Gobble, Gobble!

Thanksgiving day was a very enjoyable day. We spent the day with many family members that we don't see that often, so it was a good day to catch up. We enjoyed some great food, conversation, a mean game of Boggle, and even some SNOW. It actually snowed on Thanksgiving. Not that any of it actually stuck, but it was falling from the sky, quite heavily there for a while. Only in Texas can it go from 85 degrees earlier in the week to 38 degrees two days later. Last year on Thanksgiving we were sweating, this year, freezing. Not that I mind, I love the cold weather, so I gladly greet it, and ask it to please stay.
All was fine all day long at Luke's parents townhouse, and we left there around 7:30 ( with no leftovers in hand- Yeah! I accomplished my goal of having no temptations around or in my house!) or so, came home put the kids to bed, I started doing stuff around the house, Luke was relaxing, when he started feeling not so well. Soon after, he departed to bed and I stayed up to finish some laundry( oh- the exciting life I lead- crime fighter by day- laundress by night). I was trying to have some clothes clean for the children to wear for our trip the next day to Pappy's farm. So around 11 I finish up and head for bed, and as I am walking down the hall, I hear the sound. It is so tell-tale, and it is so not the sound you want to hear. We always joke if there were an alarm made of this sound, no one would ever be caught snoozing. It is the sound of your child vomiting- it will make a sprinter out of the slowest of folk, as you deftly flash through the air trying to grab them up and dash to the bathroom with the least amount of puke landing on you or the surrounding surfaces. Unfortunately this night was not a top performance night from either of the master vomit savers, and Rylie's room turned out to be a not so pleasant site. Of course at this point, you do rock, paper, scissors to divy up the required clean up tasks- child or disaster zone. I took child, aka Linda Blair from the exorcist- poor Rylie was covered head to toe. GROSS OUT! But as a mother, you do not have this luxury or right, some how, you just get over vomit the second you birth a child ( as long as it belongs to your child). So Rylie goes straight into the shower, I clean her up, change her, go to put her in bed, only to find out task #2- ground zero is still declared unfit to enter. Go looking for father, only to find out that he too has now succumbed to the almighty porcelein throne. Hubby is sick. I am in charge. So I whip into Hazmat sanitation mode, lysol and other cleaning supplies in hand and get Rylie's room sterilized as soon as possible. Move to our room, change sheets, lysol surfaces, wash hands mulitple times between tasks, change my clothes- just to be sure, there are not any rogue germs trying to attach themselves to me. "I WILL NOT get sick" is my mantra! Unfortunately for Luke and Rylie, the rest of the night did not fare any better, and they were up on and off the rest of it. Needless to say, there was no trip to Pappy's farm, Luke had to use his first sick day at his new job the day after Thanksgiving ( He REALLY was sick and not playing hooky) and everybody was pretty pooped all day Friday. The original culprit of this whole bug was Jack, who got it on Monday night and then passed it along. The good part- it was short lived, the best part- I didn't get it, and it definitely made for a memorable Thanksgiving night!

The Great Outdoors

Well, for those of you that know me well, I am definitely more of a Westin girl, than a great outdoors girl. I much prefer "roughing it" at a 4 or 5 star hotel and I know that my love for luxury goes far above my actual means! However, we did go camping a couple weekends ago, and it was actually for the second time in less than a year. Does that move me from novice camper to the status of amateur? I am sure that is debatable- although much to my credit I nearly single handedly put up our 9 man, two room tent, on my own. Luke who had to work until 6 on Friday, had to join us later, so we had to get there early to put up the tent. Luckily, we had friends with us, and we all pitched in to get camp set up before dark. It was much more of a challenge this second endeavor into the camping world, for Jack was not walking the last time we went, and this time, it was as if a whole new door of possibilities had been opened to him. He certainly kept us busy the whole weekend, and wanted to do whatever his older sister and the bigger kids were doing. He had several little girls who took him under their wing and were a big help in hoisting him up onto the playground equipment ( which I must say, has definitly not been investigated by code enforcement any time in the last 2 decades- lets just say, that the monkey bars were somewhere in the range of 10 feet high - not kidding.- it was a little bit of a shady playground situation- but the kids enjoyed it immensly) Our camp was actually directly in front of the playground, which turned out to be the hangout of the entire camp facility. The kids loved being outside all weekend and getting VERY dirty. I think that every time I looked at Rylie she had dirt all over her face, and I mean all over. We finally figured out why. Everytime the wind would blow her hair in her face, she would take her hands, which had been digging in dirt, and wipe it away. Hence, the dirty face. But, hey, we were camping. Sleeping was pretty good, except for the first night, when our air mattress had a leak, and we ended up on the floor around 2 am. But thanks to Luke getting a patch the next day, Saturday night we slept great. Most of all, the kids slept awesome, and that is something to be very excited about. Since I was anticipating not-so-great-sleeping, since they were away from their norm, but I think it was due to such sheer exhaustion that they literally passed out, and slept all night both nights.

