Turkey day

We have been telling Evelyn for days it was gonna be turkey day.  She has been excited about eating Turkey and pies.  She was super happy that I got her some turkey cupcakes too!   She makes everything more fun!  We had a pretty small affair here at our house. It was nice to be together with those who could be here, and we enjoyed the day.  

Turkey day means thankfulness, and I am definitely thankful for family, good conversations, friends near and far, and for the many blessings that we are given on the daily.  

Break!!

 

The kids and I are so excited to have a long weekend.  We have enjoyed a couple days of Cameron being here. Mallory even conned Preston  and Cameron into helping her hang her Christmas lights.  Nobody ended up in the ER from climbing on her roof, so I call it a success.  Cameron left this evening to go be with Lauren and her family for Thanksgiving.  But not before I introduced him to the cinematic excellence that is Dances With Wolves.   (You’re welcome Cameron).  

Down time- that is the calling card of this long weekend.  I fully intend to get rested up and mentally prepared because December is already looking like a chaotic rat race.  

And who can’t enjoy downtime when we have all these critters who love to snuggle.   

Jim’s birthday

 

Today is Jim’s birthday.  We also had Langsgiving today at our house.  Since all the kids were here, we decided a group photo for Christmas cards was in order.  It was absolute chaos, and of the 30 pictures taken,  not a single one is where everyone is looking at the camera, smiling, and looking normal.  But I love all these pictures and these people so much and we are very blessed.   I was so happy to see them all in one place today.  

I was also happy to see a lot of my aunts, uncles and cousins.  It may not have been the safest thing to do in a pandemic, but it has been so long since we got together, I am thankful we were able to do it.  

Colin and Spencer went to the KSU game with Cameron.  I love getting unsolicited photos.  

And now to the important things.  Jim’s birthday.  The fact that he spent the day entertaining people, helping me host Langsgiving, moving furniture and whatever else on his special day sort of perfectly illustrates the man that he is.  Thoughtful, caring, loving and helpful. He also thinks he’s a comedian, although I don’t see any offers for him to do stand up for pay.   I know he was happy to see all our kids and their significant others.  I know he enjoyed the day. I did make him a birthday cake, although he passed on singing and photos.  I will be forever thankful that he blew off doing his laundry to go hang out at the bar and now he’s all mine.  (Although it seems that not doing laundry is a life long choice!)  I’m still lucky to spend my life with this birthday boy.  

We try

Saige had reading homework this week to read in nature.  Harper helped her with this set up!  :)  They crack me up with their weird ideas.  

As I was driving home on the bus, I saw a bunch of kittens in a ditch where there were no houses close.  I think someone must have dumped them.  I did not know if I could catch them or where I would put them on the bus, so I went home, and then the girls and I went over to see if we could catch them.  We couldn't find them, but it was a beautiful sunset in a lovely part of the world!  Always feeling blessed to get to live where we do!  

Harper had math homework.  Jim had meetings.  Preston started a new job at the Carbondale grocery store.  I helped her as much as I could, but I will be the first person to admit that when it comes to math, I am not in my happy place.  We mustered through the cube/area/blocks page, and then we got to the triangle fiasco.  I tapped out and we waited for either Jim or Preston to get home.  Preston won that race.  Preston also checked our math for me, and he gave us a passing grade, although warned us of the evils of not labeling our answers.  :)  

Since the beginning of the pandemic, I have wished for this day.  I am happy to say that we finally got the girls their first shots!  Everyone in our house is now at least partially vaccinated.  Since our BOE decided that we do not need to follow any covid protocol, I have been pretty worried about these 2 especially.  We still have to go back of course, but at least it is started.  I wanted to take care of it last  week when they were out of school, but it was too soon in the process.  I am thankful we got it done today.  Laughably, the girls got shots, and Evelyn cried.  :)  Nobody gets to hurt her best buddies.  

I love this photo of Mallory getting mummied by her class.  I love watching her do what she loves!  :)  

Saige is 10

Saige turned 10 today.  It’s been such a fast decade!   We basically had a whole weekend dedicated to Saige.  Friday night, she had 2 friends spend the night, somehow I took zero photos.  They giggled, did crafts, had nerf gun wars with Preston, Harper and Quincy, and ate their weight in snacks.  When it was time for them to go home Saturday morning, Saige was sad it was over, and proclaimed that she had so much fun!  I’m so happy about that!   Saige then went shopping with me, and we got all the stuff for her birthday dinner.  She helped Jim with mulching some trees for the city, and was super happy to get a paycheck!  

