SNOW DAY!!!

Oh, my goodness, oh my soul.  We got sho'nuff snow today.  Started with sleet, turned to REAL snow for a couple of hours, and then sleeted again.  But, good golly, I turned those kids into full-on popsicles for as long as I could!
I mean, really, how often does it snow around these parts?

Yep.  I *so* cancelled school today.

Here are some video links for you:
Snow Angel
Playing Around

Hope y'all enjoy those as much as we enjoyed playing in the white stuff.  Oh, and yes, we did build a little 8 inch snowman.  He was fabulous, but didn't last long enough for a picture.  He fell victim to his maker's idea to jump on top of him.  Sad for the snowman.  Barrel of laughs for the maker.

Always Learning

This past weekend, my mom, Poodle, and I took in a couple of Nutcrackers.  We have two good ballet schools in our area who put on the Nutcracker (we have 3 good schools, but the third one is a Christian school and they don't do the "real" Nutcracker).  So, I bought tickets to one, and Mom bought tickets to the other.  Both were good, and they were different from each other.  One was in a small auditorium, one was in the large performance hall in our downtown area.  One was slightly abbreviated with some sections taken out of the 1st act and Sugar Plum's dance.  One used a celtic version of the music during small parts of the party scene.  (I kid you not.  It was......  different).

Poodle with Arabian - this sweet girl (who is a beautiful, seriously talented dancer) goes to our church.

What I've finally come to peace with in my mind is that I need to quit criticizing others' take on the Nutcracker.  The staging and choreography and casting and overall vision of this ballet will be different inside of each company.  There are as many versions of this ballet as there are versions of pizza.

MooMoo and Poodle at the Sunday performance.

And, I've been in a lot of different versions myself.  I guess the ones I'm going to be most comfortable with, though, are the ones that I was in last.  The ones that Miss Jozia staged.  Very classic, very traditional.  And close to my heart AND my active memory banks.

So, from here on out, I'm going to try my best, when asked about a certain school's/company's version of the Nutcracker, to just give a generous description of it.  I don't have to like it or appreciate it.  Because for those children who are in it, it's the only Nutcracker they know.  And that is the one that is close to THEIR heart.

Although, I'm sorry, as much as I enjoy celtic music, it doesn't belong in a ballet based on a story set in Nuremburg, Germany.  I'm just saying.

Poodle takes a picture with Clara.  You'd think she had met Queen Elizabeth.  But WAY better.

Baby Blues

I'm getting pictures off of the camera(s) and saw this one from Thanksgiving night. This is SueSue.
The best Mother-in-law in the world.








Is there any doubt where Jmk and the kids get their gorgeous blue eyes?

The Centrality of the Home

Voddie Baucham, Jr.

Hat tip to Patti Monroe for this (passed on to her from her daughter Joanna).  This was a huge message that was actually delivered to an audience of Southern Baptist pastors.  I had an easy time listening to it, and that might have been because I was listening to it from a MacBook.  Patti said that she had to subscribe to iPod to download it.  Do what you have to do to listen to it.  I guess it was about 20-25 minutes in length.  I'm not sure, because I had to start and stop a bunch of times because of the kiddos.  It's worth it!!!  Go listen!!!

Here's the link to listen to the message. 

Old Pictures

I'm going thru a folder full of pictures that were recovered from the old laptop when it decided to cannibalize all of the files in the My Pictures folder.  There were lots of photos on the old laptop, including many from years back that have long since been archived to cd's.  But I had to share a few of the babies - especially Tooter when he was still our big roly-poly!  (And I'll get pics up of his healing scar - it's looking good).

I guess I'm sort of forcing you to walk down my memory lane.  :-)

Family

I'm sitting here, after having spent a lovely, quiet hour and a half at a fabric store, blogging because my sweet parents came and picked up the kids to take them to the zoo.  This is after having a lovely Thursday with two Thanksgiving celebrations for which I didn't cook at all. And having my folks come pick up the kids and take them to lunch yesterday.

Now, I say all this not to brag.  Or gloat.  Or do anything similarly obnoxious.  Truly.  I just want to say how much I appreciate my family - the ones I'm related to by blood and the ones who I was blessed with when I married Jmk.  It is a true gift to be able to be physically close to family.  It's even more of a gift to feel close to family.  Those people who love you AND yours.  And those people who love you, even though. (fill in the blank)  :-)

Thank you to my family!!!  And I love you back.

Interesting Quiz.....

