Christmas 2009

We woke up bright and early...

and found some presents under the tree.

The boys had fun tearing into them.

I think they scored fairly well.

They got lots of Lego's, so there has been a lot of construction going on.
My parents came over for breakfast and we forgot to take pictures.
We went to my parents house and met up with Zoli, Chris and Cody there.
We took pictures with Apu's camera, but I forgot to bring the camera home -
so there may be more pictures to follow.
Merry Christmas!!!!
Happy New Year!!

Randy is officially 10 YEARS OLD today!!!!

Here are some photos of the stuff that's been going on around here.... Randy at the winter concert at school last week.

Keith at the same concert -- tons of kids!!!
kinder through 4th grade

Here's Ace with my shirt on and he doesn't like it!

Jeff and his homemade gaming setup.

Randy's party.

More party pics

Cake - with very messy writing on it -

The crew waiting for the cake.

The presents.

According to Randy - this is the best present!!

Thanks Uncle Jimmy and Aunt Alissa!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RANDY!!!!!

2009 coming to a close fast!

Can you believe that this year is almost over? Randy will be ten years old in 11 days!! He's going to have a small party on the 18th. Then six days after his official birthday, it's Christmas. So far I have only one gift purchased! I better get on it! The house is decorated inside and out. Amazingly most things survived last night's wind and rain storm. The ladder with characters climbing it, broke and our flag was torn completely in half. We counted four trees down just on our two minute drive to school. It was really bad last night. Randy was supposed to have his first flag football practice last night, but that was cancelled. So he'll have his first practice tomorrow. Keith has asked to play soccer -- I'm going to check into that and then decide whether or not we are going to keep him in the tutoring program at school.
We received a neat surprise last week from my cousin - she sent us a popcorn ball decorting kit. We all had a lot of fun creating our different characters out of popcorn and candy! Thanks Ildi :)

Getting ready....

Yesterday we put up the tree and decorated the house inside.

We still have to put the lights up outside.

Only three weeks til Christmas!!!!!

A shot of Randy and Henry enjoying the fuzzy, chocolate brown, papasan chair.

Turkey day - here and gone!

Wow - it was over quick!! Jeff and I make a great team. We whipped up everything and got it all ready on time. My dad felt better so they came over to our house for lunch. My grandfather came home from the recovery facility (minus one big toe) the day before thanksgiving, but he and my grandmother stayed home. I took some food over to their house and then realized that I completely forget to make to make the pumpkin soup. I even had my menu written down to make shopping easier and to help me make sure I didn't forget anything. Oh well, Jeff doesn't like pumpkin soup anyway. We had turkey, breaded chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, broccoli, stuffing, three types of bread and salad (oh yeah, I forgot to put out the cranberry sauce - but in my defense, no one noticed or asked for it anyway). Then the best part of course --- desserts -- I made pumpkin roll (of course), nut cups (because I was too lazy to make the walnut cake) and vanilla cake and Anyu brought over a cake. It was yummy and I need to make more nut cups!!!

Turkey day is getting closer!

Today is Monday... but tomorrow is Friday -- at least for the boys it is :)

They'll be off from school for five days! Nice! I like when they are off.

My kitchen is painted!!! WooooHooooo! I only have a tiny bit of touching up to do.

Three bedrooms and a half bath to go!! Then maybe one day we'll get some new carpet!

I was summoned to the Principal's office this morning. He wanted to see me and the PTSA president. We didn't know why, so I was surprised when he had us speak during the morning announcements! Ack! I hate talking and it's even worse when I don't have anything to say! He wanted to recognize and thank us for all the work that we did to put on the carnival and the cookie dough fundraiser (we seriously rocked the cookie dough making about $10,000) and the activities that the PTSA is putting on. He wanted each one of us to say something on the announcements and has decided that every other week - we'll make an "appearance" on the morning announcements - like a talk show he says! AAHHHHH!!! I really don't look forward to that.

I need to make a pumpkin roll and I want to make a walnut cake! Feeling the need to bake - weird! And I've been on a cleaning kick too -- what's wrong with me? I may even mop the floors!

Jeff had a yard sale this past Saturday -- he did great!!! Made about $800! And we still have stuff to sell. Saturday night we decided to go out to eat. Thought we'd go to the Olive Garden, but we ended up at Ah-So Steak & Sushi instead. We sat at a teppan table -- where the chef cooks the food right in front of you. The boys absolutely loved it and are still talking about it two days later. Unfortunately, we won't be going back anytime too soon because it's costs a fortune. We left $115 there and didn't even have any alcohol! Maybe it'll be a once a year thing... possibly we can celebrate "Brother's Day" there each year. (That's the holiday that Keith came up - to honor brothers.)

