random pictures

I had a photo shoot today, a girl who needed her senior pictures done. They are due at the school MONDAY!!! Talk about throw together, last minute, no pressure, but could you get them done now?! Anyway, whenever I set up my backdrops and lights I like to take a couple of shots to adjust lighting and check to be sure things are in working order. That is where my excellent family comes in...
This one just makes me laugh. It is technically horrible, but it's funny because baby was so good and still until just before the shutter released.

This one is of course of a random Supergirl-Pirate that happened to wander through our house. She stopped long enough for this pirate pose, before she turned to me and said, "Aaargh, a toy maybe." Daddy I think you will understand.

Happy Birthday to....

I went out to eat last night with my sisters' to celebrate their birthday which is today. A couple of friends from their work joined us also. I love the food at the Casa de Oro. Mmm sopa de tortilla.

I'm the good looking one.
Love and carnitas

Tot time at the gym

Every Tues and Thurs morning... (well okay most mornings), we go to our local YMCA for tot time in the gym. The kids love going and running off steam with the balls and hoops and tunnels and such. They have the run of the gym floor.I can even count this fun as part of our home school lessons. P.E. anyone? The beauty of a small community Y is that during the daytime hours, you almost have the place to yourselves. And the staff gets to know you pretty quickly. Now when they see us walk in, they just give us the key and we get out the playthings ourselves. (It may help that I'm a former employee of this YMCA and know the building inside and out.)
running with the big kids

hiding in the blue tunnel

and the yellow tunnel

Piano Lessons

I'm playing catch up on my photos so these weren't taken recently... They are from K's first piano lesson, almost a month ago.

Playing her first 'official' notes. It is worth noting that she made piano student of the week by her second week of lessons. It certainly helps that she LOVES piano and practices daily without me having to remind her. I wonder where this new endeavor will take her? I couldn't be prouder as I firmly believe that having a life rich in the Arts is important. I can give her visual arts now she will have a nice base in the performing arts too.

Until next time...

Art, Love and Music

Fun outside

These are just a couple of shots I took the other day when there was snow on the ground but it was nice enough to be out for more than a few minutes.

It seems to work better when the older one pulls the sled, and the younger one rides.

why so quiet?

I realize that this blog has been rather quiet lately... It has been pointed out to me that some of you miss my every other day entries in the blog. I wish I could do as well keeping things updated as my bloggin' hero Jessy. (I'm addicted to your families antics via your blog.) Well, I haven't forgotten about it. I often go through my day and think, Oh I want to put that in the blog... but then time is stolen from me and it is 2 a.m. and I really should be sleeping rather than entering things in the blog.
Another strike against me is my own belief that I should put up photos with every entry. That is just a personal preference, but it often keeps me from entering anything if I'm not on the computer that has working USB ports. Yes, still I cannot download anything. (Jim I need your help.)
Well anyway. I better go to sleep the kids are already there.
Much Love, Peace, and hopefully Less Quiet

haiku

Today the link off the daddy chain said to write a haiku for Daddy. We incorporated it into our lessons today. We learned what a haiku is then what a syllable is. Then we had fun writing haiku's about things that we love. Here is K's haiku for daddy.

Daddy

I love my daddy

He protects me when I'm scared

hugs me close and tight.

Love and Haiku's

We attended....

...the grand opening of Murphy's Bar and Lounge. I thought I would be smart and go early. That way it wouldn't be crowded, and I could eat without worrying about our "unruly" children disturbing other customers. Honey, going out to eat with an 18 month old has not gotten any easier. Well, when a town the size of ours, (427 people according to the 2000 census) opens a new business many of the people from town and the surrounding area attend. At 5:30 pm there was already a half full dining room and only a seat or two in the bar area. Every seat was full in the dining room by the time we left, and people were waiting for our table. The best part was how full the parking was. The lot was full as well as both sides of the street for three blocks. We saw several folks from Church, and the Hunters' joined us for our meal. They are such good friends, and good sports. The baby wanted only to sit in Mr. Hunter's lap as soon as he sat down. (I'm not ashamed to say that it made my mealtime experience a whole lot more enjoyable to have two other sets of hands help me corral the wild ones.) And they even let me snap a few pictures.