.....Regarding American History and civics .  I am not happy to report that I only scored 75.76%.  Boo me.  BUT, there were three questions that I changed at the last minute.  I had the right answer at first, and then talked myself out of them.  Silly me.  Even with those three, though, my score still wouldn't have what it should have been.

I betcha Jmk knocks this one out of the park.  He's a history guy.

One I hadn't heard before

(hat tip to Jimmy Stiglets, via my mom)

A Blonde is watching the news with her husband when the newscaster says "Two Brazilian men die in a skydiving accident."   The blonde starts crying to her husband, sobbing "That's horrible!!! So many men dying that way!" Confused, he says, "Yes dear, it is sad, but they were skydiving, and there is always that risk involved." After a few minutes, the blonde, still sobbing, says, "How many is a Brazilian?"

Happy Birthday Tooter!!!

Happy Birthday to our dear, little, banged up Tooter Pooter.  Yay for being three!!!  Thank you for sharing your day with the Thanksgiving play hooplah - you'll have lots of birthday cookies tomorrow!

We love you and we cherish the days we have with you.  Happy Birthday Son!!!

Unfortunate Tradition

Three days before Christmas (when Poodle was 2), she fell on the old rocks in the backyard, cut her forehead, and got stitches.  (Those rocks are now gone and replaced with deck).

Now, in another three-days-before-an-event accident, Tooter has joined the stitches club.  Three days before his 3rd birthday.  Poor fella!  We were outside for just a few minutes, in the front of the house, and he was headed towards the front door on the front walk.  He tripped himself up, fell, and made contact with one of the front steps.
Concrete + little boys = 4 stitches.
But, as you can see, there's hardly any swelling and just about no bruising to speak of.  Not too shabby.  Kids are beautifully resilient!

The fall happened Monday night, and I took this picture this morning as I was changing the bandaid and cleaning it.  Stitches will come out next Monday!

Like Jmk says......  Chicks dig scars.

School Update

A sweet friend reminded me on the phone the other night that I haven't talked much about how homeschooling was going, and looking back, I really haven't.  SO, to fill the bowl with grandparent gravy, I'll see what I can share about Poodle's year so far.

First - she has finished the primer book in Math-U-See! This dealt with counting, shape and number recognition, place value (units, tens, hundreds), introductory addition, skip counting by 2's, 5's, 10's, addition +1's, 2+2, 3+3, 4+4, 5+5, addition of hundreds and to make 10, tally marks, telling time, and a brief introduction to subtraction.  Everything in this book was presented in an "easy" fashion, and she was able to have a lot of fun with it.  She LOVED the telling time section.  And it's nice to see her be able to read a clock now.

We have read lots of good books using the five-in-a-row system, and we've had the chance to talk about countries like Russia, China, Japan, England, France, and Italy.  And, of course, the United States of America!  Nothing is terribly in depth at this age - it's more of a spray of information in lieu of a directed stream.  But she enjoys it and is getting a good geography introduction along with some new vocabulary words.

She practices handwriting - just using the "old-fashioned" tablets and lots of patience.  A couple of letters a day, along with some copy work.  Right now, her copy work is lines from the Thanksgiving play that she is doing with our homeschool group!  Usually, though, the copy work is Bible verses that she is currently memorizing.

We use readers like the BOB Books that help her with her individual reading.  We even have some Dick and Jane books for her to use as practice.  She continues to develop her reading skills.  I'm not sure when you can say a child is officially "reading", but she is certainly on her way.

And we play.  :-)  It IS Kindergarten, you know.  With one of our books, How To Make An Apple Pie And See The World, we ended our week with actually making an apple pie.  I had pictures of it!  But, they were lost on the other cpt, and then some of them were recovered, but all of those pictures are completely unorganized now.  So, they'll be hard to get to in general.

We've had lots of field trips and parties.  And we're currently knee deep in practices for the Thanksgiving play (that I previously mentioned).  Poodle is playing a pilgrim girl named Charity.  :-)  One of the things that I'm beginning to notice about homeschooling is we're not home a whole lot!

We don't do EVERYthing every single day.  Both school and life have to be flexible in order for them both to work.  Sometimes life has to give.  Sometimes school has to give.  But whoever gives tends to get it all back eventually.  So, it's cool.  So far, I'm really enjoying what we're doing.  I'm enjoying not only spending this time with her, but also watching her develop right in front of me.  It's humbling and extraordinary all at once.  I still will never say that we will homeschool forever and ever amen, because only God knows what the future holds.  But, for now, it's working for us.  She's growing in knowledge and love for God, she's growing in her basic skills, and she's continuing to develop friendships.  It's lovely.