Today Jeff decided to slice off the tip of his finger -- he was slicing potatoes, to make potato chips and managed to the take the top of his finger off!!! So gross!! I couldn't even look at it. And in case you were wondering... yes, we still made the potato chips, but I had to finish them off -- not as good as Homie's chips - but heck, they were still edible.

Recent happenings....

I am still painting. I may actually finish by the end of this year - maybe.

Everyone is doing what they should be doing...

working, school and all that stuff.

I got two papasan chairs!!! They are so cool. Everybody loves them...

including the cats. Henry even likes them when they are all piled up on top of each other.

It's truly a funny site when the boys are in them -- sometimes depending on how they are sitting, you can't even see them in there.

Speaking of the boys, Keith is in his tutoring class each day after school.

I can only hope that it will help improve his reading, writing and comprehension.

Randy has told us that he wants to play some football -

so he just got signed up today!!

That should be interesting!!! At least it's only flag football, so hopefully he won't get too hurt.

Thanksgiving is coming!!!!

Next week - where does the time go?????

Trick or Treat

Halloween has come and gone...

In Keith's opinion it was the best ever!

The soldier and the green fairy.

The clone trooper - commander fox.

The second lady of the house :)

Jeff won second prize at work.

We collected a lot of candy and

had a great time walking the neighborhood.

Beaver Creek - stuff I forgot....

https://quantumforce.homeserver.com/camping
That is the link to the rest of the pictures that we took while on the trip.
I forgot to tell you all about the second night's skunk adventure...
I put our food in plastic containers with lids, so we weren't worried about losing anymore vittles. I tied the garbage bag and zipped up the garbage can lids - so no worries there. I woke up to hearing some rustling really close to the door of the tent - on the inside of our screened area. Skunky was inside messing with the plastic bag that I had our towels in!!! I was afraid to open the door and find myself face to face with a skunk, so I hit the tent a few times and then open the zipper up high and peeked out. I could see that he squeezed his butt out and was going back into the brush! Thankfully he didn't get scared and didn't do any harm, but he did wake me up and I was sleeping so nicely!!!!!
And I almost forgot about our kitchen rock!!! We didn't get a picture of it, but it was in the middle of our kitchen "floor". I tripped on it almost every single time I walked in or out of the kitchen. The boys tripped on it plenty as well. We all knew it was there, but still - I couldn't get over it without tripping!!! And no, it couldn't be moved. :)

Beaver Creek revisited - this time with Jeff...

We are on our way... traveling north on I17.

We pass Bumble Bee, Horse Thief Basin, Bloody Basin Rd., General Crook Trail,

Montezuma's Castle, Tuzigoot Natl. Monument and Cornville.

Finally making it to Beaver Creek.

Here is some of our stuff on the trailer.

So many people commented on our trailer!

It is cute, but doesn't match the color scheme.

This awesome tree was in our campsite.

The boys enjoyed climbing it repeatedly.
Keith made friends with three brothers that were camping with their dad.

We found out that they've camped there every year for five years in a row and always managed to get the site that we were camped on -- oh well, this time it was ours.

We finished setting up our gear and Keith decided to venture to the creek to check everything out. He took the walkie with him and after a while, we hear "I need a medic!" LOL He wiped out on one of the many, many rocks down there. Randy grabbed the first aid kit and took care of the scout.

The water was cold, but some boys still decided that it was good for swimming in.
The scenery was beautiful. We loved being there!

There are rocks galore all over the place. It made hiking a bit challenging.
You should see my ankle. It had doubled in size just from trying to walk the rocks.

The boys got a kick out of crossing the creek. It was crossed on many occasions.

Sometimes on rocks, sometimes on fallen trees that spanned the water. We all managed to stay dry until the last morning. Keith came back to base camp at one point soaked!!!! Luckily we had some extra clothes. Then Randy joined Keith and the other boys and also fell in. Keith ended up falling in two or three times. They had a good time!

The first day, the boys crossed the river and I stayed on base camp side, taking pictures.

At one point, a couple of fish and wildlife guys pulled into the campground and each grabbed a bucket full of fish to dump into the creek. We ran after them to watch them pour the fish into the water. They were rude guys, but it was fun to see the fish congregate in the middle of the swimming hole.

The boys blend into the background wearing their camo!
But they reappear against the rocks!

