It's been a while

Well, I haven't posted in a while, have I?

Here's a video of Mia and Snip that the girls took out of The Zookeeper's window yesterday. It made us laugh!

That's a book on tape playing in the background..._Mossflower_ from the Redwall series. It's pretty funny how it worked out!

Wow.

This is the view from my front yard about 5 minutes ago. *sigh*

Maintenance Monday

Are we all back from our Holiday Cheer and Celebrations?

Today's Maintenance Monday is a soft pitch. I'm washing all the throw rugs. I know it's something that should be done more often than most home maintenance projects, but I don't do it as often as I should so I'm counting it. *grins*

Also today:

-The first day back to school after Christmas break. Everyone has completely forgotten everything they have ever learned in the last 11 years, so I'm blogging in order to not go crazy and start yelling and throwing things.

-The timing of the Zoo Keeper's arithmetic is awful. Apparently, we stopped for Christmas right before the page where she learns basic algebra. She has Holiday Brain, and now has to try to grasp the concept of the unknown number. It would help if she hadn't forgotten everything she ever learned in the last 6 years of school. What does a 5th grader need with algebra anyway?! I never did algebra in 5th grade! I didn't start algebra until grade EIGHT!!!

Okay, I'm better now.

-The Horse Whisperer starts a new 4-H club today...dog obedience and agility. The weather is very windy, so they might now actually begin today. I won't know until 3:30 whether or not we are going to this class. I hate not knowing. Better go throw something in the crock pot, just in case.

-IF I go to town for the dog thing, I have to go to one specialty shop to pick up patches for the Guitar Picker's new CAP BDUs since he outgrew the old ones and needs all new flags and name tapes etc. for the new ones. Then I have to pick up the Cowboy's BDUs from the dry cleaners, then I have to drop the whole caboodle off at ANOTHER shop to get it all put together properly because I would rather stick a fork in my eye than try to sew all those patches on in exactly the right places and make it look professional. All this without getting them all covered in dog hair since I will be taking dogs in my mom van to the dog thing.

-I have to get all the thank-you notes the kids wrote for Christmas presents in the mail. It's late, but better late than never, right?

I think that's all I have to do today. Better get to it!

New Year's Resolutions

Ahh, the New Year. Two Thousand Eight. Yep. It's upon us. I have made a couple of resolutions. Now, I pretty much gave up New Year's Resolutions in my early 20s because I never followed through, and decided I would quit setting myself up for failure. Then, a few years ago, I decided I was just setting my goals too broad and high. Yep, nothing like reducing your standards to make your goals attainable. Now my New Year's resolutions are simpler.

This year I Resolve to:

A) Learn to make Chile Con Carne good enough to make my husband cry. I really stink at red chile. My poor husband thinks he has to go all the way to Chalo's in Globe, AZ to get a decent bowl of red chile.

And,

B) Stop being such a potty mouth. Really. You might be surprised, but I have been known to let fly with a little bit of blue language when things get stressful. I never used to cuss at all, but over the years it has creeped up on me. Sort of like flabby abs. SO, to kill two birds with one stone, so to speak, Every time I say a cuss word, I have to do 10 reps on this:



That's it. Those are the self improvement projects I have undertaken this year. What about you?

2 Things Challenge: Home/Health

What's better than a big pot of homemade chicken soup?

Note my brand new Christmas stock pot. It makes me so happy!

To see more interpretations of Home/Health, go to 2 Things Challenge

A Little Change

Recently, one of my cousins has had some creepy, weird, dangerous stuff happen partly because of her blog. It spooked me enough to at least take the real names out of mine, so from now on:

My Husband=The Cowboy
My oldest son=The Guitar Picker
My middle daughter=The Horse Whisperer
My youngest daughter=The Zoo Keeper

I'm not sure if I'm creeped out enough to stop showing pictures. I'll have to pray about it. I love sharing pictures of my family with you all, but I'll probably slack off a little at least.

Christmas Home Tour

This is posted late. In fact, I took down the banner to the home tour because I knew I wouldn't get to it in time. BUT I figured late is better than never, so, WELCOME, come in and see some of our Christmas decorations!

The first thing that draws the eye when you walk in the front door is the tree TREE. It's huge. And it's crooked. But it smells wonderful if you pick off a needle and crush it with your fingernail.



When we first married, we decided that we would buy only one special ornament a year, and the rest of the decorations would be things like cookies and popcorn strings, and by the time we were old we would have a wonderful tree full of meaningful ornaments.

Well, we didn't realize that as soon as we had kids, and as soon as those kids were old enough to put glue to paper and shake some glitter out of a tube we would have LOTS of ornaments. And then the SPECIAL ones would start getting dropped and broken. And the tree looks really bare if you are too busy burping babies to make popcorn strings and bake cookies to hang on the tree. So, the plan was changed a bit, and we did get some other ornaments. We STILL try to buy a new one every year, and if we go on vacation or something we try to get a Christmas ornament from there.

Here is the first one we bought, on our honeymoon to the Grand Canyon:



Here is one we got in Hawaii...I think it's my favorite so far:



This one is from Disneyland. Ahh...it takes me back to the warm family memory of buying it, "Oh, look at this wonderful shop of Breakable Victorian ornaments! DON'T TOUCH ANYTHING! Honey, could you take the kids out to buy a $5.OO orange juice from that kiosk so I can look at something besides plastic coconuts and pirate swords?"



Oh, look! Our first Christmas together..awwww...



Ahem.

Well, I was lazy this year, and The Zoo Keeper did most of the decorating. Her unique tastes are displayed throughout our home this year. Check out the Noel Pigs, all dressed up with gold ribbon taped to their pink plastic bodies:



Here is a Fall Fairy Bear, holding a sparkley pine cone on a stick, which makes it totally Christmasy:



Here is our super cool Mega Block Playmobile (Oops!) people nativity set:



Not too sure why the Angel Gabriel has a magic wand:



This camel is ready for anything:



This is festive, in a macabre sort of way:



Here is our Advent wreath. We don't use the purple and pink candles because the whole time growing up, my mom used red. I think she used red because she could never find purple and pink, but now anything but red looks wrong to me, so I'm raising another generation of kids that do it wrong. At least it does it's job of causing us to reflect on why we are celebrating Christmas in the first place, and the red candles can represent the blood Jesus shed to cover our sins.



Here are some big cans full of fudge, toffee, peanut butter fudge, and rum balls. The little village is actually candles, and they didn't do too well in storage this year, so before I put away the Christmas stuff this year, I'm going to burn them and watch the houses melt. Should be fun!


Last of all, here are the Christmas cards I have received so far:



Thanks for stopping by, and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!