Des Meets Her Favorite Star

My daughter, Desiree', attended Toby Keith's concert last night in Dallas. Just by sheer happenstance, she and her friend were given an opportunity to meet Toby in person and have their picture made with him. Here she is with The Tobe: I'm not real big on fawning all over so-called stars, but I'm thrilled that she was thrilled by this. (And besides, Toby's from Oklahoma, he supports our troops wholeheartedly and he's not a bad singer either so "GO TOBE!". lol)

Happy Birthday, Desiree'!

My only daughter, Desiree', turns 21 years old today. Happy Birthday, Des! Here she is when she was almost 3 years old. See those eyes? Deep, dark brown. Kinda sparkly. Great happy smile. Cute little button nose. Just such a sweet little face. Oh yeah. A sweet little face that was always, always, always full of mischief. (That's a mother's nice way of saying it has damn near killed me trying to get her raised! Whew!!) I'm telling you, this kid spent more minutes in timeout than the combined penalty time total of all the hockey players in the history of the National Hockey League. And that's saying something. But here we are, 2008, and she's now 21 years old. And I survived! Yippee! Happy Birthday, Des - I hope we have a great year together!

In other "children news"...I finally got to speak with my son, Nick! Yay!!! I haven't spoken to him since he deployed. He'd tried to call once before, but we weren't home and I didn't hear my cell phone ring either. Talk about crushed! I was sick about that. But he called last night and we got to speak for a pretty good bit of time. He was able to give me an address that I can send a care package for him to. And you know what he asked for? Canned boiled peanuts. How funny is that? I'm hoping to get some when I'm in Florida next week. I can't seem to find any around here in Texas. And if my beautiful son wants boiled peanuts, that my beautiful son shall have them. (I had to say it like that because Nick has requested that I not call him "beautiful" anymore. So, naturally, I feel compelled to call him "beautiful" every chance I get. lol)

Here's a picture of Nick from his survival school days. Nick, honey. Let's face it. You are a beautiful man. I know it, you know it, Jodie knows it, heck everybody knows it. Don't fight it, baby. Just go with it. :) And one more thing, son. I am so very proud of you. I know you don't like me saying that on my blog - you're not into the bragging aspect of your job, but I am. I know what you're sacrificing by serving in our armed forces and by being deployed. I know what you're missing out on in your children's lives. And I also know that you volunteered for this deployment and I know why. I am very, very sad to know how much your service costs you and your family, but I am so grateful that you and others like you are willing to make those sacrifices so that the rest of us can sit back and revel in our freedoms. (So yes, Nick, I'm grateful and I'm proud and no, son, I will not stop talking about it, even though you've asked me to. I love you. Stay safe. ~Mom)

Childhood Reminders, More Art Attack (I'm so ashamed) and the REAL fine art in our home...

From the time I was 3 years old until I was 6, we lived in Japan. My dad was in the Air Force and that's where we were stationed at that time. I don't remember much really, except the earthquakes, my first boyfriend (slobber faced Mark, whom I loved with all my kindergartner's heart) and my dad making me ride my bike without my trusty training wheels (really think he could have been a little more sympathetic to my fear on this subject and a little less snarky). I wish I had retained more of the memories from our time overseas. Even some of the things I think I remember, I'm not sure are accurate. Frustrating. But anyway, last Friday Randey and I went "antiquing". That's what we call it when we go junk shopping. lol We were at a place in Ft. Worth and had just about finished walking through there when Randey spotted this: A Pachinko machine! Talk about sweet childhood memories! We played one of these all the time - my parents even brought one home from Japan when we moved stateside (sure wish I knew what had happened to that one!). I had seen one in another antique place in Benbrook, Texas a couple of months ago and showed it to Randey. But that one was $100, had pieces missing and was no where near in working order. This one, however, was marked $40 and seems to be missing just the "leg" braces and the actual Pachinko steel balls, which you can order on e-bay. I was so excited! We snapped it up, of course. Well, "snap" might not be the perfect word to describe what we did with it because the darn thing weighs a ton! Randey hefted it up and lugged it to the front desk. There. That's more accurate. This machine even came with original paperwork that shows it to be "reconditioned from Pachinko parlor use to home use". The date says it was reconditioned in 1973 and states that the machine was no more than 2 years old at the time of reconditioning. I have no idea what on earth I'm going to do with this beast or where I'm going to put it, but I do know that seeing it has allowed me to recapture a small and fun part of my childhood memories. (*big smile*)