Back at base camp there are sandwiches to be made - while we still had bread that is. We'll get to that story in a little while. The hosts of the campground really liked our set up. They were impressed with our color coordination and our camp kitchen. The lady - Mrs. Coleman, (that really is her name) wanted to take a picture of our kitchen before we left!!

The hosts told us about two kitties, that belong to the other hosts. They got these two cats as kittens, two years ago and the cats survive there at the campground all year round - in the winter, totally on their own because there is no host after November 15th. Anyway, one kitty is friendly and hung out with us quite a bit. I didn't even see the other one.

Too bad all of our chem-lights were dead :(

Here's Jeff checking and tossing them.

At least we had a few nice campfires. We roasted some marshmallow, made some s'mores, and roasted some kielbasi too.

Another thing that the camp hosts told us about....

SKUNKS!!!!

They come out as soon as it gets dark and they come right up to you!!!

As long as you don't startle them, they won't spray.

We didn't get sprayed - that was a good thing, but one skunk got into our garbage can the first night. I tied the bag, but it decided to get in the can anyway. That same night, after the garbage can incident, we heard more skunk noise - figured he was back in the can, but found out that he actually got into our pantry!!!! Apparently the zipper was not completely closed but couldn't have been open more than half an inch -- he got in there and chowed down on some yummy vittles. He got into all three packages of bread, ate 12 oreos, but didn't want any nutter butters, he had lots of peanuts and even decided to try the entenmann's cake -- dang varmint!! We had plenty of food, so all was still ok after the loss of bread and oreos.

That skunk walked right passed Jeff and walked by me - two inches away from my shoe.

I could have tried to touched it - if insanity would have struck me at that moment.

Randy didn't enjoy the skunks much. It got dark around 6:30pm and that boy wanted to go to bed, so the night would hurry up and be over and the skunks would be gone. Keith, on the other hand, enjoyed skunk patrol.

Kitty came and went and got a lot of lovin' and some chicken.

Keith made friends with three brothers - they had a raft - so Keith got a ride. He also borrowed the net to try to catch some fish, but that didn't happen. I think Randy also took a turn on the raft, but I didn't see him.

We really had a great time. I was actually sad that we had to leave. But work always gets in the way!! We look forward to our next trip, but I think we'll try to go somewhere skunk free next time.

Time for a new post

We had the boys' parent teacher conferences last week. I'm happy to report that Randy is doing very well and that Keith was chosen for a scholarship - a year of after school tutoring. That was supposed to be good news - and it is, but he really does need the extra help - it will be a good thing. The boys are now off for two weeks. That is so nice, not having to wake up early and rush out of the house! They still wake up early, but we get to take it easy!

Not much excitement going on here. Still trying to very slowly finish up painting the house. Still have not won the lottery. My friend sent me a lucky Tiki from Hawaii that I was supposed to take with me when buying the tickets... I took him, but he probably didn't want to work for me because I mocked him for being made in China. LOL Anyway, the Tiki is cool - I'll have to show him more respect and maybe he'll work next time! :)

It's October -- breast cancer awareness month! Time for some pink hair again! Maybe I'll be able to get it done at work today... we'll see.

I got some yummy delicious chocolates, a balloon and a cool huge card from my boys even though I said I wanted nothing!!! Well, I don't suppose I will ask them to return the chocolates!!

A few changes...

Sadly, Chelsea is no longer with us. She had to be put down on Thursday the 17th of this month. The meds were not helping her and our vet determined that she must have cancer. We could have gone through lots of tests and tried chemo and the like, but the end all result would have been the same. We chose not to put her through all of that. So she is now in doggie heaven :(

On a happier note... Keith finally lost his first tooth!!! That happened on Saturday the 19th! He got a dollar from the tooth fairy and scored $4 from Mama & Papa!
The boys will be off from school for two weeks for fall break soon. We are planning on going camping (hopefully we'll actually go this time).
Tonight is Family Math Night at school. The boys are looking forward to going because if they show up, they will be excused from doing some homework! What an incentive! We'll be heading there shortly.
I finally got some strawberry rhubarb pie!! I've only been craving it for the past week!! Seems like the only store around here that ever has it is Fry's. So after trying three other stores, we went to Fry's and I got the last strawberry rhubarb pie!! Can't wait to have some with a scoop of vanilla ice cream later!!!
What else is going on? I can't think of anything too exciting. The boys are now proud owners of BB guns - we picked those up when we visited the indoor swap-meet on Sunday. And that same day, Keith managed to break his. Is everything made like crap these days? Yeah, that was a rhetorical question.