She's still a "very active" 5 year old  ::ahem::, but we try every day to work on self-control.  And, we may even begin ballet lessons next school year.  :-)  We'll see.

So, that's a quick run down of what we've done so far, and it's a good indication of what we'll continue to do until the end of this school year.  And, now, you know!

Mom's 70th

We are super busy right now with school things, Thanksgiving plays, etc.  Not much bloggin' goin' on.  But, here's a little diddy from Mom's party.  :-)  And one of these days, I'm going to figure out how to embed these durn videos.

Happy Birthday to you.......

Happy Birthday Mom!!!

I've gotten out of the habit of wishing happy birthdays on the blog, BUT, one doesn't turn 70 years young every day.  Oh, to look as good as you at any point, but certainly when I turn 70 myself!!!

Happy Birthday MooMoo!!!

We love you so much - 

The Zoo

Happy Fall....

YA'LL!!!

Okay.  Listen.  Awhile back, I went on a rant regarding the word "voila".  Fair warning, I'm about to go on another rant.

It's not Ya'll.  It's y'all.  It's a contraction of the two words "you" and "all".  Not "ya" and ...... oh, you get my point.  I have a cousin-in-law who will go on a rant from time to time about it's and its and your and you're (and etc) and I will admit that I tend to do the snoopy dance when he puts that out there.  He hasn't quite gotten around to the y'all/ya'll thing, so I'm jumping on his verbal bandwagon.  And I will freely admit that I'm sure I make many grammatical errors - that's not what I'm discussing here.  Just contractions.  Come on.  We can do this people.  We can all be smarter than we seem to be at the moment.

:-)

Happy Fall Y'all.

Grandparent Gravy - Halloween

I know they've been waiting to see pictures of the trick-or-treaters!

We had a lovely time with cousin Audrey, who came and trick-or-treated with the Zoo babies.  She was a cute farmer girl, complete with freckles.  Tooter, who didn't know what trick-or-treating really was and couldn't tell me what he wanted to be, got to be a "black-eyed Pea".  And Poodle, who had a costume to be a princess ballerina (what she told us a month ago she intended to be) and even had a "real" Snow White costume, said one day before Halloween that she wanted to be Cinderella.  Uh-huh.  Okay.  So, scrooge Mommy, who wouldn't go out to buy a costume at the last minute, helped her pieces-parts a costume from what we had at home.  The wedding dress was from SueSue two years ago, the gloves are from sweet Allison at church, the shoes came from Maggie, the headband...  (gosh, was that Allison's too?  Maybe that was from Kimberly.), and Poodle and I made the ribbon necklace together.  Honestly, I thought Poodle was pretty creative!

It was fun - we trick-or-treated on Thursday night, instead of Friday, because our county wanted to leave the sheriff's department free for the football games on Friday.  But our whole neighborhood was out.  We had a lot of customers that night!

And Tooter now asks for his "treat treat treak" candy.  It's cute.  To us, anyway.  ::grin::  We think that he'll be all over this T or T thing next year.  :-)

TINKLE!!!

We have tee-tee!!!  In the potty!!!  On purpose!!!

And, it wasn't my idea to try it.  And he actually had a dirty diaper at the time he brought his potty seat to me to let me know that he wanted to get up on the potty.  So I took his diaper off, we disposed of its contents in the potty, and cleaned him so he could sit down.  And he sat there.  And dropped his head and didn't say a word.  I really didn't know if he was being dramatic or if he was concentrating, so I just sat there with him, equally silent.  Seeing as how this was his idea to get up there, I figured there's no harm in playing along.

Three minutes later, I hear some tinkling water, and he looks up at me with his eyes just as twinkly as can be and he smiles.

Whhheeeeee!!!

Poodle and I did the tee-tee dance and there were treats for all.

Maybe we're getting close to being able to truly potty train.  YAY Tooter!!!

Nacho Night Recipe

Lepidoptera at Foothills Valley asked for our Nacho recipe, because of the popularity of Nacho Night in the family.  Well, honestly, it's not so much what Nacho Night IS as what it ISN'T.

But, before I get to that, I need to brag on Jennifer from our recent Florida trip.  We get there on Friday afternoon, and get unloaded and settled, and we go into the "big house".  (The place where we were staying had a separate carriage house that we stayed in so as to avoid giving the other adults an early toddler wake-up call).  Come to find out that Jennifer has not only bought food for our meals so we didn't have to rely on restaurants, but she actually planned a nacho night for us, since she knew that this is what we usually do on Friday nights.  Can you be more thoughtful???

