Fall Stuff I Forgot to Blog About

#1. Olivia's birthday. She likes cats.

I bought her a bunch of kitties from the thrift store cuz I'm cheap like that. But it made her happy anyway.

Auntie Emmy made her an awesome Hello Kitty cake.

#2. Justin's birthday. He turned 40. He's still a handsome young stud to me. But I am much, much younger than him.

#3. My sister-in-laws, Jubilee & Melanie came to visit. They brought their friend, Gina. They also brought my nephew, Aiden, whom I had not seen since he was a newborn. I performed the amazing feat of rocking him to sleep, which is something he usually only allows his mama to do. Even though my youngest baby is now almost 3 whole years old, I've still got the knack.

#4. Uncle Joshua & Auntie Heather came to visit.

#5. Halloween happened. Wait. I think this should have been #1 or #2. Oh, well. Not gonna fix it now.

#6. In the middle of my frantic packing for our trip to WA, for Thanksgiving, Seth decided to go for a bike ride, hit a pot-hole, fly through the air for a bit & "break" his arm. Very inconvenient for me when I had to load everyone up in the car & head off to the ER for our monthly visit. However, it was just as well, because the staff was starting to miss us & wonder if we were OK. Heaven forbid. But I suppose it was no picnic for Seth either, as it was his arm which was injured....poor kid. I felt so sorry for him that I did his chore, the dishes, for the whole next month. (Yes, I do dishes on vacation. But when you have teenagers, they should help, right?) When we returned from our vacation & had the doctor re-X-ray his arm, it turned out to not be broken after all. Simply sprained. Hmmmmmm.....Suddenly, he's able to do the dishes again. Thank you kindly.

#3: PART 2: When Jubilee, Melanie & Gina were in town, Justin's work was having an early Christmas party. I asked them to babysit the boys so that I could go with him for a date. Not only did they watch the boys all evening, so Bonnie & Clyde could go out on the town, they (along with the boys, whom they paid) cleaned my house from top to bottom. They cleaned & scrubbed things I had forgotten even existed. That was a HUGE blessing & I can't tell you how loved that made me feel.

Another highlight of the evening, for me, was when I beat Justin at poker. That has never happened before. He beats me at every game we ever play......cuz he's smart like that & I'm.....not so much. Well, technically, I just finished ahead of him (that's the same thing, right?). I also relieved a bunch of guys of their chip stacks, so I was pretty dern proud of myself. A good time was had by all, except for the guys whose chips I stole.

Stay tuned for upcoming posts about our vacation.

WA Thanksgiving Trip/Goodbye to Grandma

I feel like I have been living an alternate reality the past 3 weeks. Justin, the boys & I went to WA for Thanksgiving week. I knew my Grandma was doing poorly & that I'd likely be seeing her for the last time. We stayed at my cousin Regina's house & had a wonderful visit with many family members from Justin's side of the family & even more on my side. I did have a chance to visit with my Grandma & say goodbye to her, after Thanksgiving. I thought she probably had a bit more time left, but I knew that I would probably never see her again, alive, as I live so far away. The morning we were planning to leave to come home, my cousin came into my room to tell me our precious Grandma had died a couple hours before. Justin had bereavement time available at work, so we just stayed there to wait for the funeral. All in all, we were gone from home for about 3 weeks. It was a wonderfully bitter-sweet time. I became very close to my cousin Regina, who was an angel (as was her husband, Chris), to house 8 people....6 of whom are fun-lovin' & rowdy boys.....for almost 3 whole weeks!!!!! I think there may be a special place in heaven for her. But now we're finally home. Half of December is suddenly, mysteriously, just gone. The boys got somewhat behind in their school work. Reality is sometimes a big bucket of cold water. It's Seth & Jarod's finals week & all of the boys are catching up now....or trying to. Mama is trying not to freak out about it all & just have them do the best they can. Mama is also bribing them with King-sized candy bars at the end of the week if they work very hard. Around here, with all of our happy chaos, we do what can to get the job done, ya know? The boys have their own special way of trying to focus as well, and shut out the constant distraction of active littler brothers (see below). I have taken a break from the SweetTarts & am trying to prepare for Christmas. I am nowhere near ready. 

This is what an angel looks like, in case you were curious (the pretty one holding the less-angelic one):