handsful

But, wasn’t it JUST October?

I mean, seriously, I’m not sure what’s going on lately.  My days, weeks, months are flying by at warp speed.  I need time to slllooowww down.  Not speed up, for crying out loud.

I’ll stop complaining now.

This month has been good…a few highlights.

As we’ve done every year since…well, forever…we have a Thankful Tree.  I tried to cut corners and I posted a “What I’m Thankful For” poster for everyone to write on.  I got SO much grief about that!  “MOM, where’s the TREE?!?!”  “We can’t just have a poster!!”

A tree it is.  Marley cut out the trunk, and we just used the leaves to make the top shape.  I like it much better than the poster.  There, I said it.

This is a picture of Abbey driving down the driveway.  WITHOUT me or Randy in the passenger seat.  Yes, she now has her license.  The other three are busy fighting over who’s going to drive every time we go anywhere.  They each have to log 60 hours (and turn 16) before they’re eligible to apply for their licenses.  And, we’re now also logging Abbey’s hours, so she can eventually get her “after 9” license.

Some of the kids went to see the premiere of Catching Fire last Thursday night.  Abbey went all out (are we surprised?) and decided to dress up as Katniss.  I took her to the thrift store and she found 2 dresses and a shirt.  Once home, she went right up to her room and started sewing.  She managed to use pieces of all three things to create her Mockingjay dress.  I was impressed!

While they were at the movie, I took Payton, Lainey, and Dylan to a Thanksgiving dinner and presentations, put on by the littles Classical Conversations group.  Payton graciously skipped the movie so he could be a teen helper with the kids games.  Sweet kid.

Lainey’s class presented a song about the planets.  She was Uranus, and told the crowd “Uranus is a pretty blue planet that spins funny”.

Dylan’s class sang their Timeline song, complete with all the hand motions.  Each child chose someone in the timeline to dress up as.  Dylan is Julius Caesar.

This is the end…”Jesus the Messiah!”

That pretty much wraps up November, with the exception of our yummy Thanksgiving dinner coming up next week.  I’ve got lots of cooking to do, and I’m so looking forward to it.  Not to mention having 4 whole days of zero school.  Woot, Woot!

Hey, teachers need breaks too.  :)

Cut shapes into pumpkins.

Eat too much candy.

And, this year…have a party.

That’s pretty much what halloween boiled down to for us.

First, we’ve got pumpkins to carve.

Her own design.

Dylan is a huge Avatar fan, so this is Aang the pumpkin.

As usual, Randy and the boys have their own creation.

Yes, that’s licorice hair.  And ghourd eyes…

Marley decided to paint her pumpkin, to match her black/white theme.

I wasn’t home when Abbey and Randy carved hers…surprise, surprise, it’s a Catching Fire theme.

Dress up time begins…

ladies and gentlemen, we present to you…Iron Man and Cat Woman.

I dropped them off at their friend, Paetyn’s house, for crafts and dinner.

Drove back to our house to take pics of the big kids and their friends, dropped them off at a neighborhood for trick or treating, and then headed back to where the littles were to walk that neighborhood with them.

Whew.

Marley, Payton, Ethan, Kailee, and Kylie…

Payton resurrected an old costume from years ago…

Payton, age 9

Marley cut this design in her black tee …very cool, I think.

Abbey, as an un-dead bride.  Her creation, made from thrift store purchases.  Plus, her talent as a special effects make-up artist.

Ethan and Kailee…she was a gothic barbie doll, and he was just gothic.  Another excuse to wear all black clothing for him.  Just another day, except for the makeup done by Kailee!  (thankfully)

Tradition is, the kids come home, spread out their loot, and trade away!

The next night?  Well, we threw a party for the kids and their friends, of course.

We decorated the Shop, and played games…we wrapped kids into toilet paper mummies, had a pumpkin carving contest, and a “who can hold 4 hot balls in their mouth the longest” game.

And, a costume contest.  Marley won.  :)

They played manhunt out in the woods, too.  Afterwards, Randy played a scary movie in the Shop, and a not-as-scary movie down in our basement.

Lots of memories made, lots of fun had.

By the way, WHERE did October go??

In order…probably.

A few weeks ago, Lainey had braces put on.  At age 7.  Which, by the way, means I now have 4 kids IN braces right now.  Sheesh.

