A Splinter

On Dec 21 I was busy sanding trim boards for the new addition to the house and got a splinter in my finger. I pulled the splinter out but it has still felt like there was still something in there. Since it still wasn't healing right, and looked really angry when I woke up this morning, I decided I needed to have my doctor look at it. Here's how it looked when I woke up....

After an hour long wait at the doctor's office, he did a digital block...injecting lidocaine directly into the joint. Ouch!

After a very short dig into the finger, he found the splinter!

Yeah, I think that finger is gonna start feeling MUCH better with that thing out of there!

The Furkids

I realized today that I have been blogging for about 6 months now and have not yet introduced the dogs to the blog...so here they are in order of adoption...

First is my girl, the beautiful princess Taboo..Ty is next in line, he's Stephanie's dog. He lost his eye this year but is doing great now...
Oscar is third, he's Ben's dog...

Fourth is our Gracie girl. She is my reward for waiting 20 years for a Great Dane. She's great!

And last is Joey...Rebekah's dog; we sort of 'accidentally' adopted him...


Here is all of them in a shot. The little moochers were begging mom for food.

A Look Back at 2008

I went through my picture folders from this year and put this together. These are some of my favorites...

And the Saga Continues...

Wow I cannot believe it is just 2 days till Christmas! The work we are doing in the room is much more tedious, so it is moving at a slow pace. Yesterday we sanded and stained the trim in the room, I think it turned out beautiful.

Bob is working on the shelves in the freezer room. He's got most of them cut now, it's just a matter of getting them hung. I got up early and started to caulk and prime them.

Once the shelves are done, we will put a second coat of paint on the floor. Then the real work begins! All of the stuff that had been in the carport has been piled in the sewing room. Everything has to be moved, organized, and put in it's place.

Plus all of the furniture from this room has to be moved...

There is a lot of "stuff" in this room! It is not usually this messy...

48 hours from now this will be a teenage girls' room. Maybe it's not so messy after all!

What a Week!

The week before Christmas is one of my busiest weeks of the year, but this year we've been exceptionally crazy! Most of our gifts are hand made items, we make soap, lotions, candles...plus edible gifts such as cookies, hot cocoa mix, candies, jerky, etc.
This year the only thing our girls have asked for is to have their own room. It sounds simple enough, but it requires us to finish a remodelling project that we started about 5 years ago! Yeah we are the procrastinating champions.
Over the last two weeks we have been transforming our half-finished carport into a sewing/project room. The existing sewing/guest/project room will become Rebekah's room this week.
Here's how the front of the house looked in 2001 with a carport... And here's how it looks now with the carport enclosed...Inside is a storage closet that we use for our freezers and extra fridge. Here's how it looked before...

Bob added an extra breaker to the box and an outlet for the freezers; plus we patched drywall, painted, and trimmed it out. Here's how it looks after...We also fixed the back door...the glass has been out of it for 2 years or so...and since we have managed to break 2 sheets of glass in it so far, we replaced the glass with a piece of acrylic. The back door before...

And the back door after replacing the glass, finishing the drywall, and painting...

Here it is with the trim. We still have to sand and stain the trim...

There is a huge beam along the outside wall of the room. Rather than just paint it, I got creative and did a plaster/paint/antique finish on it. Here's the beam before...

And during...And here's the finished beam...We've all been working hard on this project...and the girls are learning about hanging drywall and painting....Stephanie helped patch holes...

Rebekah helped prime the walls for painting...And Bob is honing his carpentry skills with the trim work...It's come a long way in the last 10 days! I'll post more pics once it's done.

Soup is good fun!

This is kind of a fun quiz....click on this link if you'd like to take it.

You Are Tomato Soup

You are open minded and curious about the world. You can help but learn as much as you can about things. You are introverted, intellectual, and introspective. In other words, you have a big brain... and you use it. You are a bit of a culinary expert, and you are an excellent cook. You know how to balance delicate flavors well and can whip up a mean bowl of soup.

What Kind of Soup Are You?

ACK! This is neat....and scary!!

For those of you who haven't tried google earth....take a look at this!!
That is a photo of our house taken through google earth!! This technology is really neat....but it is also very scary!!

Yes it gets cold in Texas!

After beautiful temps in the 60's yesterday, last night brought in a cold front and we woke up to freezing temperatures and...... S L E E T !!!

Of course there wasn't much of it, and it will be back in the 60's in a day or two. But I can say we've had winter weather and fall must be over.