Now, HER nachos were waaaay better that what we usually do.  They were more of a taco salad, really, and were SO yummy.  Iceberg lettuce on the plate, topped with seasoned beef, refried beans, salsa, a bit of cheese, (and sour cream if you like).  Surround with chips and don't hurt yourself eating.

Our nachos?  Well, for Poodle, nacho night consists of things other than chips and cheese, which she thinks she doesn't like.  So, she'll ask for things like olives, cheese, and brown bread.  No lie - it's one of her healthiest meals of the week.  Weird.

Tooter's nachos consist of nothing more than chips with cheese melted on them.

Ours aren't much fancier.  Chips, cayenne pepper, cheese, and jalepeno peppers.

Not too exciting, huh?

So, why is it so popular?  Well, like I said, because it's not what nacho night IS,  it's what it's not.

It's not sitting at the table - it's sitting in the living room.  On the couch and comfy chairs.

It's not having to have good table manners while Mommy and Daddy talk - it's watching a movie.

It's not some food they're not sure they like - it's fun food.

It's not a stressed mommy who has had to figure out what to have for supper - it's already figured out.

Nacho Night can be pizza, tacos, soup - whatever your family thinks is groovy.  If the rules get relaxed and the mood is light, then that's what Nacho Night is all about.  :-)

Back and Gone... and Back again...

And a lot of gone.  :-)  Since returning from Watercolor and having the picture file fiasco, we've been in a computer confused state.  My dear brother Robert was able to recover a good number of the lost pictures, although I don't know exactly how many.  Because as I was going thru the almost 7 gigs of picture files, the computer started blipping on me again.  We realized that we were likely getting to close to a hard drive crash, or at least some serious problems.  SO, first, I'm not sure how many pictures were recovered and how many were corrupted beyond saving.  I'll find out as soon as I have time to get thru all of them.  Second, we went ahead and bit the bullet and got a new laptop for me so as not to deal with what we suspected was coming.  We visited the Apple store on Friday, and I am now figuring out my new Macbook.  I had an iBook years ago, but it was long enough ago that I'm still trying to remember how to do some things.  Well, still trying to remember how to do a LOT of things.

Anyway, we had some pictures on the "purse camera" (i.e. the small Canon digital camera) that weren't on the other laptop when it chewed up the other pictures.  I thought I'd share a couple.  

I love this one of my and Poodle's feet.  First, we had on matching toenail polish.  :-)  Second, the water is above her knees...  that's how clear this water is!  Incredible.

This idea was totally stolen - big, floppy beach hat tip to Kristen Kern for this.  When in a cool place (like a beautiful beach), take a picture over your feet.  Then, you can do neato things like make it your desktop on your computer so you can "go back" to that place as often as you want.

I love this idea - I love being around creative people who think of things like this.  Thanks Kristen!

Oh, and the very first picture was taken on Saturday while we were piddling on the tennis courts.  And being buzzed by butterflies.  Seriously.  Disney movie.  The place is ridiculously gorgeous.

So, I'll have more pictures up later on as I work out the corrupted vs. usable pictures from Robert's recovery of the old hard drive.  But, I now have a computer that will write CD/DVD's, so we won't be doing a whole lot of photo storage on the hard drive any more.  I don't need the heartburn.  :-)

Watercolor, Florida

Let me just say - WOW.  We had a graciously free place to stay this past weekend in Watercolor, Florida.  And even though we couldn't stay but just over 36 hours, we went anyway.  And it was so incredible.  The cold front had just passed through, so the weather was cool and sunny and so beautiful.  There were butterflies EVERYwhere.  We spent a couple of hours on the tennis court on Saturday morning, and it felt like a Disney movie.  Lepidoptera would have been in love.  Every couple of minutes, we'd have a "bluhbluhbly" (as Tooter says) fly past our heads.


