Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Happy New Year's Eve...

are you having as exciting as I am?? Right now, my girls & I are watching Disney Channel's Totally New Year ... very exciting :o) Chris Brown and the Cheetah Girls are on Zach & Cody... don't know what I'm talking about? Not missing much :o)

Later, after I put my whiniest, I mean youngest, to bed, we'll camp out on my bed and continue to watch Disney.... until Dick Clark comes on, of course! Then we'll have a Rockin' New Year's Eve :o)

Rick is off working... keep him in your prayers, its windy out and all the drunks will be on the road in a bit.

Happy New Year to you all!

Monday, December 29, 2008

You know you are NOT grown up...

when you have to ask your kiddos to sleep with you! LOL

I just hate when Rick has to work because I don't sleep well, and to top it off... tonight we're having Chinook winds. My understanding is that they are like California's Santa Anas... but cold :o) They run about 20 - 40 miles per hour, but they are predicting 80 mph gusts. Um. I live in a mobile home. That just sounds scary :o) Add to that, Rick has our aonly car.

I told my SIL that if I get terrified I'd be calling her in the middle of the night to come pick us up. She laughed. Not sure if she realizes I'm kind of serious :o)

So far so good. Geez, I gotta grow up! :o) Just not tonight! :o)

Christmas has come and gone...

and while I'm sorry that the feelings associated with Christmastime are going away (though I'm trying really hard to keep them with me!!), I'm quite glad the non-stop activity associated with the 'family Christmas' is done! Phew!

We live VERY CLOSE to all of Rick's immediate family, except his younger brother and HIS family. They live in Victorville, Ca. Well... they flew in Christmas morning with their newly foster/adopted son, Isaiah. That was super cool! But oh my gosh the plans started flying and being thrown out!!!

Christmas Eve, it was planned that we would open presents at my MIL's house with ALL the grandkids... there are 6 here (my 3 girls and my SIL's 3 boys) ranging in ages from 2 to 12. It was LOUD, and crowded! Fun, but in all there were 17 of us crowded in my MIL's apartment living room... wow! Rick had to leave at 6PM to go to work... that sucked.

Christmas Day, we got to do our present opening at our own home. We were incredibly blessed by a local church that 'adopted' our girls for presents. My oldest got like 4 pairs of sneakers, and all of them got lots of jeans and t-shirts. They also got about 4 toys each from the church. From us they got 2 toys each. From MY momma they each got 3 presents (1 was clothes... they were TOTALLY burnt out on clothes! LOL).

Christmas Day NIGHT, we went to my SIL's house where she made Swedish pot roast. Oh man, it was SOOOOO good! There were 21 of us, including 7 grandkids (my BIL had made it in, remember?) and my SIL's ILs :o) That was also loud, but we were all having fun falling in love with Isaiah. :o) Rick had to leave at 6PM to go to work... that sucked... again.

Day AFTER Christmas, we got a phone call from FISH (which, I believe, is an extension of Loaves and Fishes, but I'm not positive) wondering why we hadn't picked up our gifts. Huh? I thought the church WAS the gifts from FISH (they were in connection, I was told anyway)! So we went to FISH to pick up our gifts... there was a bag for each girl (each with at least a pair of shoes, shirts, pants and toys!) and a bag for Rick and a bag for me AND an extra bag! Oh my goodness!! God REALLY blessed us this tight Christmas! (Did I mention that my MIL bought us our tree???) In my presents, there were 6 new bath towels, toothbrushes and toothpaste. Oddly, I loved it! :o) And the sweater I got? A beautiful, fuzzy red one... LOVE IT!!

Day AFTER Christmas NIGHT, we went to dinner with Rick's parents, his brother (and his wife and Isaiah), his younger sister (and her husband) and all of us. So eleven of us descended upon Red Robin :o) That was fun! And loud :o)



Don't we look happy? The midget in the front is my youngest, Abigael. Then going clockwise its me, Emmie (my middle girl), Kiera (my oldest), Richard (SIL's husband), Amanda (SIL), Bryan (BIL), Brittany (BIL's wife), Isaiah (BIL's son), Ray (FIL), Sue (MIL) & Rick (my honey!). It was so cool of the waitress to take our picture, we left her an awesome tip :o) She deserved it!!

I'm now unwinding (while washing all the new clothes and towels!!!) after everyone has gone back to 'normal'. Until New Years anyway, I'm sure! :o)

Wednesday, December 24, 2008

Rudolph: Real nose or fake nose?

That is the discussion my almost-10-year-old daughter and my 6-year-old daughter were having as I was putting them to bed tonight. :o) My oldest holds that Rudolph really WAS born with a red nose. My middle girls says no, that when its foggy, Santa just puts a blinking red light on the lead reindeer's nose.

That was such a funny conversation. My oldest seemed to really be mad that her sister didn't agree with her, and she really seemed to still believe in Rudolph and Santa! More power to her! :o)

So how about you? Is Rudolph real, and does he have a red nose? Or does Santa put a fake nose on whoever is leading the sleigh? :o)

Monday, December 22, 2008

Horton hears a... baby yak?