Oh and just to be sure....

A good time was had by all!

(I had to get a picture of Twana in there.)

We baked you some goodies

We spent the other night baking yummy things to send to you in the mail. As usual, when warm cookies come out of the oven there are many hands to help cool them and make sure they turned out okay. Here are just a couple of shots from that night. I must apologize, your box of cookies will come to you at least 3 cookies short. The brownies didn't fare much better, but some did manage to get in the mail to you. :^)

It IS cold where we are....

Here is baby all ready to get the job done.

He is helping to fix the toilet.

The current temperature here is -6 degrees with a wind chill of -26 degrees. Do you know what that means in this home? Well yes, we get the kerosene heater out to help the furnace along... but also it means that the toilet freezes up. No there isn't a little skating rink in the tiny bowl, but the water line feeding into the tank runs along a northern (apparently uninsulated) wall. It seems to run around the heavy porcelain tub. You can't just cut a hole in the tub to gain access to a frozen water line. I am trying to thaw it by placing my forced air heater directly in the tub to heat the porcelain. I know it will probably be in vain. I have also knocked a little hole in the wall on the other side of the tub. (My dad helped me with that.) Then I aimed my hair dryer directly in there for a while, but to no avail. I just want to survive tomorrow, without the rest of the pipes freezing, the high tomorrow is predicted to be four degrees below zero with wind chills between -35 and -45 degrees. I have all the faucets on slow drip and I'm catching the water in jugs to use to flush my toilet. The temperature is supposed to be a balmy 18 above on Friday. Wish me luck.
Peace Love and Brrrr.






A little update. It is the next morning now, and the water line had thawed during the night... Yay! Oh, the joy of properly functioning plumbing.

Misc.

I'm a little bummed. I can't get my usb ports to work on my computer. Which translates to no photo downloads. I would love to show you pictures of K's first piano lesson, the kids playing at gym time at the YMCA, baby decorating himself with an entire pack of Veggie Tales stickers, or how he helps with the cookies you are soon going to get in the next care package. But I am unable to bring those images to you in color.

So instead I'm going to post some not so new ones just random shots I've taken since you've been gone, for instance... this beautiful sunset I took the first night you were gone. I was looking SW a little just over the bean field.

Or there is this one of K's breakfast. She often asks me to draw certain things with her frosting packet. It is usually a flower or diamond or even a cat. But on this morning, she wanted a picture of Daddy on her toaster strudel.. so here you are, kind of.

For those of you who didn't know, something happened at our water plant on December 29th, and we have been under a boil advisory since then. Well it was lifted yesterday. Yay! I'm so sick of boiling water before using it. And now the big pot can be used for more important things. (even though I took the picture well before the advisory was lifted.)

Love to all

Our special project

You know we've been trying to keep us busy. I like to plan things that we can do together. Well my mom came up with this idea, so she helped with this project. We bought several yards of costume satin, and cut them into strips. Then Mom serged them on her machine and we tied them on our trees. We have one on each tree in our yard. Mom has one, T and L took one for their front yard too... and we have extra for family and friends who may want to "tie one on". We just want you to know we are thinking of you.
Love and yellow ribbons.

Is it cold where you are?

