Crate Trained.

New Years resolution #1. Blog more....

I have never been what I would describe as a "homebody". Don't get me wrong, I like home, always have, but I love going places and seeing things and shopping. But, I think I am now crate trained. Just to explain, when you crate train a dog it goes something like this: for the first few days (sometimes longer) when you put the puppy in the crate it whines, and cries and howls. Then, for the next few weeks it will fight like crazy to keep from being put in there, grabbing the door frame, struggling throwing itself on you, but then becomes calm inside the crate after you win. Then in stage 3 the pup will willing go into the crate when told, but won't go voluntarily. Then comes the wonderful stage 4 (where we are now with our 6 1/2 year old Golden Ret.) you can leave the crate door open, she will go in there when she wants, sleeps in there on her own and considers it her own personal den. Some dogs collect treasures to keep in their crate to chew on or enjoy....

I have finally reached stage 4. After the holidays and craziness I couldn't wait to get home to my "crate". Drug home all of my treasures, my kiddos and Tom. Granted, I am looking forward to going out again for treasure hunts and visits with loved ones, but I am definitely enjoying being home!

We took our usual tour this Christmas covering over half of Texas, across Arkansas to Tennessee. Thankfully, Tom's parents live in West Tennessee! It was wonderful to visit with family. I got to spend a lot of time with my parents, sister and brother-in-law. Got to meet Bonnie & Scott's new addition "Murry" the jack russell terrier. I think we bonded.
We got to see all of R, E, & M's cousins in Tennessee, it gets nutty with 9 children! Ages, 9, 7, 5, 4, 3, 3, 2, 17months, and 13months!!! 7 girls, 2 boys! Busy, but fun.

Well, I am off to finish unpacking, downloading pictures, getting my Christmas cards out, finally, and cleaning house -- time to fire up the crock pot! ;-)

Hope all is Merry and Bright with everyone!

Happy Reformation Day!!!!

I am currently taking care of sick kids. :( But, I am still out here and will be posting soon!

Dust Bunnies

I would have posted sooner, but I have been buried under a pile of laundry/housework! It seems to never end and our house is tough to clean all in one day (especially when you keep having to stop and change diapers fix meals and hang up on recorded messages), so by the time I finally finish the last room it is time to start over!

We took a trip to the fire department (which the girls insist on calling the fire hydrant for some incredibly annoying reason =), it was fun! Between me and two other ladies we took 10 kids ranging in ages from 10 months to 5 years. Whew! They liked getting into the fire truck (which was huge) and getting to see all of the hoses and wear the chief's hat in a picture. I think the Mom's were just as impressed as the kids at all the stuff they have! We live in a small town, but a huge county some 1500 square miles -- mind you there are only 14,500 people in the whole county. But, there are tons of grasslands, and oil rigs to keep the fire department ready for any emergency. Interestingly, he said that the occurrence of structure fires had dropped since they started doing fire safety programs in the schools!

We also took the girls on their first fishing trip Saturday, which they thoroughly enjoyed. We have met another family here that has 3 girls also aged 2, 3 1/2 and 5. We joined them on their fishing trip. The girls caught impossibly small perch, but had so much fun!

Well, I am off to put girlies to bed, take care out there!

Fuzzy Headed

Well, it was a busy week! Tom's Mom was here from Sunday to Sunday, to visit with us and the girls. M finally is trying to walk, she cracked Gan up walking on her knees around the living room (sigh), but by the end of the week she was walking from furniture to furniture. Last night Tom and I had her walking across her room! I thought this day would never come, 15 months has been a little long for Mom. R & E had lots of fun and Mom and Dad got away for our anniversary date, it's a month early, but we will gratefully take the opportunity!

We also cleared all of the book boxes out of the front foyer! It now looks like we are moved in! I had been to the bottom of all of the boxes but had to repack books because we have no bookshelves. We moved the boxes and I got a friend to "store" her bookshelf at our house. So it is now a lovely sit and read area!


Well I am off to start the day, today is Columbus Day so we have the day off of school but we are taking a tour of the fire station today with some friends!
Have a great Columbus Day!

Jumping ship and miles of nothing...

Ok, so due to some difficult circumstances with my grandparents the girl's and I trekked across the massive state we live in to see Mom and Dad and offer our support in helping my grandparents. It was fun to see Granddaddy (my Dad) preach and go with "Honey" (that is what the girl's call my Mom) to get a fresh gingerbread man and pumpkin cookies! It is amazing to realize that my kids have my parents as grandparents, it is hard to believe that life is moving that fast!

It was also nice to see trees. I certainly used to take those for granted! =]

We drove for 9 hours on the way there and 8 1/2 on the way back, and both times when we finally got there, R would happily announce, "That didn't take too long at all!" That's optimism for you! Tom had the entire house to himself for almost a week (I am so jealous of all that time alone to get things done). I think the more chaos there is around here, the more lonely and quiet the house gets! He was certainly glad to see us come home!

Well, Tom's Mom is coming Sunday to stay for a week! So, I have got to go clean and get ready for her visit. Hopefully, this will be a fun week, I have cookies planned, a girl's lunch, and catching up on family stuff.

Hope all is well with everyone!

Being outdoorsy....

This was a fun weekend! For starters on Thursday night we taught the girls how to play kickball! That was a lot of fun, it seems R has a pretty competitive streak (no idea where she got that)! She picked up on the rules pretty quick once she learned to run the bases in order! By the end of the game she had learned how to steal bases! (again, no idea how she learns this stuff :)

E's big breakthrough was she stuck with us! She is not a game-player and generally clams up at Cubbies (AWANA) and won't even play "duck-duck-cubbie". But we are working with her so she learns how to play so she will have fun (she hates it when everybody shouts orders in the heat of battle....seems like I have some other family members that hate that too.... :-).



Then on Friday Tom constructed a backyard campout! Complete with 6-man tent and smoldering fire! We live next door to a county fireman so Tom made me happy by asking before we finished off our stump in the backyard! We managed enough hot dogs to justify s'mores! It was great!

Cheap Entertainment.

Ok, it has been shamefully long since I last posted. No doubt, I have lost my viewing audience. Too bad, you'll have to waste time some other way now!
Let's see, I ended with a book review last time and have since blown through "The Devil Wears Prada". Other than reading is better for your mind that television, it was "fluff". It is amazing how I can take months to go through an uplifting worthwhile book, but then can put my life on hold to read something completly entertaining.... It's not a bad book, but, in my opinion, the movie was better.

Fall seems to have found us, and I have been working through getting out the fall clothes for 2 weeks now -- mind you, we don't have that many clothes, it just seems to take me that long to do any project these days. Which brings me to home school. That is going good, R is really coming along on some things, but she would much rather know everything rather than go through the process of learning it! Tom and I both know she came by that honestly, but that doesn't make it any easier to keep my patience on some days! We only know 1 other home school family in town and their daughter is our babysitter. It is difficult to feel alone in doing this, so I will still be calling my distant homeschool buddies to get some advice!

We are working hard to adjust to small town life, the entire town revolves around the local school and football is definitely king out here! We are friends with about half of the coaching staff (there are 15 coaches working in the football program right now), so we are learing about the ups and downs of coaching!

A picture is worth a thousand words so I will close with our "friend" who wandered into our backyard today. It was fun watching him try to sneak off on the girls when they forgot to watch him!!!