This evening we had dinner in honor of Saige.  She picked spaghetti, breadsticks, Italian salad and   cheesecakes.  This makes me laugh because she only likes the pasta part of spaghetti, and wouldn’t touch a salad with a 10 foot pole!    She is literally the pickiest eater I’ve ever seen!   

We are very blessed to have Saige in our family. She is sweet, kind and loving.  She is also our chief drama Queen, and an animal freak.  Saige loves art, crafts, drawing and writing.  She is amazing!   Love you Saige!  happy birthday!  

Weekend update

We had an enjoyable weekend.  I had a list of projects and errands.  I am happy to say that my list of projects got mostly completed.  My list of errands, well not so much.  My intent was to clean up the house and then go get groceries and run errands.  But my list of projects I wanted to accomplish was going so well that we just never left the house.   Harper and I got the refrigerator completely cleaned.  I cleaned the oven (both tasks I despise). We super cleaned the kitchen. Which is why, when Cameron and Lauren came for dinner, we decided to eat at TJ’s!  

Cameron and Lauren attended the KSU vrs KU game in Lawrence.  Cameron attended as a guest of the athletic directors, got to sit in box seats, was invited to the chancellor’s breakfast, he was supposed to sit with governor Kelly as well, but she was attending a funeral.   Lauren told me that the food was great, there was an open bar, and they got all sorts of cool stuff like lapel pins.   Sounded like a lot of fun!  Plus KSU gave KU a solid beating, so that’s always a good day. 

We didn’t get to see Colin and Spencer, but i did get these cute pictures of the grand pups.   Cash looks a lot happier about it than Volt does!  

Friday evening, I decided to get some wild barn kittens from a friend.   Preston has been doing chores at my parent’s neighbors house, and the kittens were right down the road, so he agreed to go pick them up for me.   He was gone forever.  I thought he was getting 5 or 6 kittens.  He came home with 2.   He was not happy. He said he chased kittens for an hour and that these were the only ones he could catch.  Saige pulled one out of the cat carrier and it ran for the hills.  No idea where it went, but I’m guessing our neighbors may have a new cat hanging around!   This little gray one, although we were told was wild, is definitely not wild.  The girls put her down in the barn.  Saturday morning, we found her crying in the garage.   We took her back to the barn, where her food was.  An hour later she was back at the house, coming inside whenever anyone opened the door.  This was a repeating cycle until Sunday afternoon, when Jim shrugged his shoulders, took a deep breath and said just let her stay in the house, she’s gonna get run over.  And that is how the “wild barn kitten” smuggled herself into being a house cat.   The girls are pretty excited about that arrangement.  Now to get her potty trained!   Carlos spent an hour barking at her, but by evening, he was laying on the couch with her.  She’s a sweetheart.  The kids named her Minot. 

Luckily, the kids have today off of school, and I decided to take a vacation day.  We are going to get Saige and Harper’s first vaccine (finally!) and  get Quincy new wrestling shoes, and then the hellish task of Sam’s club and grocery shopping.   I much prefer to grocery shop with Jim, because he doesn’t add (as much) random weirdness to my cart, but I’m happy we had so much family time over the weekend, and refuse to complain about the errands getting postponed.   

Side notes

My little cookie had an accident and broke her arm.  Poor girl.  Grammy feels so bad for her.  She got it set late last night.  That meant no office help today for me.  I love this little girl so much, and hope she gets back to normal really soon!  

Carlos is a killing machine.  This dog is constantly bringing me some dead mouse, mole, rat, rabbit etc.  It is ridiculous.  I have never seen anything like it.  Makes me wonder why I am feeding the barn cats!  Blitz can't believe it either!  

Last week, Andrew's work had a party. Evie was so excited about going to get more pumpkins, and taking Aunt Mal.  I got these pictures that are just too cute not to save!  

Cameron always makes the funniest signs to go to take to games.  I am wondering if this is why Patterson got fired?  

Saige loves to take my phone and take photos.  She uses the timer sometimes and takes photos of herself too.  Crazy kid!  

This week has already been a crazy fest, and it is only Wednesday!