Portable Snowman

’Twas the Night Before Christmas

And all through the house, the children were wound up and driving their mother crazy so she decided to sit at the computer and type a bit.

Caroline and I were wearing our cute matchy-matchy aprons tonight while thinking of Grandpa and Grandma Gill in Florida right now. 

And I know you all are real glad I chose to wear clothing under mine. 

 

Never mind that the apron seems to detract from my brain actually working while in the kitchen.  I managed to burn a skillet full of Italian sausage meant to go into the lasagna for supper and the batch of cookies we were baking to leave for Santa.  The house is sure smelling like something other than Christmas-y. 

And unrelated but even more annoying, the dishwasher is squawking like some sick, diseased pterodactyl trying to escape the kitchen, but trapped in the crazy coffer/shelf/chandy business going on in our lovely kitchen.  And you know exactly how I am pronouncing “lovely,” right?  Through gritted teeth, if that helps you formulate an image.

 

But then a very kind neighbor just stopped by to drop off a “little something” to our two older boys for getting his trashcans in for him, ONCE.  He gave them a $25 gift card to the movie theatre.  That was so generous and really improved my outlook.  He said he was just so happy to have friendly neighbors and I gotta say we sure think of him and the Mrs. that way, too. 

And then this guy stopped by unannounced!  Walked in.  Handed the kids each a candy cane.  Told them they better all sleep in their own bed tonight and then vanished out the door.  I managed to grab the camera but this is the only shot I got.  Sam knows that it was the real Santa, so you can imagine the level of thrill happening here tonight.  

Happy Christmas Eve, everyone!

Christmas Time

Tonight I am working on getting cards out.  Every year I think I will have this done before we are actually into the Dec. 20’s but it never happens. 

We were able to get a decent shot of the six of us for our Christmas card this year, thank you very much.  Here are some other pictures from my camera on our fun if I do say so myself Gill Family early Christmas last Sunday here at our house.

     

Wet Noodle Golden Doodle

Sam just got off the bus singing,

One the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me, a poodle in a doghouse. 

I thought he made it up, but he said he read it in a book. 

Even if he wasn’t meaning Tammy/Annie/Tess, he didn’t waste any time getting his boots on to go out and see her. 

By the way, someone might need a bath.  Another bath, that is.  Remember Sunday, just three days ago when her master had her all scrubbed up and so clean?

Well, that was then:

This is now:  

She stays in the dog house some, but yep, all this rain and the yard is pretty muddy.  Caroline had both dogs in the basement last night, but I had to run them out because they were extremely messy.  Despite the lousy weather, they seem really happy, though. 

 

Look how fast her tail is swinging! 

There’s no actual pictures since I had to hurry to scramble and save his life, but it was hilarious and I wish I had caught it on film: 

When Sam would stop petting her, her giant paw came right up onto his chest and she about pushed him off the end of the picnic table more than once.  Accidentally, of course.

I think we like being a two-dog family. 

Caroline's Glasses

If you have glasses conpare yours with mine . If you like mine write a  if you don't write b .if you think I look bad

Nicotrol/Tetris Strikes Again

Today as I was driving Jack and Grant to school, Grant was discussing his recent research subject, astronomer Edwin Hubble (of the Hubble Telescope).   He also mentioned his friend’s subject, that it was General George Custer.

Jack piped up in a real 13 year old know it all kind of voice,  “Gah, Grant, at least you should pronounce it right....General Custard.”

YippeeYayYay!

I HAVE NEVER TYPED IN ALL CAPS BEFORE BUT TONIGHT I AM JUST SO EXCITED!  I went from thinking we were doing nothing to now having a family get together at our house Sunday!  : )  : )  : )  Love it!

Thoughts about This Day

Earlier this week, Gary had told me that he was having a group of scouts over Saturday morning (today) and they would be doing a planning meeting out in the shop.  We were in town last night and picked up some donuts and that was about all the prep he had in mind.  Well, this morning we woke up to a temp of 19 degrees outside so he second-guessed the having-the-meeting-in-the-shop-building part.  But it was only 64 degrees in the house-- that pesky wood furnace expects to be fueled all through the night!  And the house wasn’t exactly picked up.  And I had no idea there would be 14 boys and 8 dads coming at 9:00 until at 8:15 when I decided I better get up and dressed.   So then I fast-forwarded into panic mode and did all kinds of clutter pick-up and a quick vacuuming and windexing of the fingerprinty glass.  They all came and it went well and they were able to do some things outside after all although one boy showed up in shorts and I am not kidding.  We had a fire and baked cakes in the Dutch ovens and enjoyed hot cocoa and summer sausage and cheese and crackers and chips for a little lunch.  We ended up taking a walk through our woods and that was wonderful.  One boy fell into the creek (not Grant!) so that made it complete.  Someone always has to have the cold walk back to the house in wet clothes.  But then I realized the time was 1:15 and I had to have the two littles at gymnastics by 2:00 and I was still in mud covered jeans and shoes and at the far back part of our ground.  But with some hustle I got the kids there in time and even after an hour of gymnastics came home to find out some of the guys were still here hanging out and having a good time.  Today was another one of those days that I am glad we bought this farm. 

