Wordless Wednesday - Such Beautiful Skies

Guest Blog: January Birthday Party by the Dog Walker

 Mom asked me to blog for her, since this month has been her birthday and of course Tadpole's. For this year, Mom has decided to make birthday months very special themes. For example, she wanted everyone to do a potluck on a specific color of food to bring. I was assigned to do blue and I made blueberry tarts for dessert. We had a lot of different other foods, like Mom assigned herself brown, featuring corn dogs and chips. A lot of family came over and shared their assigned colored meals with one another. It was quite a party of visiting and playing games and even trying out the different foods, like an all-you-can-eat buffet. Tadpole only had a few gifts from Mom. Mom's greatest gift was being around family with creative ideas and spending good times together. She chose the game that I received from Grandpa for Christmas, which was Guess in 10, Disney Edition. Here are a few pictures of how the party went. We were a little sad that Curly wasn't here for the party, but we were proud that he had won the football championship down in Las Vegas! I'm sure Mom will tell you all about that some time. He even has some cool souvenirs.

Fun Night Out!

Tonight Scout took her best friend. K 

Baby Doll, and me to Chili's for dinner. It was so much fun to just be silly and laugh (and eat mozarella sticks).

Cheers!!

Fruit Tarts

Check out this homemade fruit tart I made for Baby Doll for working so hard on her homework! So proud of her and she wanted a fruit tart anyway, so I made a few of them. They were delicious. 

Wordless Wednesday - Little Love from New Jersey

 

Good Day

Today was a good day.

This morning we were able to watch Gamer give his beautiful baby girl a name and a blessing. A little later in the same sacrament meeting, Taco reported on his two years of serving as a missionary.

When the meeting was over, about 30 people showed up at the house for breakfast. It's a good thing Scout made lots of french toast last night.

Sadly, I didn't get any pics of the party, but here is a fun one Scout sent to me yesterday.

Happy Sunday!

So Proud

I am SO proud of The Beast!! He was named Vice President of his bank today. He really deserves it. He works so hard and takes great care of his family. 

He has a birthday coming up in a few weeks...39, can you believe it? Now, this is a great looking guy!

Wordless Wednesday - Ice Fishing With Dad

This is the first fish Skittles ever caught by himself. "Slippery little suckers!"

Mayor Ramsey is Sworn In

Curly has to attend 4 city council meetings as part of his Youth City Council role. We went tonight because they were swearing in Dawn Ramsey for her 3rd term as our mayor.

She was actually sworn in by Governor Cox. It was pretty awesome to see our government at work.

Just Rambling

We put away the tree today and all the rest of the things kicking around the house. I love Christmas, but I get really tired of the clutter and mess. I always sigh in relief when things are back to normal. I even took the Christmas bedding off my bed. Last year, I didn't get it put away until mid-February. 

We have so many things in this house. Too many things. 

I am ready for a purge. 

Do you do that too? The kids got a bunch of new stuff for Christmas, so it seems logical that they would be ok with donating some of their older things. It has been my experience that some kids are quick to toss and others hang on for dear life. 

My sweetie was one of those keepers. He always said he paid good money for things and he didn't want to be so quick to donate them. Not me. I just don't like it when cupboards and drawers are so full that they won't shut. Did I ever tell you that open cupboards and drawers are one of my pet peeves? An open cupboard made it easy for littles to crack their heads on it. I swear, they have no idea how tall they are. Once one of my boys tried to walk under the table and he didn't realize he had gotten a bit taller and he got a huge goose egg on his forehead.

But I digress.

I want to be able to invite people in without stressing about my house. I want the puppies to use the doggy door. I am so tired of cleaning up poop! By the time Baby Doll turned 5, I was pretty sure those days were behind me.

Anyway.  

Get on board with me, ok? January is the time to purge. The time to do a little deep cleaning after getting the tree out of the living room. Time to convince those puppies that this is the mildest winter I can remember and they won't freeze their little butts if they go outside like they are supposed to. 

Happy New Year!!

Putting Away Christmas

This morning before work, the Dog Walker put away all the blowups. He has been working on the lights all week.

I spent a good part of my day undecorating the tree and reboxing the Snow Village pieces.

It's harder than you think, it's like playing Tetris, trying to fit everything into three very large boxes.

I'm always a little sad when it's all done for another year. I think I did a pretty good job even though I didn’t have my sweetie here to help me make any decisions or wrap any gifts while we watched sappy Christmas movies on the Hallmark channel. Now I just watch them by myself. They are a good distraction.

But I digress.

I didn't want this post to be sad. I just wanted to say that I hope I (we) can keep the Christmas Spirit burning brightly in our hearts and in our actions for the next 330 days.

Then I can get out the Snow Village again and enjoy Christmas with the rest of the world.

Happy New Year!!