So, what have we been doing?

We have allowed this blog to fall horribly behind.  It gets to a point that you don't want to post because its been so long, but we need to post to remind ourselves why we've been so busy.  There's not enough space or time to write about it all, so I will have to rely on pictures.

Joshua earned his Arrow of Light award and crossed over from Cub Scouts to Boy Scouts.  He quickly became active with a local Boy Scout Troop and a week later was visiting Stennis Space Center and camping on the coast.  Just a few weeks later he was off to northern Arkansas for Scout Camp for seven days.  (Mom did ok).

We have had the opportunity to raise a garden with the help of our neighbors.  They graciously offered to plow up some land and to give us a section to give it a try.  The boys have been really enjoying it and it is exciting to see so much come from such little seeds.  So far we are getting okra, yellow squash, and corn.  We have about one more week and the cantaloupes will be ready, and our acorn squash will be behind them.

Now then, our squash is quite prolific, so if you are around and need any please come by!  We are eating it like crazy, freezing it, and giving it away, but it keeps on coming!  The beef, chicken, squash,  pineapple kabobs turned out good, but one can only eat so much.  We will have the same issue with the cantaloupes and acorn squash once they are ready.

We have also been busy just working in the yard.  We cut a tree on the side of our yard and just a week later a storm came in and took out a large oak next to it.  Two trees out really changed that side of the yard.  At least it helped me have an excuse to buy a new chainsaw.

We have also had the opportunity to discover a few new places around the area.  One of these is Brent's Soda Fountain.  It is the old Brent's Drugs founded in 1946 that they kept the soda shop and converted the rest into a burger joint.  It is a neat place and the boys really enjoy it.

This past week we had dirt and six pallets of sod delivered to try to get areas that have never seen grass covered.  It looks like it will take about two more pallets but it will look really nice once it is all done.  Unfortunately, as we were trying to spread dirt and lay sod Friday and Saturday we had thunder storms and torrential down pours.  It did make having mud fights with the boys a lot easier.

It has been a really busy summer with both of our jobs and with Kristina going to school as well.  She takes her semester finals tomorrow night and will have a break for a few weeks.  We are leaving for Pensacola Beach Tuesday for some down time and then we will have one week before the boys start back to school.  It's hard to believe that we will have one in middle school.  They are growing up so fast.

Hopefully we can keep everyone up to date better going forward.  No promises.

I have a blog?

I was browsing my facebook feed tonight and clicked over to my profile. I noticed the link to my blog and realized I have sort of abandoned it. I guess I should work on that, but life has been busy. As of March I started back to school. Somehow those 115 hours of credit I have from the late 90's don't mean much if I don't have the degree. Working full time and going to school a couple nights a week can be draining, but hopefully it will all be worth it.

In other news my kids are growing up way too fast. I will have a sixth grader in August, and I am not ready for Middle School. I guess I will just have to deal with it.

The picture above is from Easter. We rarely dress up, so we had to get a picture to commemorate the occasion.

Hopefully, I will find a few minutes to blog again within the next five months.

Boys and their toys

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Christmas Traditions

As John and I began putting decorations away, I remembered our longest running Christmas tradition. In 1995, John and I celebrated our first Christmas as husband and wife. To honor this special event, we purchased an engraved ornament. Being young and clueless, we didn't know much about ornaments. We went to the local Wal-mart and picked out an ornament that could be engraved. They didn't have a machine to do the engraving back then, so the nice lady at the jewelry counter free handed it. The next year we discovered the Things Remembered Kiosk in the Denton mall, and they became our place to get ornaments for many years. When we moved to Mississippi, we faced a new challenge. The nearest Things Remembered was in Monroe, LA. Not exactly convenient, but we drove to Monroe to keep with tradition. The next year we discovered New England Ornaments and began ordering online. Much easier than driving to Monroe.
This year we broke from tradition in that we ordered ornaments early. We will not be repeating this next year since John and I ordered the exact same ornament this year as last. In years past we have gotten the ornaments out and reviewed them to be sure we didn't duplicate. Oh well, it makes for a fun memory.

Christmas 2010

In 2005, we began the tradition of going to a Hibachi Grill for Christmas Eve dinner. This year was no exception. Even though Jacob complains a lot and insists he doesn't like Hibachi, we press on. This year he discovered some items on the menu that agreed with him, so the complaining was much less. I guess our perseverance paid off.In 2007, we began the tradition of including a family photo with our Christmas card. Here is this year's photo. I love looking at previous year's photos and seeing how much we change year to year.We have several other traditions that are essential. On Christmas eve the kids open one present each, but I get to choose which one. It is always pajamas. Once the boys have their new PJs on, John reads the Christmas story. This year was a little different in that the boys read the story. Jacob read from the book of Matthew and Joshua from the book of Luke. I like this new twist on the tradition.

On Christmas morning, the boys get up to tear into all the loot. Santa isn't a big player around here. He usually leaves a couple of things in the stockings, but we've never really put emphasis on him. This year the boys got lots of bigger kid toys. The go kart and doodlebug are sure to keep me on edge, but the boys love them. They also got DSI XL's and various video games. Jacob asked for Lego's, but not little kid Legos. He wanted Star War Legos with lots of little pieces. I am just hopeful he will keep them picked up and out of the dogs reach. Oscar loves to eat little toys. After the gifts are opened, John makes breakfast. This year he treated us to cinnamon rolls using a recipe from the Pioneer Woman. According to the recipe, it makes 8 servings.She must be serving some hungry people, because the above picture is what we had left after we finished breakfast. I think breakfast may last all day. They were very yummy.

Now to go enjoy more of this lovely day with my family. Merry Christmas.

It has to be close to Christmas when you hear this on the radio

Finally heard it for the first time this year on Thursday while running some errands. The holiday season must be here.

Trick or Treat

Joshua didn't have a preference as to what he was going to be for Halloween and Jacob was going to be a baseball player. After watching tv last night we got the idea for Joshua to be a chick magnet and then Jacob decided to be a letter to the Great Pumpkin.







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