It really is a wonderful life!

Check this out...it's our youngest granddaughter, Kara, sleeping on the Santa blanket. Isn't she adorable? I mean really - what a face!! Look at those cheeks. And that hair. And that little nose and precious little hands. Ahhhhhh, how can I explain the absolute joy of seeing her for the very first time in person? Oh I know just the word...magical.
I have more pictures, of course, but they're on my other camera and the cord to download my other camera is currently MIA. I'm sure I'll run across it eventually and then I will bombard you all with many more pictures of this little beauty (and her mom!).
In the meantime, here's a picture of me and my youngest. Yesterday was Jake's 17th birthday. (sigh) Can't believe it was 17 years ago when we met him for the very first time. Has it really been that long? Sheesh.

Now for the next 3 weeks, we'll have two 17 year olds in the house. Kaleb and Jacob are "Irish twins"...they're 11 months and 9 days apart. It's actually pretty cool having kids that close in age. Well, it's cool now. Back when they were both in diapers, "cool" isn't the word I would have used to describe the situation. lol

Adding to my absolute joy and happiness during this wonderful holiday season, my oldest son Nick is home from Okinawa!!!! I'm so dang happy about this that I could just burst!! Look at him:

Isn't he perfect? Oh, I'm sorry - ya'll didn't know that I had perfect children, did you? Well, it's true...all four of them are simply spectacular perfection. At least for this one month of their lives. LOL And once Nick's perfect wife, Jodie, and my perfect granddaughters, Maddy and Kara, return to Texas from Florida, I'll have my perfect family all together for this glorious holiday season. I've already scheduled a session at a photo studio to have our picture taken - all our kids and all our grandkids and Randey and me - together at last! I'm not usually real big on the whole picture taking thing (if it includes me in the photos, that is), but this is special.

Anywho - before all this excitement of Jake's birthday and of seeing Nick and Jodie and Kara, I spent a couple of days wrapping gifts. I wrapped and I wrapped and I wrapped. And then I wrapped some more.

I've decided that wrapping is my least favorite part of the Christmas fun. Well, it's not so much the wrapping as it is the decorating of the packages. I was a bit overwhelmed this year so I kind of cheated. I used some old decorations from years past (like the little wreath pictured on the red and white striped picture above), but for the most part, I did just basic tied bows. So much for getting fancy this year, eh? I guess it doesn't really matter - little Skye and Maddy Moose won't care that Granny didn't attach Rudolph candy canes and sleigh bells to all the packages...they think all the glitter and shine is eye-candy enough. And I think looking at their sweet little faces as they gaze at the Christmas decorations with such wonder is eye-candy enough for me.

Merry Christmas everyone!!

I almost forgot - here's a little shout out to Charlotte back in my home state -

GO OU!!!!!!!!!!!!

:)

Tennis Time

We went to Kaleb's first tennis match of the season this afternoon. I took my fancy dancy camera with it's fancy dancy telephoto lens. The good news is, I was able to figure out how to switch the lenses on that darn camera (after 10 minutes of trying before finally getting out the manual, of course). The bad news is...I still have no idea how to take great pictures. Who knew it could be so hard??? But I got a few action shots of Kaleb playing that should be good enough to scrapbook anyway. Here's him looking rather pensively at his opponent: Now the serve...he looks so intense, eh?
Another serve (this is only one of two shots that I actually got the ball in. lol):
Headed down court:
Kaleb said after looking at this shot that he could now see what he was doing wrong. Something about his left arm being too low. I really have no idea what he was talking about, but I was glad that the picture taking was able to help him out with that.

Check out his forward momentum. He was all ready to go for the return:
I love this shot. The look on his face just says it all to me.
And here he is after the match, ready for a break:
Sometimes when I watch Kaleb, I see shades of his older brother, Nick. I guess they have some of the same mannerisms and similar features. What do you think, Jodie? Do you see it, too?

I have to add a picture of Jake to this post since he was there cheering Kaleb on. Here he is, sitting along the fence line talking to Randey as we watched Kaleb's match. I think he was trying to explain the scoring system to Randey...for the umpteenth time. Randey had it down pretty good last year, but lost all his tennis acumen sometime over the summer (I never had any - baseball is my game. Tennis is harder to keep track of!). lol So now Jake and Kaleb have to walk us through it all again. (Love this, love that...I'll never get it right.)
This look Jake's giving Randey is one we both see a lot of. It's almost like the boy can't believe his parents are so totally ignorant. 'Course, at the same time, we can't believe our little darlin' is such a flippin' genius either. (Did that sound like sarcasm 'cause I sure meant for it to. LOL)

And they're off!

Today was the boys' first day of school! At long last. I've been waiting on this day for what seems like WEEKS! So why am I so bummed about it now? lol This is their idea of together time with Mom before the first day of school...lounged out on the couch, basically counting the minutes until they could leave (ha!). And here's where I made them "pose" for me before they left (although Jake's thumbs up thingy was his own idea. I think he was mocking me....). Now I ask you, does Kaleb look excited to be going to the very first day of his senior year of high school?? Not so much, does he?
I miss 'em already. It's gonna be a long year.

