring since he didn't say another word about it. I hadn't I then started waking myself up snoring! Yesterday morning I got up early, cleaned a few things and then decided I could go back to bed so I did. I was going back just as he was waking up, I slipped into sleep only to be jolted back awake by "you can't snore all day in here too"!

Gotta love that man!

Wordless Wednesday ~ just making sure I'm paying attention!

OK this can't be wordless.....

When we added a line last month the salesman

forgot to click the "unlimited text" feature.

They fixed it, retroactive!

By the way the bill was 139 pages!

Monday Ramblings

Several years ago my Sister in law told me that

once you hit 40 you start to fall apart.

Wwweeellll, in my case it has been 45!

I think today could very well be a Wordless post!

This weekend I've started this odd cold/allergy thing.

It's not getting any worst, just staying the same.

At our house Hubby and I have always had this deal

that we couldn't both be sick/injured in bed at the same time

and up to this point it's always worked out.

BUT I think Hubby has over stayed his time in the bed, cuz .....

My shoulder is frozen!

Yeah, you read that right....frozen.

It has always been alittle stiff

(or at least for the past few years)

but over that past few weeks the range

of movement has gone to almost nill.

Last Monday when I couldn't get my bra on without extreme pain

I decided it was time to call the doctor.

I got a cortisone shot and

a month's worth of Physical Therapy appointments!

I don't seem be to aging with grace,

at this point I just want to stomp my feet and pitch a fit!

Well no time for that,

cuz that would make my pounding head cold pound more and

I've got to make myself wince in pain,

while I force my shoulder to move!