I will say that there were an unnerving amount of spiders at this campsite, and for anyone that knows me, I am only a slight arachnaphobe ( slight- meaning- huge, paranoid, borderline schizo- when it comes to creatures with 8 legs). Remarkably, somehow, I did not crawl out my skin, when I came within 2 inches of walking straight into a web, which held a nice, big, fat, brown spider. Amazingly, I did not faint and pack up our things and head for the nearest Hilton, when a party of 3 spiders decided to greet us in the sink on our inaugaral visit to the restroom. No, somehow, although, I do think it took a lot out of me, I reached down to somewhere within and resolved to be a "big girl" and " get over it- bugs are part of camping" - and actually once I stopped noticing and looking for every creepy crawly, I instantly had a much better time.

Now, there is definitely nothing that compares to that Westin Heavenly bed, and I am not going to be giving up my hairdryer any time soon, but I will say that the quality time spent with family and close friends, was unbeatable. It was wonderful to be out and enjoying God's creation, and have a weekend unplugged from the TV and internet for a change. I don't know, might I be on my way from amateur to pro? If I start asking for camping gear for my birthday and christmas, someone shake me, please.

Sugar High

Here is the much anticipated and promised new post to the blog. I hope that it will appease those of you who have been sending me gentle and not so gentle messages about updating! Last night was lots of fun, as you can see from the pictures, we had no melt downs and nobody refused to wear their costume- although Jack wouldn't wear the cute hat I made for him! We had some friends over to eat hot dogs and then we all hit the neighborhood for trick or treating together. One of the streets was closed off to traffic, with police barricades and everything. They get pretty serious about it over there. It was a lot of fun and the kids had a blast going from house to house yelling" Trick or Treat!" Even Jack with his Elmo trick or treat bag, got some of the action. By the time we made it halfway down the street, Rylie had to empty her bucket into the back of the wagon, it was so full. Don't worry, she didn't lose steam though, after a quick pick-me-up brought to her via a Pixie stick, she was raring to go back down the other side of the street for more goods! Meanwhile, Jack was still going full blast too. He thought he was so big getting to walk down the street. After we finished in the neighborhood, around 7:45, we could have and should have gone ahead and called it a successful Halloween evening, but no, because we are gluttons for cranky, over stimulated, and tired children coming down off of their sugar rush which was brought on by the large number of high fructose corn syrup based concoctions they had ingested-we went ahead and ventured over to our church's Fall festival. It was a huge success, in just numbers alone. There were literally thousands of people there. We only stayed a short while, enough to fulfill Rylie's desire for a pony ride- which she loved, Jack rode too, although we are not really sure what he thought of it. We also played a couple carnival games before the children began to slip into sugar enduced comas and we decided it was best to call it a night. Now, all we have to do is figure out what to do with the mounds and mounds of candy we presently have sitting on our counter! Well, I guess I will know where to look if I can't find Rylie!

In Search of the Great Pumpkin.....

Today, was our outing to the pumpkin patch. The weather was beautiful, a little warmer than one would want for a fall day, but otherwise it was a great day to go hang out with the pumpkins! Although the morning did not look as if it was going to fare very well, as upon our arrival at the pumpkin patch, and upon debarkation from my vehicle, I promptly ( and obviously unbeknownst to me) stuck my flip flop wearing feet into a very angry ant hill! Too bad there is no video to commemerate the next moments of waving, shaking, slapping, and throwing of shoes to get rid of those awful pests! So to begin our day, I was itching like mad, almost in tears, and seriously considering getting in my car and driving back the 5 miles to nearest CVS for some Benadryl. Thankfully the kind organizers of the pumpkin patch had some Benadryl spray that I was able to borrow. Note to myself- due to Jack's bee sting a few weeks ago, and now my run in with the ants, we may want to just travel with Benadryl in our possession! The rest of the day turned out great as you can see from the pics ( however those were a feat unto themselves. It is very nearly impossible to get two children to smile and stay posed at the same time for longer than say, 3 seconds!) Rylie and Jack both had a blast in the bounce houses ( great improvements for Rylie in this category- she is getting so grown up!) We also enjoyed a fun hayride and picnic lunch with a group of our friends from church. There was even a maze made out of hay bales that Rylie and her friend Jacob were able to lead Jack through. Jack really thought the smaller pumpkins were large balls put there for him to practice his throwing skills, so I think some of their pumpkins may be a little mushier and most definitely bruised after our visit! As we were leaving Rylie picked out some baby pumpkins for our souvenirs to take home and decorate our front porch steps with. Today was a wonderful way to spend a fall afternoon!