Oh and one other thing we found is this (spotting that Pachinko machine must have brought us good luck!):

Another piece of "art". LOL This one is tiny - probably only about 5 x 7 inches, although the frame, of course, gives it a little more bulk. Kat says I'm not supposed to say how much I pay for art, so I won't tell you what it cost. Well, except to say Randey thinks it was the best $5 he's ever spent on a painting. HA! (Sorry, Kat I couldn't help myself. Buying cheap is just such a thrill for me. lol) So I guess we're still suffering from our art attacks after all. And while we have a lot of fun finding these landscape paintings together, our real art collection comes from our children. Let me show you what I mean...

See this? Jake did this one in 2nd grade and won first place in the Okaloosa County Elementary School Art Competition. I adore this masterpiece.
Jake also writes poetry and won a contest with this poem (you can click on it to enlarge it enough to read what it says). This poem was written when Jake was 13 and was published in a book of poems.
Kaleb's done a little artwork himself. Now I'm not normally a fan of Picasso and his ilk, but I like this one. Kaleb did it I think it 5th or 6th grade. Very cool. Kaleb also did this picture - I believe when he was in 9th grade. I love the intense colors.
Des did this metal rendition of a butterfly in one of her school classes years ago. Des was never one for enjoying crafting or anything so this object is particularly special. It's probably just about the only thing of its kind that she's ever done.
Now we come to Nick's artwork. You have to understand that Nick is my oldest (he's almost 7 years older than Desiree', my second child). When Nick was very young, we moved a lot. It was just him and me and we didn't really have any roots anywhere. Seeing as how we moved so often, I (sadly) don't have a lot of his "art projects" from school. In fact, the only reason I have this piece of art is because my Aunt Ginger saved it (she adored Nick - spoiled him rotten every chance she got and treasured everything about this kid). I'm so grateful that she saved this, Nick's "turkey hands".
Nick, however, is not so grateful. He says it makes him look like he's a tad bit goofy. Here Kaleb and Jacob have their Van Goghs and Picassos and even Des has a metal work that has a certain complexity to it and then there's Nick, with his turkey hands. Listening to him gripe about how I put all their work up together and his ends up looking somewhat "lacking" is actually half the fun, to tell you the truth. Naturally, I think his turkey hands are beautiful! And so will his children some day, when they see his artwork. I display our finest art on this wall, mainly:
My children...artists, every one. That landscape picture fetish Randey and I have is just for funnies. We know the value of real art. How could we not, with examples like this in our home?

Hope You Have a Spooktacular Halloween

Our little family had a quick pumpkin carving extravaganza yesterday. Well. Maybe not such an extravaganza, per se, but we did go into a little carving frenzy. Randey did the ghost pumpkin on the left, Jacob did the vampire preparing to bite the woman's neck, I did the witch and Kaleb did the skull face. I've come to the conclusion that I don't really care for carving pumpkins. It wasn't as fun as I'd envisioned. Randey and the boys, however, loved doing it. So what's that mean? It means they're totally and completely in charge of any and all future pumpkin carving for this particular branch of the family tree. Sorry guys, but count me out! This one below is the pumpkin Kaleb carved a couple of weeks ago, as practice. Jacob did one too, but his sort of fell apart. Mainly because he cut where he shouldn't have. You know, to tell the truth, I don't think pumpkin carving is really Jake's forte' either. His first one fell apart and his second one...well, look closely at the picture above. He actually carved the pattern sideways...that's why his pumpkin is laying on its side. Funny, huh?
I had meant to post some of these next pictures a few at a time in the week leading up to Halloween, but circumstances prevented me from doing that. This is Desiree' dressed as a bride. A pretty unhappy bride, judging by the look on her face. Jake and Kaleb were dressed as a pair of dice. This is probably my favorite costume of theirs. They were so flippin' cute.

