Butt, Butt....

A woman (I'll keep her nameless, but she IS a relation!!) was standing in the doorway coming into a holiday party I was attending and asked, "Do any dogs live here?" "Hmmm, no I haven't seen one but I haven't been here that long. Do you want me to ask?" Very seriously and wide eyed, she explained "Well no, its just that I am wearing my hemorrhoid cream, and it attracts dogs."

Dill is sick today.... he feels miserable but the things he says are so cute! This morning, while Pepper was getting ready for work, he came and got into bed with me. He said he felt like he had to throw up. Hmmm...... with my white sheets, down comforter, big cotton blanket.... I knew I did not want to have to put them all in the wash on a Thursday! I went to the kitchen and grabbed the wok. "The wok?" you may question. But really, it is the best choice. It has a great handle so it can be positioned quickly and its non-stick coating cleans up easily. It has a huge opening on top and does not smell after it is easily rinsed out. It also fits under the bathroom sink faucet (unlike our waste basket) and can be tossed right into the dishwasher when it is no longer needed. Plus, I got it at Ikea for $4.98, so if something really goes wrong, I could just throw it away and replace it. So, Dill and his wok and I are in bed with the dog and the cat. He moans a little and says, "Oh, I do not agree with my stomach!" He is sort of laying on his side and I say, "Do you want me to rub your tummy to make it feel better?" He thinks about the offer for a second and then says, "No, that's ok. The cat's purring is already massaging my butt." Ok then, no Mom can compete with that! We are both sort of drifting in and out of sleep when he suddenly jumps out of bed and runs into the adjoining bathroom. I am still putting on my slippers and grabbing the wok when he says, "I think my throw up is coming out the other end!!" Poor guy! :(

Christmas, 2010

Pepper and I took the kids on a quick 2 day trip to Ohio to visit with my family for the holidays. Spent time at my cousins house and saw lots of people I hadn't seen in a long time. Visited with GG and stopped by the cemetery my parents are at. Also spent lots of time hanging out at a hotel to let the kids play in the pool. Here is a picture of my sisters and I enjoying our favorite new drink!! (lemonade, sprite and cat-daddy moonshine... yummy!!!)

I've been thinking about how I spent Christmas. I watched the kids in the Church Christmas Pageant... spent the night waiting for Santa at Dad B and Dad D's.... stopped in to visit Nana and Grandpa. Kids got lots of gifts from lots of different family members and hugs and good wishes and attention for doing a great job in the church play. Nana helped me give Pepper a great surprise. I did not peek at any of my gifts or even try to guess what they were. I have had a fantastic Christmas and enjoyed all the friends and family we visited. Tomorrow we are all headed to visit more family and I realized something..... I got exactly what I needed and wanted-- and that was before I even ripped open any wrapping paper. :)
 

Christmas Day 2010...

I've been thinking about how I spent Christmas. I watched the kids in the Church Christmas Pageant... spent the night waiting for Santa at Dad B and Dad D's.... stopped in to visit Nana and Grandpa. Kids got lots of gifts from lots of different family members and hugs and good wishes and attention for doing a great job in the church play. Nana helped me give Pepper a great surprise. I did not peek at any of my gifts or even try to guess what they were. I have had a fantastic Christmas and enjoyed all the friends and family we visited. Tomorrow we are all headed to visit more family and I realized something..... I got exactly what I needed and wanted-- and that was before I even ripped open any wrapping paper. :)

Repainting the bathroom

We have a rather old house. When we moved in it had been remodeled due to a fire. The carpet and the walls were white. It made the house look big and clean.... And plain.

It did not take long before we started painting. We have a bright yellow kitchen (Pepper believes all kitchens should be yellow). She found a book about specialized designs that you can do with paint. So our TV room is this cool looking textured paint that looks like dark green suede. Our hallway is this funky brown that Pepper made using different paints and brown paper grocery bags. It took awhile for me to get used to because it looks like tree bark. But I like it.

Our downstairs bathroom was all me. I saw the color combination in Pepper’s book and picked out the colors. I read how to do the design. In the book it was a cheery yellow that faded into a lime green toward the bottom of the walls. It looked like bottled sunshine in the book. It did not end up looking that way on our bathroom walls. It looked more like a clown’s dressing room!

Repainting the bathroom has been on my list of things to do since before the lime green paint dried. It kept getting put off because there were so many other things we wanted to do in the house…. Or needed to do.