It's a quiet, family oriented resort area and thanks to Jennifer and David, we were given a beautiful place to stay.  Lots of "natural Florida" landscaping to enjoy, as my friend Patty called it - and she was right.  Even though the houses are up close to each other, you still feel like you have a ton of room.  It adjoins Seaside, Florida but has a completely different feel - not that there's anything wrong with Seaside, mind you.  But Watercolor had a homey feel that was sooooo relaxing to us.  Believe it or not, I didn't check my email a single time.  Didn't think about politics one single time.  (until I saw a stupid commercial on t.v. accidentally on Saturday night while the baseball game was on).  I was so relaxed.  We rode bikes all over the place.  Riding bikes in the middle of the day thru a gravel lined, tree bordered pathway on your way to the beach will make you feel like a kid again.  I guarantee you.  Even if you're pulling a trailer with your 2 year old in the back, you will feel like an absolute kid again!  You felt so safe, even though you didn't actually see security anywhere.  The landscaping was pristine, even though you didn't actually see anyone working on it.


I would post pictures, but unfortunately, we've had a computer catastrophe.  For some unknown reason, EVERY SINGLE PICTURE in the "My Pictures" folder has simply disappeared.  Because I have unwisely not backed up since May, I have lost months of pictures.  Including every picture that was taken during the photo session on the beach on Saturday afternoon.  I have no idea what happened, and right now, no one else does either.  I'm absolutely sick about it.  My brother David tried to talk me thru some things, but he wasn't familiar with this.  My other brother Darrell (kidding - it's Robert) is going to try some recovery things tomorrow, but the weirdness of all this doesn't make me very hopeful.  They aren't deleted.  They weren't accidentally moved.  They aren't hidden files of some sort.  It's as though they were abducted by aliens.  I dunno......  Robert will do his best.  He can do as much, if not more, than Geek Squad, so if he recovers these things, we will owe him BIG time.  And if he can't, I'll know that they aren't recoverable.  I'm just sick about it.

I'm trying to keep perspective - because I'm sure if I walked into a children's hospital right now, I'd be reminded that I have what's important.  And the pictures aren't it.  But all of Poodle's bday pictures are gone too.  All of June thru now.  ::exhale::  My stomach is literally in knots.


Anyway - being at Watercolor during the off season was so nice.  I mean, I've not been during the "on season", but I can say that it seemed very uncrowded and soooo unhurried.  I think, though, that the unhurried thing is all year round.  I would say that being able to be there for a week would be better.  Spend a day getting lost on your bike.  Spend a day getting lost walking around.  Spend a day on a boat fishing.  Spend parts of every day enjoying the soft white beaches that are the stopping point of clear turquoise waters.  It was extraordinary.  God's beauty and creativity abundant.  And a reminder that man is nothing compared to HIM.

I hope the picture thing works out.  I won't put any of the pictures that are still on the small digital camera on the computer until something is worked out.  Until then, I'll just assure you that we were pampered this past weekend.  And I sure did enjoy it!!

And if anyone knows anything about Windows XP causing files to disappear, we'll take all advice.

I've Been Tagged

Thanks to dear Lepidoptera at Foothills Valley, I have been forced completely against my will ::ahem:: to participate in a tagging thing.  (kidding Lepi!)  Here you go.

1.  I still have the same mechanical pencil I used all the way thru college.  I bought it in the campus bookstore, I think.  (I was a math major).

2.  When Jmk was living in Hawaii, I was doing a state project on Hawaii for school.  I can't remember now what grade I was in, but it was 6th or 7th grade or something like that.  I got an "A".  :-)

3.  I actually like making homemade pasta.  It's a lot of work, but it's calming if you have an afternoon to spare.  Which I don't right now.  So, obviously, my pasta maker is gathering dust.

4.  I never wanted to do Junior Miss.  My mom talked me into it by dangling the "possible scholarship money" carrot in front of me.  It worked.

5.  When I read (and reread.  and reread.... etc) the whole Anne of Green Gables series, I read my mother's books from when she was a girl.  That was cool.

6.  I *never* thought I would *ever* homeschool.  Ever.

7.  The second toe on both my feet had started to be longer than my big toe.  (Like my mom's feet).  But then I got put en pointe in ballet, and for some reason that second toe quit growing and actually got a tad shorter.  Weird, huh?  I dunno.  Maybe my big toes just grew.  :-D

You know, this tagging thing is like email forwards........  but I couldn't resist this time!  :-)  So, to the people who are getting tagged:
Do this or there will be an offensive browning of a significant portion of a square foot of your yard.  Don't say I didn't warn you.  Except for Robert Chapman.  I'm tagging you on your professional blog.  You're not so much obliged to play by the rules.  Okay, technically, everyone else is a mommy with small children (some pregnant!) and a really busy freshman at MSU.  I can see how y'all might not have just a TON of time to do this either.  ::grin::

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