This is Nick and Des back in 1987. Nick was such a good big brother when Des was born. So sweet. He was obviously dressed as a convict and Des was dressed as a ghost. She didn't like that costume, either.
Here's Des as some sort of witch. Strange. She seemed to love that costume. The boys were ninjas and they really thought they were cool.
Okay so this was not a banner year for costumes. We sort of went with what we had for the boys. They were still pretty darn cute, though.

Here's Des dressed as a cheerleader. She was so adorable that year. You've never seen a kid happier with their costume than she was with that one. The boys were indians and they so loved their feather headdresses.
Here's Des dressed as a giant baby. I think she was in 6th or 7th grade that year and, if I remember correctly, she was going to a Halloween party at a friend's house. Jacob was a bloody waiter (a costume he truly thought was fantastic) and Kaleb was a bloodied Nascar driver.
This is Des with one of the Hutchinson girls back in 1988. The Hutchinson's lived down the road from Aunt Ginger and Uncle Mike and they babysat Des and Nick quite a bit. Great people. This is Kaleb as a mummy. Not my greatest idea for a costume, I must admit. I think I should have thought a little more about how to keep the wrapping on because the more Kaleb walked, the more his wrapping trailed behind him. Good thing he was wearing something under all that stuff, I'll tell you that. He might've had to "streak" home otherwise.
And finally, here's Jacob as Quasimodo, the Hunchback. He was such a cutie that night, too. Heck, what am I saying? I seem to think all my kids were cute every Halloween! lol

I hope all of you have a fun and safe Halloween. We'll be sitting on our front walkway this evening, passing out the candy and sipping hot cocoa...pretending we're shivering from fright and cold. (Which may be a stretch since it's supposed to get all the way up to 81 today!). Happy Halloween All!

Halloween 1989

Halloween 1989 was great for us. My sister and her husband (who many of you know is also my husband's brother. Yeah, think that over for a second and you'll work it out. lol) lived in Niceville, Florida and we lived in Valparaiso, Florida (these 2 towns are right next to each other - I mean right next to each other. Our homes were probably only 2 miles apart). Living so close to one another, naturally our families got together to take the kids trick-or-treating. My nephew, Joseph, was dressed as a Mad Scientist. Nicholas, my oldest son, was dressed as the Hunchback. They were both 9 years old for that Halloween and, if I remember correctly, they had a fabulous time that year. So much laughter, so many smiles. Gotta love it. My niece, Megen, age 4 1/2, was dressed as a Jack-in-the-Box. She was the cutest little thing you ever saw. (Check out how long her braided hair is in the picture. That kid was born with more hair than most humans grow over a lifetime. lol). And Desiree', who at the time was 2 1/2 years old, was dressed as, what else?, a Christmas present. She was hysterically funny because she kept tripping over her own feet, but once she'd fall, she couldn't get herself back up because of the box she was wearing. I know, I know. We were all wrong to laugh at her like we did, but good grief...it was just so funny. All you could see was this box with a head, 2 arms and these short little legs sticking out of the bottom, kicking for all they were worth. Funny stuff. Oh hush. You'd have laughed, too, if you'd seen her!
And just so you don't think I laughed at my daughter with no idea of how that would make her feel, let me tell you this little story. Joseph and Nick were Cub Scouts that year and their troop decided to have a Halloween themed meeting that month. Complete with costumes. Yeah, everyone was supposed to dress up, including the parents. Well, being relatively young and extremely foolish, we all took them seriously and dressed up. Sherri was smart. She dressed as a Bunny. That meant she wore pastel pants and a giant sweatshirt with a big cotton ball pinned to her butt and a headband with cute little bunny ears. Oh, and she drew whiskers on her face, too. Randey and Ken (Sherri's husband, Randey's brother. Come on now, keep up!) were really smart. Randey dressed like a hunchback. Which basically meant he stuffed a pillow under his shirt up by his shoulders. Ken dressed as a mummy. He just had a bunch of torn pieces of sheet wrapped around him. Me? Oh I went all out. I mean, all out. I had a bridesmaid dress that I never actually cared for (just look at it...all us bridesmaids looked like giant fluffs of cotton candy wearing those things!) and a pair of Randey's BDU pants and an old shirt from the thrift store. I combined all these things and went as Half Man/Half Woman. Complete with mascara painted full beard and moustache and one honkin' thick eyebrow (I was trying to look manly on that side, remember?). And guess what? We arrived at the meeting and no other parents were dressed up. None. Nada. No.Body.Else. And to top it all off, they looked at us like we were insane. What the heck? Randey and Ken quickly "removed" their costumes (i.e., the pillow and the torn strips of sheets) and Sherri thought about removing her tail and ears until I threatened her with her life. Still...she only had on tiny little ears, a fluffy little tail and thinly drawn whiskers. I, on the other hand, looked like a complete freak. That was the last year I ever dressed up for Halloween. There's nothing like little children pointing and snickering at you while their parents gaze at you with smirks and even a little pity to make you realize that the time for dressing up has come and gone. One good thing that came of it, though. I finally got rid of that horrific bridesmaid dress! lol
**Correction*** Randey informs me that he was the mummy and Ken was the hunchback. You can understand why I was confused, though, right? I mean they were out of their costumes so fast (those sniveling little cowards!), it's hard to remember exactly who wore what. Apparently, I've blocked out more of that evening that I thought I had but, honestly, who could blame me? lol