Lainey, because she was born with a cleft palate, will need lots of dental and orthodontic work.  LOTS.  And, it starts now.  She’s had 4 surgeries in her lifetime, 3 with us.  Her next one, to correct her gumline cleft, will be her biggest, and I’m told her hardest.  They will take bone from her hip and use it to fill in the bone that’s missing in her gumline.  Before that can happen, her palate needs to have an expander put in (weird, huh?  She had two surgeries to CLOSE her palate, now we’re trying to make it wider??).  And, before she can have the expander put in, she has one tooth that needs straightening (the expander needs that tooth to attach to), hence the braces.

Are you lost yet?  She’s done great with her braces, hardly any complaining at all.  I’m amazed, really.  But, I shouldn’t be.  She’s always handled medical stuff with ease.

Then, it was time for the NC State Fair.

Dylan’s footlong is becoming a fair tradition…

happy girl!

For the first time ever, I think, we left our nice camera at home, so all of these are off our phones.  I just decided I didn’t want to have to lug it around the whole time…I kinda wish I had better pics, but I did enjoy the freedom of less to carry that day.

October FLEW by for us.  I mean, I don’t have a clue where it went!  I guess that happens when you’re calendar days are all full.

We did finally find time to go pick out pumpkins as a family.  With the big kids getting older and busier themselves, it’s harder to find those stretches of time where we can ALL do things as a family without either missing some or having extras.

We’ve gotta do better at making that a priority.

taken before we saw the “don’t climb the tree” sign…oops

A few short days later, it was time for Trick or Treating.

Next post will be pics of all that fun…

Yes, we’re still surprised we have cats, too.  We’re NOT cat people.  We never have been.  Several of us are allergic to them, after all.

But, living out here in these wide open spaces made us think having an outdoor cat would be….appropriate.  A barn cat, per say.  He would wander around our property, pouncing on bugs and tiny varmints…earning his keep.

So, we went to the local pet store where a foster/adopt animal group was set and told them what we were looking for.  As we talked, it became clear that having two cats would be ideal.  They could keep each other company.

Good grief, were we really doing this?

We went back about a week later, when they had a bunch of their available cats on “display”.  They had a pair of orange tabbys that had been in the same foster home, so they were buds.  They were each just shy of a year old (give or take their best guess), and seemed pretty even-tempered.

So, we took them home.  The people with the group were so happy that Professor (found by a professor at a local college) and Miracle (attacked by a dog as a kitten, and survived) were being adopted together.  Professor became Chipper (after our fav baseball player, Chipper Jones) and Chili (Marley’s choice).

We kept them in our downstairs garage while they got used to their new people and place.  They were very skittish about everything.  They hated being outside.  They ran from us.  It wasn’t looking too promising.

But, we gave it time and little by little, they became our outdoor cats.  They now love it here…they’ve each found their favorite outdoor hang-out spots, and Chipper especially loves to roam in the woods.  So far, they’ve left us three”gifts”…in the form of a dead mouse and 2 dead moles. (earning their keep, remember?)  They come to us now when we call them, but only when they want to.  They ARE cats.  It helps a lot if we have treats.

Even though we NEVER saw ourselves having cats, we’re really enjoying our new family members.  And, I think they like their new digs.

So, what’s new with Marley?

She’s been asking for quite a while.  Last week, I took her to a jeweler downtown and she was brave enough to sit in that chair and let the manager pierce her ear cartilage.  This is my child that HATES needles.  I mean, she’s just shy of jumping off the table at the doctor’s office when they come at her with a shot.  But, for this she was cool as a cucumber…even though people told her it would HURT.  Weird thing is, she barely flinched.  And, though it did throb and sting for a little while that night, it hasn’t bothered her much at all since.  She can’t sleep on that side yet, but she’s okay with that.  She’s more than thrilled that she did it.

Speaking of Marley, she’s been cooking a lot lately.  She found a wonderful Asian stir-fry recipe that she’s made twice for us.  It’s delish.  This time, she found a hoisin sauce recipe and used some shrimp and raman for a nice lunch for herself.

I’ve talked about our Shop meetings here…we’ve had 2 in the last 2 weeks.  Lots of snacks, plastic cups, and teens everywhere.  Last week, before the teaching time, we invited anyone in Testify who was auditioning for a role in the drama to come early for practice.

We did the same thing last night, just increased it to 2 full hours, so all the different kids/roles could practice.  It was really helpful, and gave them a chance to stand up and really act the part, like they’d do during the last audition.  Auditions were held today, and Payton (going for Marshall) and Abbey (going for Kris) feel like they did well.  Now, we wait and see.

Rather than teaching time, it was Movie night after practice…Remember the Titans.  Love that movie.  We had about 30 kids total hanging out with us.  And, as we normally do, the night ended with a bonfire.

So, those were the highlights of last week.