Enter…. Kirby. Our loveable little puppy looked too cute to stick her in her cage while we ran out for a couple hours. I decided to put her in the bathroom so she would have more space and it was my first step toward leaving her out to roam around the house while we weren’t home. Kirby did not see getting to stay in the bathroom while we were gone as a promotion. She took down the vertical blinds, chewed up the bin we kept towels in and ripped quite violently at the shower curtain. She bent the shower rod and shredded the curtain liner.

"before"


Pepper and I spent the last couple days making some changes... I am much happier with the results this time. :)

"after"

Funny Bunny

Saw this picture and thought it was funny. Jay and her daughter Lexi are visiting for the weekend. Lexi told me a cute joke.... "What do scaredy-cats eat for lunch?" answer.....chicken! I love 5th grade humor! :)

Sometimes the things my students say during “speech” just tickles me. Here are a couple of the latest. While working on answering “Where” questions…. “You just checked out a book to take home. Where are you?” child: the library “You just bought stamps. Where are you?” child: the post office “You just got off an airplane. Where are you?” child: DISNEY WORLD!! (Its been a cold, snowy winter….. of course that is where we’d all be if we took a plane somewhere!!) A 6 year old boy as he comes into the room realizing the school-wide reading night was the night before….. “I missed family read night last night? WHAT IS WRONG WITH ME??”

Not a Llama anymore...

She is looking better! By spring she will be her ol' cute self!! :)

Funny kids...

Apparently wrestling action figures come in different sizes... I was picking up two of my boys to for speech therapy when one of them said he wanted me to see his new action figure. It was in his locker so he opened it and pulled out a giant doll from his backpack. He held it out for me to admire and the other student gaped at the gigantic figure and said, "Wow, I have that guy... in a smaller virgin." :)

What discovered while talking to Dill about his social studies test. Dill: I did ok, but I missed the 15 point part. Me: What was the question ? Dill: Why would somebody want to come to Michigan. Me: What did you say? Dill: I couldn’t remember a lot of the natural resources and stuff. I put: "to see the Great Lakes, to learn about lake effect and to meet the governor, but I don’t really think she’s that good.” ☺

Funny kids take one...

Pepper has been working with some students on the “th” sound. She asks the kids questions where the answer is a word that starts with “th”.

Pepper to 1st student: “What day comes after Wednesday?”

1st student: “Thursday!”

Pepper to second student: “On your hand you have 4 fingers and a……?”

2nd student: “Thumb!”

Pepper to 3rd student: When you really want a drink you are……?”

3rd student: “Dehydrated!!”

☺

The decorators and the un-decorator!

Snowy fun!

Everyone had great fun making this snowman for the yard. Dill did most of the rolling but it took Dori, Pepper and I all to lift the middle snowball onto the bottom one! Everyone helped decorate him. :)

Slippy Slidy!

Sunday was quite a day. We started off all headed to church (except Pete who spent the night at church with his youth group) through about two inches of snow that had started falling around midnight. The roads weren’t great, but for around here, definitely not the worst we’ve seen. As I was driving I was chatting about the contract Dill and I had made so that he could have $50.00 to buy holiday gifts at his school store. The whole family was joking and laughing about how expensive it was to buy gifts when you have a large family when I suddenly hit a spot of black ice and the car started spinning out of control. I was only going about 15 mph so it really took me by surprise. We turned completely around and slammed into a mailbox on the other side of the road and slid into a ditch. We needed a snowplow to help pull us out of the ditch and then we were on the road again. The passenger side mirror was left dangling and the running board was smashed underneath the car, but no other damage was visible. (besides a very mangled mailbox!!) We got onto the expressway rather than taking the back roads to church thinking the roads would be better and slid again. We sort of teetered on the edge of the on ramp and I needed to put us in 4 wheel drive low to get us back on the road. This time, we got out on our own but I could not get the car out of 4 WD low once we got on the highway. By this point, we were already 30 minutes late for church and decided to limp back home. It was amazing how long it took us to get home when the fastest you can drive is 20 MPH. But, we made it home and everyone was safe. We missed church, but everyone in the car said they prayed a lot while we were spinning out of control and dangling on three wheels off the on ramp!
We were planning to go to Pepper’s parents house for birthday celebrations but we’d had enough driving excitement for the day so we decided to postpone the visit. Spent the rest of the day cooking and playing in the snow with the kids. Tomorrow we get to call the insurance company and fix a mailbox in the frigid cold…. But no one was hurt, everyone is safe and we did make it to church to pick up Pete. (Who was having so much fun with his youth group he didn’t even notice that we weren’t there when we were supposed to be!)