My blogging is still a bit sporadic. We have out of town company this week. My very best friend in the whole wide world (Susan) and her husband are here for a week (her husband, who is also in the Air Force reserves along with Randey, is here for work). Naturally, I feel morally obligated to take Susan around to every shoe store within a 50 mile radius, as well as any and all book stores we can manage to locate. I know, I know, it's a pain in the butt to look at all those shoes and find all those books, but somebody's got to do it and I'm willing to make the sacrifice because, well, she's my best bud and I know she'd do it for me (and has, actually!). Wish me luck and good shoe hunting, eh?

Tropic Thunder, My Baby's Movin' on Up, More Art, Maddy's Masterpiece and a Plea for Recipes!

It's been a hectic weekend. I'm on another one of my "gotta get organized" kicks so naturally, everything in the house is a total mess. lol What I wouldn't give for more storage in this house!! Geez. Seems like I'm constantly shifting stuff from one pile to another and not making any progress whatsoever. But that's a whole other story. I'd just as soon not think about it right now so I'll move along, okay? :)
Randey and I saw Tropic Thunder Friday evening. It was offensive on so many levels, it was stupid, it was gross, it was sometimes over-the-top bizarre...and man, did we love it! I haven't laughed so hard in a theater since we saw Blades of Glory. Robert Downey, Jr. is pure genius. I'm normally not too impressed with anyone who makes their living in Hollywood, but this guy is an exception. I loved him in Ironman, I loved him in Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang and I totally and completely adored him in this movie. Nobody plays a character better and nobody pokes fun at himself better, either. Genius, I tell you, genius. Another stand out performance in this movie was that of Tom Cruise. Yeah, I know. I stopped diggin' Tom Cruise right about the time he kicked Nicole to the curb and started couch jumping over Katie. But his performance in this movie almost made me like him again. Almost. (He played a great role, but afterwards, well - he's still Tom Cruise - couch-pounding maniac.) If you can enjoy a whole lot of un-politically correct humor, this movie is for you. If you're easily offended, skip it. And there you have it. Another movie review from me. Woo-hoo! lol
Check out Jacob, my baby. He was headed to a job interview so he broke down and dressed in something other than a t-shirt and plaid shorts. It worked for him, too. He got the job and has gone from working fast food to working in retail sales. He's already planning on how to spend the big bucks he'll be making. lol
Remember our fetish for cheap art? Well, check this out:
It's a watercolor painting of an actual windmill. It's the Berney Arms Mill in Norfolk, U.K. It actually has a sticker on the back with the name of the artist and the artist's contact information. I googled the name of the mill and found several webpages with information regarding the origin and the current use of the mill. I think it's a beautiful little watercolor and, at $3 (sorry, Kat, I can't help myself - I have to tell how little we paid! lol), an absolute steal.

When Maddy Moose (our oldest granddaughter) was visiting earlier this month, she and I went to Granbury and painted ceramics together. As you can see, Maddy's granny (moi) has not found her calling when it comes to painting these things. Who knew the brush strokes would show up so much??? Here's the front of my piece:
And here's the back:
Now here's Maddy's. This kid is so creative and so free-spirited, it was a given that I would love her piece. Here's the front of hers:
And here's the back:
I am kicking my own butt for not having her do two pieces so that I could keep one. What was I thinking??? Well, now I know better. Next time around, Moose will be painting something for herself and something for her granny. lol

One more thing. I haven't received many recipes yet for the "Finding a Weigh Out of Fat" post coming up this Wednesday. You only have a day or two to get those to me!! If you have one, please e-mail me with it ASAP (or type it into a comment). Come on, guys! Share what you've got and help the rest of us out! If we're going to lose weight together, we need to do it all together. Including helping each other out in the kitchen (metaphorically, anyway. You'll have to find your own helpers to do the dishes. lol).

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?

My (Guitar) Heroes

I've got to quit looking at old pictures in my computer. Better yet, I've got to get them put on a disc so I can clean up my computer. Whilst perusing the more than 4000 photos currently cluttering up my hard drive, I came across this: Jake and Kaleb, playing Guitar Hero. Jake was even sportin' rock star hair back then. Oh, and that funny background you see? That's part of The Star Wars Room (aka: the computer room). Nothing says Rock Star quite like space ships hanging from the ceiling, eh? Well, maybe long hair, guitars and glassy eyes. Yeah, they probably say Rock Star better than an X-wing ever could. lol

Heckle and Jeckle

or maybe I should just call them Goober and Gomer. I was going through some pictures the other day and came across this: This was taken at Christmas 2006. Jacob and Kaleb were being their usual serious, studious selves when they spotted a giant spider. Well, geez, what could they do but jump into each other's arms, screaming like little girls?