I have lost a coat.  A winter coat.  Granted, I bought it at Goodwill last month, but what am I--three years old?  How does an adult lose a coat?  I wore it on Thursday, I think, and that’s the last I remember of it.  I had the kids at the dentist so maybe I left it there but I don’t think so.  Guess I will call on Monday.

I had a whoppin wave of baby-want hit me tonight.  We were watching Elf and Buddy as a baby at the beginning in just his diaper and socks and that smooth, bare baby skin of his belly and back and imagining the baby-smelling scalp just made tears come to my eyes and flow and yeah, it’s a good thing we bought into the double protection plan iykwim, or we might have been adding on another bedroom come September.

I feel like half of the lamest parents on Earth.  The kids have been talking Christmas decorations since right after Thanksgiving and here it is less than three weeks to Christmas and we have nothing out and no tree or lights or anything.  Well, nothing besides the two ornaments Caroline made last night so we’d have something Christmasy around here.  The kids point out, “But other houses have stuff up.” 

We tried to get a tree tonight but apparently the Rte. 66 tree farm closes at 5 and the Lions’ Club is already sold out and Home Depot has really slim, ugly pickins.  We will try someplace else tomorrow, kids, I promise.

So after the tree-search fiasco, we picked up Domino’s and came home.  I suggested we could all watch Elf and Gary seemed so perplexed and questioned why I would want to watch Elf.  And I had to question this 30 year thing we’ve had going on.  How could he all of a sudden not know me?  How could someone NOT want to watch Elf?  I don’t know but it was weird that he didn’t remember that I like corny, funny movies. 

I have been thinking about two names today and they just crack me up and I don’t really know why, from the show The Middle:  Justin Standing Bear and Rev. TimTom.  It makes me chuckle out loud thinking of these names and I don’t even know why but I love it.

Well, tomorrow the architect comes over again and I am feeling good about our recent steps toward getting this addition going and some new ideas we are exploring.   And our architect is Billy Bob Thorton and I am not kidding.  He looks like him and sounds like him and I can’t wait for Gary to meet him tomorrow to validate this that I have been thinking since I first met him in what, October?  I will say the adding-on process is already stressful before ever breaking ground or actually tearing up our home.  This could be a bumpy ride, but I think will be so worth it when we are able to comfortably, key word comfortably, invite in a group like we did this morning.  And have anyone who wants to come visit and stay over a few days come hang out with us.  Family, that means you!

Well, that’s all about today for today.  Time to say good night! 

World’s Worst Toy Ever

I am pretty sure this could be submitted to some website like Why'd You Buy Me That or Worst Stuff Ever but of course, I’ll have to share here.  I took the kids to the local toy store last Friday night while we had an hour to kill before the Muppet movie started.  The store is very hands-on and has hundreds of items throughout the whole store for kids to try out.  It really is a neat store.  We’ve spent so many hours there, especially when Jack and Grant were young and so into Thomas.

It was just Sam and Caroline with me that night and they were going strong playing with everything in sight.  I was strolling through by myself, casually browsing, when Caroline brought something up to me and stated very clearly that it was not a toy she wanted.  Pretty atypical to hear when usually they love the chance to show me all they want for Christmas. 

The “toy” had four metal handles attached to a main center by individual wires.  I automatically grabbed the handle and Caroline flipped something on the center and I got the shock of my life!  Maybe I didn’t play it right since essentially you could get shocked at four different spots if you could touch all four handles at the same time, but it was my first time.  One jolt was really enough.

I still can’t believe this was a toy for sale, like people would buy it?!  Like kids would play it?!   They had probably fifteen of them on the shelf.  I’m going to go back a month or two following Christmas and I tell you, I will be shocked if they have any fewer.

Ok, I just found this.  See for yourself.  Crazy, huh?

Whatcha Get When You Cross...

This morning, Caroline to Sam as she notices he's wearing khaki pants and a dark long sleeve shirt:
"Sam, you could go to Cathletic School today!" 

(Catholic is what I'm pretty sure she meant.)

A Quickie with No Real Title

I have literally seven minutes to post something so here it goes.  I have not been blogging much at all lately.  And why not?  Maybe no compelling material tied with minimal time opportunities.  I don’t exactly know, but I miss it.  So today, there’s this off the top of my head for something I can tell you about. 

Grant, the curmudgeonly 11-year-old great grandpa, bringing back thoughts to me of his capri/short-shorts tirade that I would love to link back to to refresh your memories but no time to actually look back through the archives, said this week:

 

What is it with all the girls thinking they have to have boots to wear?  ‘I want these boots, I want these boots.’  They can join the Army if they want boots so bad.