There's No Place Like the State Fair of Texas

It's that time of year again in North Texas, time for the State Fair. I love the Fair. The exhibits-who can resist a sculpture made entirely out of butter, or a giant sandcastle depiction of the Dallas skyline, or sitting in all the latest models of cars, that we will never in a million years actually own. ( The most comical thing was to watch all of the people,including ourselves go gaga over the newest model mini van- we have so gone down a level on the coolness scale.)Then there are the animals-for instance, there is Boris, the gigantic pig who seriously weighs 5,000 lbs or something crazy like that. There is something grossly intriguing about an animal of that magnitude. Of course there is also the petting zoo, where you can get your hat stolen by an ostrich, spend a fortune of animal food, which mostly gets spilled on the ground by your four year old, and hope your other child doesn't climb into the pen with the billy goats. Oh, and where else on earth can you possibly call it a day, only after you have had the chance to catch a show entitled " Dancing with The Dogs" I am so not even kidding. This is an actual new dog sport called "freestyling with your dog"( Mom- you and Jonah- so should get started on that!) Let's just say, we wished we had seen the other dog show instead. Dancing really should stay a people sport. Now we come to THE attraction of all attractions at the state fair- the FOOD. I fully believe that most people go the fair for that reason alone. The corny dogs, funnel cakes, nachos, cotton candy, turkey legs, and I can't even begin to list all of the fried nonsense that is being sold - the two new ones that I had never heard of were Fried Coke and Fried Latte. Did you make sure you had your IV drip of Mylanta before you came? Some things were just not meant to be fried. This year the fair had a different feel for me, because due to WW- I knew better than to eat any of that food out there, so I think that I may have been the only person- plus my two children, who brought their own lunch into the fair grounds. There were a few stares and gasps as I pulled out my turkey sandwich and grapes from my cooler. I thought I may get kicked out at one point for not partaking in the traditional corn dog, but I have to tell you, boy did I feel better at the end of the day, when all I had partaken in was a Nutty bar-eaten with saved up points! Not that I think that it is bad for anyone else to eat that food, for goodness sake, that was Luke's top reason for going, and he enjoyed every bite!I just knew how sick I would feel at the end of the day, and how dissapointed I would be on Saturday when I weighed in! Another great part of the fair is the Midway- and what was even greater? That we managed to avoid it altogether! Lastly, I must mention the people. We all know that the most interesting part is to people watch at the fair. We happened to have gone on Senior Day, and I tell you I have never in my life seen so many motorized riding vehicles. It really was a deliberate effort on our part not to get run over. You really do see some of the strangest things. All in all we had a great day. There were lots of fun hands-on things for the kids to do and see and Rylie even participated in her first Pee Wee Rodeo! Her Mimi would have been so proud of her barrel racing skills! The best part of the day? We did not leave having bought a Veggie Blaster 2000, an Oreck vacuum cleaner( seriously saw someone walking out with one),a magic, super absorption cleaning towel, a pet rock, or a jacuzzi hot tub!

Check this out.....

Check out this video on NOOMA.com from Rob Bell, it is one of his older ones, but I love it. It is so powerful. For those of you that don't know him, he is the pastor of Mars Hill Bible Church, one of the fastest growing churches in the country. Click on Rain. It is worth the 11 minutes of your time. Interestingly, he is doing a speaking tour and will be in town on November 16.
www.nooma.com/shopping/productdetails.aspx?ProductID=270

It's Pumpkin Time!

Yeah, it's fall! I love this time of the year. After reading several other friends' blogs today, I can see there are many who share the same sentiment. I love that the weather starts to change ( by writing these words I hope to make them come true here in Texas, since it was 92 degrees today, October 1st). I love fall because it means college football, and I don't even care if it is on all day on Saturday. I love fall because of the State Fair and all that it entails. I love fall because it means going to the pumpkin patch and taking a ton of pictures of my children posed in piles of pumpkins, all with the hopes that I will get at least one where they are both looking at the camera! I love that fall means a new season of television shows like The Office- I LOVE that show- it is just so hilarious! GO JAM! I love that people start to put out their fall decorations ( including myself). I love seeing the wreaths, mums, hay bales, pumpkins, and scarecrows all over porches around the neighborhood. The other day I got out my fall decorations, which was not really an easy task, as locating them after the move, was somewhat challenging. But I did not care. I was happy. Just so happy looking at my fall wreath, my colored leaves, my spice candles. It made me smile to put my scarecrow out on my porch. I love that the leaves begin to take on the look of fall and that mean leaves to rake, but you don't mind, because you get to be outside enjoying the gorgeous fall day. I love that God made seasons. In the beginning, He created the earth with seasons. I think that Fall makes God smile too. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3:1 " There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under heaven." I am so glad that there are seasons to our life. Not just seasons of nature, but seasons for our spiritual relationship, our marriage, our parenting, our friendships. As I enter into this fall season, I do so with reflection, looking back on the year to date. I am so thankful to all the blessings that the Lord has showered on me through His grace. I know that while I do not deserve any of them, He, in His infinite mercy has saved me. Just as the trees of fall lose their leaves and grow them new in the spring, the Lord shows me areas of my life that need to be shed or lost, so that He can begin a new work or growth in me. " But because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even when we were dead in transgressions- it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus" Ephesians 2:4-6. " I hope that each of you enjoy and celebrate this season. Happy Fall! Go get a pumpkin- or 5!