Menopause Madness Mondays and Halloween Pictures...Practically a Match Made in Heaven!

It's Monday! I've been really bad the past two Mondays about the Menopause Madness post, but I think I'm back on track. I was trying to think of what to say in this post and started to wonder if maybe I wasn't running out of steam about the joys of menopause. I don't want to sound like a broken record. In fact, I'd like to come up with some positive things to write about menopause, but thus far, I'm drawing a blank on that one. Ain't nothin' makin' me happy about menopause, I gotta tell 'ya. So what's my current biggest gripe about this particular little wonder of nature? Well, I'll tell you. It's the weight gain. I've packed on a few pounds this year. Oh, who am I kidding? I've packed on a lot of pounds this year. I can't tell you exactly how many because I refuse to come within 30 feet of a scale. This is absolutely ridiculous, demoralizing and just plain humiliating. I've gone up 2, count 'em 2, pant sizes since this time last year! I can't even begin to explain the joys of being grossly overweight and having hot flashes at the same time. Talk about good times. Just last night, I slept with the ceiling fan on, the stand fan on (2 feet away from me and pointed directly at my torso) as well as the air turned down. And I still felt like I was baking alive. I'm about 3 degrees away from emptying my freezer and standing in it myself. (I'm kidding, of course. My fridge/freezer is a side by side. No way I'd fit in just the freezer section!). But I've got my eye on this jumbo size cooler at Wal-Mart that I think will do nicely....
How about you guys? Anybody else suffering from weight gain and horrific heat? Or am I all alone is this misery? Come on, peeps...tell me I'm not alone!

Moving on (before I get so worked up that I spontaneously combust!).... Since Halloween is creeping up on us, I thought I'd post a few pictures every now and then of my kids Halloween costumes over the years.

These three pictures were taken in 1991. Nicholas was Dracula, obviously. Yeah, we had a hard time convincing him that the Count actually wore jeans, but I think he turned out looking pretty flippin' cool!
This is Desiree' as a clown (duh, right?). She was adorable. I have to say, we made a lot of our kids' costumes. We had to. We couldn't afford to buy them all a store bought outfit every year. Back in 1991, Nick was the "lucky" one. We bought his cape. That was pretty much the extent of our Halloween Costume Budget for that year. lol This clown costume is one that we made. You guys already know I don't sew. Can anybody guess how this costume was held together? Good old hot glue, of course. lol We had a heck of a time getting her into it without tearing the "seams". By the end of the night, she had so many safety pins holding this thing together that she never could have made it through a metal detector. But man, she was cute, wasn't she?
And here's little Kaleb (I was pregnant with Jake...no pictures of him this year!). It seems so clear to me, but maybe I should explain, just in case anyone out there can't tell...Kaleb was dressed as a bag of M&M's. (We thought we were so clever! ha) The sides of his costume were hot glued, too, but I did use fabric glue to hold on the lettering. I'm not a total moron, you know. lol