Oh, and Ethan now has his back handspring as of last week…and Lainey moved up to Advanced tumbling with her back handspring, and have I mentioned that Marley has hers as well?  Dylan is working hard to be next!

Next week, Randy travels for three nights, Lainey gets her spacers to prepare for braces the following week (eeek), and the trips biology class begins.

It’s never dull around here.

Marley: “Mom, when are you gonna blog again?”

Me:  “Well, I’ve really not taken any pictures lately.”

Marley:  “So, take some pictures.”

(grabbing camera)

Me:  “Okay”

Here’s Payton, trying desperately to avoid having his picture taken.

Ethan, also attempting to shield his face from the camera.

See the pic above?  No, me neither.  Marley deleted the one of herself, because she said she was “leaning all weird” in it.

Is anyone else seeing WHY the blog has been slow and lacking in pictures lately??  (by the way, Abbey was sick that day, so I didn’t attempt to get her picture!)

Let’s try the younger folk.

That’s more like it.  Put a camera near Lainey and she hits an instant pose/smile.  Nice, Lainey Lou.

Oh dear.  He’s in that phase where a camera means “ham it up”.  Goofy kid.

Let’s give Marley another try.

This is Jack, laying on the “poor, hungry puppy” face, hoping he’ll get a bite of pizza.  He knows Marley is a sucker for his sad face.

“MOM!  Take pictures of me!”

Lainey, doing her back walkover.  She’s been working very hard lately…tonight she was promoted to the  advanced tumbling class! Lainey had asked what skills she needed to master in order to move up, and she’s done NOTHING but worked on those this week.  It paid off.

And that, Marley is a blog post.  With pictures, no less.

Voila.

Gasp.

No pictures in this one.  Just wanted to jump on the blog and say hello.

Hello!  (waving)

And add a few of my thoughts…

First, I’m sorry you’re having to look at the SAME picture on the banner portion of the blog.  It’s been that same picture for over three years.  Dylan doesn’t even have his first leg, for pity sake, and he’s on his third!  But, WordPress doesn’t make it so easy to switch stuff like pics and fonts, which is a pain.  Our friend, Alan has been working to make this easier, and Randy promises me he’ll sit down with me to try and get a new pic up there.  I have hope…

If you read the last post, you got woozy watching Randy teetering on the top of our ladder.  You’ll be happy to know that he now has a 25′ extension ladder.  Problem solved.  As well as freshly replaced outside floodlights.

Guess what we have?  A bit of an infestation of fruit flies.  Eeek.  We thought we just had gnats at first, and wondered why so many were in our kitchen.  We now have several homemade traps filled with apple cider vinegar, topped with paper funnels.  Flies get in, can’t get out.  Hoping this takes care of it.  Any other ideas?

Randy took care of one of those pesky “list” things this weekend.  We’ve had a spot in our backyard that was constantly wet, no matter what the weather.  We were concerned that maybe a pipe leading to the garden sprinklers had busted or something.  Turns out, the previous owner was just a dimwit.  Attempting to divert drainage from the house to the backyard, he used pvc pipe, buried it only a few inches down, and then just left it open at the end.  The water was dumping from it and just saturating the ground, with nowhere for the excess water to go.  Randy, with some of the kids help, got it all fixed up so it drains downhill and into a gravel area (with a special drain thingy on the end).  Voila.  One honey-do DONE.

I’m in purge mode.  If it’s not nailed down and we’ve not used, worn, or played-with it in a while, it’s GONE.  Another criteria for my purge-fest…do I love it?  I hate clutter, having too much stuff around stresses me out.  Proof of this?  When I AM stressed, the first thing I do is straighten up, organize something, or re-arrange something.  Hey, it helps!  I’ve been taking gobs of stuff to charity drop-offs, kids consignment stores, and this weekend I’m taking a bunch of my “done with” clothing, bags, and jewelry to a women’s consignment event.  Yay for paring down and simplifying!

I’ve been cooking a lot lately.  Two of our favorites lately were Sweet Baby Rays crockpot bbq and cheesy potato soup.  Both were YUM and I’ve been told to make them again.  And, a lot.  No problem, they’re both really good and very economical.

I’m hoping to blog more often, I know I’ve been very lax about keeping up with it.  I think I’m just taking less pictures, which I have no good excuse for.  Gotta work on getting the pics off my camera, onto the computer, and then on the blog.  I’ll do better.

Well, It’s Sunday night, and I think I’ll go sit and watch TV with the family for a bit.  Before Monday shows up and the real-life of school, activities, and errands commences.

Night :)