Okay, I'm Ready Now!

Thanksgiving is over and I am officially ready to start enjoying the Christmas season. I have updated my background as you can tell and added Christmas music as you can hear, so let the festive mood begin.

I love Christmas. It is my favorite time of the year with all the beautiful lights and decorations, the gift giving, the Christmas music, the many smells, and the family time. I love the snow-it adds to the season, too. I have a hard time with people getting Christmas out before Thanksgiving is even here. I think that holiday gets a raw deal because it is always overshadowed by all the Christmas that is out early. But since it is December 1st tomorrow, I am rearing to go. I am hoping for a snow day for school so I can spend all day pulling out the decorations. Seminary has already been cancelled and the kids have a 2 hour delay, so we are getting close to that. The house lights will have to wait until the snow melts off the roof and we will go this Saturday to the mountains to cut our tree, but other than that, I am ready to spruce up the house with some Christmas spirit.

Happy Decorating Everyone!

My Two Cents

I guess it is time I weigh in on the movie Twilight. Yea, I know it is crazy, but I have heard and read several comments from friends on their take of the movie, so thought it was my turn. First off, let me make it clear that I am not a fanatic. I have read the books only once and in fact I still have not read the 4th book yet. That should be sign enough right?! Anyway, my daughter M is 12--enough said. She has read the books way too many times to count. She and her friends talk all the time about Edward and Bella and Jacob. She is fanatic enough for both of us, although she does not have Twilight tshirts to wear or pictures of the characters plastered everywhere. Anyway, she has been counting down the days to this movie and I have been excited as well to see how they bring the book to life. So I took her out of school on Friday to go see it. (yes, you can say it, I am the coolest mom ever--I ROCK!) Now, I didn't expect it to be outstandingly fabulous. There is no way that the movie ever is as good as the book. So I was okay with the movie. I thought it was pretty good-entertaining and I thought worth the $5 ticket price. I am sure that I will see it again and if M has her way, we will own the DVD the very day it comes out. By the way, she loved it!!!! Loved it!! It was interesting to see the people that were picked to play each character. I thought they did great in picking Dr. Cullen, Emmett, James and Edward. I really didn't like Bella but with her personality, I am not sure if any other actress could have portrayed her any differently or better. My favorite scene in the movie is the baseball game. I just liked the way they played it, their uniforms, their quirky comments and responses. The fight in the studio wasn't bad either. Anyway, I am glad that I saw the movie and on top of that, I had some fun mom/daughter time.

Another Happy Birthday

I have to give a shout out to my dear husband on his birthday. Well, it was actually Sunday, but it has taken me this long to get the pix off my camera. I had to post pictures of him and "the hat!" We have this goofy tradition that everyone has to wear this birthday hat while opening presents. We actually have two different ones, but I think this is goofier (is that a word?) so I pull this one out first. You can't see if very well in the pix but it has candles that come out the top and flop around.

Another tradition is picking a place to eat out, but since it fell on a Sunday this year, I cooked him one of his favorite meals-Chicken Lasagna, homemade french bread and a banana cream pie for dessert. Of course, we went out on Monday night for FHE to Texas Roadhouse. Gotta love those rolls!!!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HONEY!!!!

The Mouse Hunt

I hate to admit this because it sounds like we are unclean, slobs at our house or something, and I really don't want everyone to know certain things that happen in our home. I have been wondering if I should really write this post or not but have decided to only for the fact that I want this to be a funny family memory for when the kids get older. So with that said---we had mice! HAD being the key word in that sentence. Also, I must state that they were not in the house.

It all started several weeks ago when we saw Duke sniffing around in the garden. We had taken the wire fence down that kept him out of the garden during the summer and now we had noticed him with his nose at the fence. He was quite fixated on something and for awhile I just blew it off. But after watching him for a bit I got curious myself and went out to investigate. I saw that he had this look in his eyes of "I see something that I want to get really bad!" It was all consuming for him and he would not look away or be distracted by me telling him to come. Finally I got him out of the garden and decided to just watch and wait. Sure enough, right where he had been sniffing, a mouse jumped up and ran to a hole along the fence. I just stood there amazed. Of course, I was not happy to have mice, but thank goodness for Duke-he is almost as good as a cat. I went about setting traps for those pesky little rodents and by the next day I had caught one. But I knew there was another around and figured I better clean out the garden of all the corn stalks and pumpkin vines and such. So on the weekend, we pulled it all out and hoped that Duke had eaten the last mouse and our problem was gone.

No such luck as the next week, we had noticed mouse droppings in the garage. A few years ago, we had found some mice in our garage that had nested in our insulation and was eating our bird seed. We cleaned everything out and killed 2 mice. So when we saw the signs that they were back we were not happy. As some of you know, we are finishing our basement and all of our stuff from there is in the garage, so we were not looking forward to moving it all out to catch some mice. We set up traps again after I saw a mouse run right in front of me as I was about to walk up the garage steps into the house. My hubby asked if the neighbors heard me scream--hahaha. He is so funny, but I did not scream at all. Just watched in amazement of the guts this little guy had. Anyway, we ended up catching 2 mice this last week. We figured that was all of them but knew we would still have to clean out the garage.