Okay, so yeah, they were really just goofing off and doing everything in their power to act like fruitbaskets. The fact that I can't get them to pose nicely for longer than 2 seconds has long been a source of angst for me. Kinda cute though, aren't they? My boys...my very own set of Irish twins (they are exactly 11 months and 9 days apart in age). This will probably be one of my favorite Christmas pictures in the years to come. Oh heck, who am I kidding? It already is!

Not Much Fizz to the Dr. Pepper Tour but Indiana Jones is Still the Man

Bright and early Saturday morning (if you consider 9:00 bright and early, that is) we headed to Dublin, Texas to check out the Dublin Dr. Pepper Bottling Company and Museum. We opted not to go to the Waco D.P. museum because it would have meant a total of 5 hours driving time to include both Dublin and Waco and we wanted to check out Indiana Jones 4 that afternoon, too. Anywho...I'm thinking that this will go down in our family history as a "been there, done that, don't need to do it again" sort of thing. The Famous "Old Doc's Soda Shop" wasn't all it was cracked up to be. Not much there at all, really. They sold t-shirts and other Dr. Pepper emblazoned items and the soda counter offered all manner of D.P. and even some sandwiches and stuff. The tour of the bottling plant, however, made the the soda shop look downright cool. Our 'tour guide' was a young, probably teen-aged, girl who used "um" and "like" in every single sentence she spoke, sometimes even several times within the same sentence, during the 20 minute tour thru the bottling facility and the three room "museum". And if she scraped her hair back behind her ears once, she did it a hundred times. Note to Dublin Dr. Pepper Management: Make sure tour guides can speak proper English, advise them to keep their hands out of their hair, especially when standing next to the bottling machinery and explain to them that stopping their schpeil in the middle of a sentence to explain to the tour how it is they always get confused when trying to pronounce so and so's name doesn't exactly convey a feeling of "ah...she knows what she's talking about!".
We bought the boys a t-shirt each, just so we wouldn't feel like the day was wasted (ha) and we bought Maddy Moose and Kara little Dr. Pepper shirts, too (see below). The coolest thing was this giant Dr. Pepper can that's located down at the end of the block from the museum. Here's Randey and I, poking each other in the ribs as Kaleb took our picture.
(How come he looks normal when I'm poking him, but I look like a stumbling drunk or something??). This next picture is of Kaleb and Jacob next to the "can". They first stood there about 2 feet apart until I told them to "act like they knew each other". This is the pose they gave me for my efforts:
And here's Randey and the boys. After we left Dublin, we drove up thru Granbury and had lunch at Babe's. Don't even get me started on the food at Babe's. Yum-O! Their smoked chicken is the best! Once we got lunch out of the way, we headed back home (had to drop off Randey's left-overs) and then on to the movie theater where we saw Indiana Jones 4.
I wish I hadn't of listened to the critics take on this movie...I spent too much time "thinking" about it instead of just enjoying it. I think I'm going to go see it again. I mean I liked it, I liked it a lot, I just think I missed too much of it because I was trying to see what the critics had pointed out in their reviews. Dumb critics. Don't know why I ever even bother to read a review from the likes of them.
Before I stop for today, I want to clarify why I asked if anyone knew the definition of "curmudgeon" in my last post. And no, people, it's not because someone called me one nor was it because I didn't have enough sense to look it up in a dictionary. I asked because I was surprised that my own teenage sons had never heard the word before. A couple of months ago, we were at a reception hosted by Texas Tech. It was one of those college recruitment things for Kaleb. While there, one of the speakers said something about not promising the students that they wouldn't run into the occasional "curmudgeon" within the ranks of the professors and then she said "Ah. Curmudgeon. Our vocabulary word of the day.". I sort of laughed and said "Like everyone in this room doesn't already know what a curmudgeon is" and Kaleb and Jacob both looked at me and said they'd never heard the word before. What the heck? I thought they would have learned that already, either through vocabulary testing and/or English lit. I know it's not a word we use here at home often (although if Randey's attitude keeps deteriorating, that could change. lololol). When I expressed my shock that my boys didn't know that word, I was informed (and I won't say who was doing the informing) that it wasn't a very "common" word and most people probably didn't know what it meant. Bull-hockey, I say! So I was asking you guys if you knew the meaning. (Wow. Talk about a long, drawn out story to explain something, huh?) Anyway, that's why the question was asked. So don't start sending me e-mail addressed to "Ms. Curmudgeon", thinking that's become my new nick-name, okie-dokie?
The rest of this post is for the scrapbookers out there. I wanted to show you my Mini-Moon booklet. It'll serve as a forever reminder of what goober pet owners Randey and I are. lol
And finally...may you all take the time to think about and remember those who have given their lives so that we may have our freedoms. Memorial Day is for them. May God Bless their souls.


(Click to enlarge photos)