Last night, I went up to tuck K in and she was already asleep. I had to stiffle my laughter as I went back down for the camera. Notice the gloves and scarf as well as the hat. Honestly it isn't that cold upstairs, and I did have the heaters going. I wondered if she was trying to protest sleeping upstairs, but when I asked her in the morning she didn't remember putting those things on. Even the teddy bears are wrapped in the scarf. The brown bear is her Daddy bear, when you push his paw she gets to hear daddy's voice anytime she wants. I know that helps to warm her heart.
Love and cold sleep

P.S. check out the older posts, I was able to get some pictures up.

birdwatching

This time of year is the best for birdwatching. I had some birdseed left over from last year, so I took it out to put a little on the stump in the front yard, and a little on the table by the yard swing. When I got it off the shelf from the back porch, I noticed the scattered sunflower shells all over. I assumed that the mice have been helping themselves all summer. I'm pretty sure they opened the lid just like baby does when he wants into a container, with their teeth as leverage. Well, I took it out and was going to just make small piles to make it last until I could get more. I lost my grip and 3/4 of the box fell out on the table and ground just outside the dining room window. Now Polly (the cat) has a new favorite way to pass the time. She lays on the dining room table and watches the birds gorge themselves on seed. This morning, I had to laugh at her as her tail twitched and her gaze never faltered. So I sat down to see what she was looking at and found myself mesmerized too. There were lots of slate colored juncos and big old bluejays, squirrels were waiting near the drive for their turn at the feast. A bird I didn't notice last year has been coming around lately. I think it is a starling of some sort, but I have to see it again to identify it. We also have lots of redheaded woodpeckers. I think they miss the tree from the front yard because I hear them pecking on our house... a lot! Of course they could be seeking and eating all of our asian lady beetles that reiside within the walls of our humble abode. More power to em. But I fear it makes it easier for the flies to find a way into the house. (We really have to plug up those holes.) I wouldn't think that flies would still be around, but last night I was knitting by the light of a headlamp while one lone fly was really bent on getting into the lamp, or my hair, I'm not sure which.
I wish I could feed our houseflies to the birds.

Peace and Birdwatching

spaghetti sauce

We started taking links off the Daddy chain yesterday. It will be something to look forward to every morning. The first one was a nice reminder, written by Daddy.....
Now on to the spaghetti sauce.....

Today I decided to make that yummy homemade spaghetti sauce. It tastes so much better than jarred spaghetti sauce. It makes 16 cups so I freeze it in 4 portions to use later. This time I added mushrooms, and used italian instead of sweet sausage. I have to tell you it tastes just as good! I got out all the ingredients and was busy cooking the meat with the onions and mushrooms when I turned around to find baby helping me by measuring the basil... all over himself and the floor. He was doing it right he had the measuring spoon on the floor and was dumping the basil as close to the spoon as he could get it. I did stop long enough to snap a picture of his "help", before I swept it up.

We hope your flight to Qatar was good and can't wait to hear from you again.
Peace, Love and Sauce

The countdown begins

This chain has the same number of links as days Daddy will be gone We will remove one every day he is gone.

Just 125 days until Daddy returns. Here is a picture we took today at the airport.
We were able to get a special family pass to accompany him past the checkpoints and to the terminal, so we waited with Daddy until he boarded his plane. The kids enjoyed watching the planes taxi up with all the hustle and bustle that goes along with an airplane full of people flying across the country. The pilot even came up to offer lollypops to the kids, and to thank daddy for his service to our country. All in all, we did pretty good. The kids were well behaved, and "K" and I even held off crying until he boarded the plane. The baby only cried because he couldn't run freely about the terminal. In the interest of maintaining our composure, we left as soon as he disappeared through the tunnel.
On the drive home I was thinking about how the next 4 months would go and how much I was going to miss him, when a song came on the radio. Randy Travis' "My Love is Deeper than the Holler", which made me smile and tear up at the same time. That song is special to me because besides the obvious, "I love you more than anything" theme of that particular song, If you didn't know Daddy used to help K fall asleep by singing Randy Travis to her when she was a baby. I could almost hear him singing the song along with me and Randy on the way home today. Just another reminder that our loved ones are right there with us always, no matter where they are.
Honey the kids and I love you and miss you and can't wait for you to come home this spring!
always yours...

Love and Peace