Look closely and you will see it. Of course that was about all we got...but hey...I like it that way!

Ornament Stories

We have finally finished decorating our 2008 Christmas tree! Every ornament on our tree has a story on its own. These memories really started back in Christmas 1989, the year we moved from the city and got out of town. Benjamin was a baby, in fact it was his first Christmas. This was about the time that we started our annual tradition of cutting our own tree. The tree cutting looked like this (this is our 1990 tree), with Levi helping his daddy and cutting the "twee"....Little did we know, until it was way too late....that when we had made our nearly 200 mile move, we failed to get our Christmas boxes from the attic at the old house. Every ornament, light strand, garland, icicle, and decoration....except for one box, got left behind. The one box that we managed to bring with us contained our most sentimental decoration, a bell that was from 1986 (our first Christmas as a married couple). But every ornament was gone.

So that year, especially since we had no money, we began making ornaments. Levi and I made several ornaments, we bought a couple of very cheap light strands for the tree....and we had our first home made Christmas. The tradition has continued since. Even though some years we could afford to buy ornaments, we make them every year. Here are a few of our favorites, and the stories behind them.

The candy cane ornaments were made by me and Levi that year. They are made from colored pipe cleaners and red and white beads. Another candy cane ornament we make each year is candy cane reindeer. I don't have a picture of them yet, since we haven't made them this year....but you take an ordinary candy cane, wrap a pipe cleaner around it's bend and form into antlers. Then you put a google eye on each side of the short end and a pompom on the very tip (for the nose). Anyway, that's one that has to be made each year because they get eaten...

We have an abundance of pinecones in this area, and that first year we used a LOT of them as ornaments. This was one of our favorites to make, it's a teddy bear. The pine cone ornaments become fragile after nearly 20 years, so we don't have many of our originals left.The pinecone reindeer are another favorite, we have made these several times over the years.

The craft stick icicle.....Ben's favorite. He LOVED to use the glitter paint, and that was his job when we made these. I think we made at least 4 dozen of these that year. We still have many of them since they hold up well year after year.

Stephanie loved angels when she was little, and she made this clothespin angel when she was 5. It is still one of my favorites!Last but not least, is Rebekah's pinecone cheerleader bear. She made this when she was 10, that was the year that all she wanted was to be was a cheerleader.

As you can see, our Christmas tree and it's ornaments are very special to me. A couple of years ago I was shopping at a garage sale that had only Christmas stuff. I was able to get a neat set of Christmas dishes and glassware for like $10.....and off on one table was a box marked "ornaments $1". I couldn't resist a buck for a whole box of ornaments....and was SHOCKED when I got home and found these beauties! The box was packed full of vintage ornaments and decorations. Many of them were broken, but to me it was a treasure to find ornaments that date back to my childhood. This is one of my favorites....he is in very good condition and not missing any of his felt.

I love these paper doll type ornaments! There were 4 of them in the box, all in great condition.

This little guy is missing a lot of his felt, but isn't he adorable? The wear on him makes me wonder about all the trees he's been on over the years.

Anyway, these are just a few of the precious memories we have displayed on our tree each year. The branches are more full as each year passes, as are our hearts. Here is our finished 2008 tree.

Go! Rebekah Go!

When Rebekah started playing soccer in the Spring of 2006, we had no idea how much she (or we) would fall in love with this sport! Here is how she looked when she joined her first team...

Now here she is, this season....after 6 seasons of playing!

Today her team is at the Tournament of Champions! Unfortunately, they lost their first game 0-1; but they have 2 more yet to play today!

We're cheering for you, Bekah!

Christmas Tree Fun

The day after Thanksgiving we made our annual trip to Danville Farms to cut our Christmas tree. We've done this every year since Levi was a baby.This is also where we get our peaches in the summer. We can about 100 pounds of peaches each year from this farm.The peach orchard is huge, and is beautiful even this time of year.We had a convoy this year....Bob and Rebekah drove the truck, Stephanie and I were in mom's car, and Ben and Levi were following in Ben's car.What a crew! From left to right is Rebekah, Stephanie, Levi, Ben, and Bob. Levi and Bob cut the tree after we all agreed on the perfect one.
Then we picked one out for mom.Once the trees are cut, the farm offers hayrides to go carry the families and their trees back to the gate.They also have a fire pit so that you can stay warm while the trees are shaken and wrapped...My boys! Aren't they handsome young men?

And thus....another year at the Christmas tree farm comes to an end.