My middle daughter, Emmaline, reminds me of the baby yak (did YOU know she was a baby yak... I had no clue!), Katie, on Horton Hears A Who!



"In my world everyone is a pony, and they all eat rainbows, and poop butterflies."

Emmaline

Just had to share... she's just funny that way.

My husband IS the milkman!

A while back, my husband was looking for a job that was better than the one he had... he stumbled upon Longmont Dairy. Not only do they have cows that they milk and bottle said milk, but they do HOME DELIVERY!!! I didn't even realize that milkmen still existed, let alone near Denver!

So now my children really do look like the milkman :o)

And if you are wondering, it is a VERY hard-on-the-body type job... and quite cold (since they drive with the truck door open, even in -15 degree weather!). BUT so far the tips have been awesome... he brought home Belgian chocolates and Hillshire Farms stuff this morning!! MMMMM...

The suckiest part? He leaves the house at 8P and doesn't get home until after 9A on some days... then he sleeps all day. On the plus side, I'm still able to get the girls' schoolwork in! :o)

Merry Christmas!

Sunday, December 21, 2008

Not my first attempt...

at blogging, but maybe a better attempt? :o)

I think that I will make my first post in response to Ryan Detzel's Questions That No One Asked (if you haven't checked out his blog, This Is Reverb , do it... you won't regret it! :o)

So...

What's with the screen name?

No, I'm not a clan member! :o) There are 5 of us; myself, my husband and our 3 girls, therefore, we're a clan :o) Plus, my husband's heritage is Scottish. Made sense to me! Would you just get a giggle knowing that I signed up for Disney.com with this name, and they WOULDN'T LET ME at first?!?! They said it was inappropriate and they suspended my account! :o( Boo on Disney! (Not really!) I sent them a scathing (well, only a little!) email telling them that it wasn't inappropriate if my husband was SCOTTISH! :o) I got my log-in name :o) Yeah me!

THREE GIRLS!?! Are you going to try for a boy?

This is actually a question I get asked all the time (clearing the air early on I guess)... I can't tell you how many times we've been asked this by strangers even! No, we aren't trying for a boy. Yes, we know, we're in trouble when they grow up. Yes, we know we'll need more than one bathroom (we have two!). And no, it is not the man's fault! Would you believe that some stranger, after telling my husband how beautiful our girls were, went on to tell him that its the man's fault... WHAT?! I bet he has all girls, too :o)

Weren't you afraid your husband was some kind of creep, since you met him online?

One of those questions that you can see on people's faces when you tell them you met online (and not through eHarmony)... like they want to ask, but know better (better than the guy in the last question anyway). :o) I was so NOT afraid that he was a creep, he was just too sweet. And he liked comic books (his log-in used to be SilverSurfer... I tried to impress him because I knew who that was, but nothing else!), was in his late-20's and had just moved out of his parents. Um, looking back, I should have been weirded out!! LOL But in the end, he was (and still is) the most amazing man! Still as much in love today as I was December 26, 1999 when we got married in Las Vegas... after having met 4 months earlier! :o)

WHY would you move without a job?!

Oh yeah, THAT was a question that you knew everyone was thinking, but afraid to ask! :o) We moved from Morro Bay, California (between Cal Poly San Luis Obispo & Hearst Castle on the Central Coast) to Denver, Colorado this past June... yes, without a job. BUT we had family. LOTS of family! THAT is why we moved without a job, but plenty of money (that got eaten up by hotels when our landlord wouldn't let us move in... long story, another post I'm sure). My sister-in-law lives about 2 blocks west of us, and my in-laws live about 2 blocks south of us. Love it, usually. Except last night. Long, selfish story, another post, I'm sure.

What is your favorite article of clothing?

Oooh, good question that no one asked! :o) SOCKS!! I'm in love with socks! Except ankle socks, they make my ankles cold! :o) Knee-highs, tube socks, slouch socks... stripes, argyle, plain white... Christmas-y, Halloweenie (I said hollow weenie! LOL)... all sorts! The more the merrier! Know of a place to buy cool socks, let me know... I miss The Sock Drawer in San Luis Obispo, Ca!!! The coolest of cool socks, where the CC roller derby girls buy their socks, I'm sure!

What is your favorite blog to read?

That is a toughy... I'd have to say The Pioneer Woman. She 'introduced' me to Ryan's blog This Is Reverb and the pictures she takes of her food make me hungry! :o)

Do you like winter or summer better?

Last, but not least. I LOVE winter better... you can always get warm, but in summer you can just never get cool... you know what I mean?? I love the snow now, too... but only to look at. I'm knew when I moved here that I wouldn't be a skier, I knew I wouldn't be a snow-shoe'r (what do you call that???), I knew I wouldn't be building snowmen and I knew I wouldn't drive in it! :o) But I also knew that I would LOVE sitting on my couch, drinking my coffee, watching it fall. :o)