Saturday was the day. We would have to start early as BYU was playing Air Force in football and we had tickets. We couldn't be late for the flyover-that is the best part. We enlisted the help of all the kids to check every piece for holes and move it all out onto the driveway. It was quite funny as several people driving by thought we were having a garage sale and stopped to ask about it. We had everything moved out except some shelves that were against the wall near the insulation. As we were moving those, a mouse ran out. Not another one. We ended up losing track of him and so we moved on to what they were eating - weed and bug killer for the lawn. I thought that is poisonious but I guess not to mice. They had also found our grass seed to eat. Needless to say, everything for the yard that is in bags is now out in the shed. We decided that we could use hornet/wasp spray on the mouse to slow it down, so with T holding the shovel, M holding the big broom, and hubby with the foam spray, we hunted for another mouse. It was quite comical to see us running around the garage trying to get these mice. I wished I had videotaped it. In the end, we caught 3 more and to be graphic, one was chopped in half by my daughter (way to go M), one bashed with the shovel and one smashed by a 2X4 by my brave and fearless hubby. What a chore that ended up being. By the time we had finished cleaning and putting everything back in the garage, we were late for the game. We missed the flyover, but we had a great time at the stadium anyway. Cougars wailed on the Falcons. Way to go COUGS!!

So all in all, we caught 7 mice and we now have a nice clean garage floor. You all know who to call now for advise on that matter - We are pros now. Now if we could only get the basement finished.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!

This is my mom and I at the Alpine Inn in Hill City, SD this summer. We are waiting for our Filet Mignon to come-it was so yummy we went there twice that trip. My mom is one of my best friends and I love that we get to spend time together, although it is not as often as I would like. Hey, you and dad could always move over here (hint, hint). Anyway, I hope you have a great day today and that dad spoils you with fun times and fun food. I will eat some dark chocolate in your honor today!

LOVE YOU MOM!

When the guys are away, the girls will play

We have a tradition in our home. It is GIRL'S NIGHT anytime the guys go on a camp out. It use to be only on Father and Son's camp out, but now that my hubby is a scout leader, they will have camp outs once a month. That is good for us girls. We help get them ready, send them off and then it is our time. We do dinner out, watch movies, pop popcorn, paint fingers and toes and what ever else we want to.

Tonight we went to Cici's for dinner and then picked up a couple of movies to watch. The little girls picked Hannah Montana/Miley Cyrus Best of Both Worlds and M and I got Journey to the Center of the Earth. We had to stop at Lowe's for some traps-we have a mouse running around outside. It is so funny to watch Duke when he picks up the scent. He goes wild and can't think of anything else-he is extremely focused. Anyway, I am actually writing this post as the little girls are watching their movie. I couldn't bring myself to watch Hannah Montana AGAIN and I guess K couldn't either. She came down a few minutes ago and said she didn't want to watch it anymore, that it was just a bunch of singing. I don't know what she thought it was going to be, but she was not excited about it.

I hope the boys are warm. I am sure they are not as it is suppose to get down to the teens tonight. I know I will be nice and toasty in my big ole bed tonight.

Better get back to girl's night and watch my movie.

A Different Halloween

This year I can honestly say was a very different Halloween than any other. Some things were the same while others had changed. Let's just say it was a transitional holiday for our family--let me explain:

Our Halloweens have consisted of ALL the kids dressing up. The Elementary kids taking their costumes to school for the parties and the parade. The family attending the Fall Festival at church, again ALL dressing up to participate in the parade and such. The week of Halloween found us all carving pumpkins for FHE. Then on that hallowed night, dressing up again and going as a family to the church Trunk of Treat, with a bit of Trick or treating after for the bigger kids. Pretty simple-everyone together in pretty much the same place. Well, the scenario has changed and I know that it will never be the same again. My kids are growing up (I hate it when they do that) and they have different ideas on what they want to do now. I guess I can't keep them to myself anymore.

We had our great Fall Festival and the little girls decided to be witches. We have done witches in the past, but this year we added black lips, black fingernails and black streaks in the hair. T didn't want to dress up at all. I guess that is not the thing to do once you are in high school. M decided to go the scary route this year by being a vampire (I wonder if that has anything to do with Twilight???) The little girls were the only ones to carve pumpkins this year, so the other 2 we bought are now part of my Thanksgiving display on the front porch.

Halloween night found us all going in many different directions. T had to be at the high school at 4:30 to set up his booth and would be there most of the night. I took the little girls Trunk or Treating at the church. M actually went too and handed out the candy while I got a chance to visit with friends I don't get to see very often anymore. Right after that, we dropped M off at a friend's for a party and to spend the night. I took the little ones to the high school for games, spook alleys, more Trunk of Treating, bouncy slides and yummy smores we cooked ourselves over a fire pit. T was working the mini golf for his ROTC and was having a great time. He was so cute with his sisters. He told all his friends who they were and to be extra nice to them. What a good big brother!! Anyway, they had a good time with that and by the time we got home, Daddy was there and he turned around and took them out to T&T the neighborhood. They were gone for a couple of hours, which is longer than normal. In the meantime, T came home and had to be at a Seminary party. So I picked up a few of his friends (girls) and dropped them off at the teacher's house. I got home and actually had some time to enjoy the quiet of the house before the little ones came home. They had a good time, just them and their dad.

Everyone seemed to have a great time and I will get over the lose of family time on Halloween. It is not my favorite holiday anyway, but I did look forward to the time we were together as a family. That is gone now, but I do enjoy seeing the kids doing other things that make them happy. So as a mother, I mourn the old Halloween traditions of being together, but bask in the new ones that find my children growing up and becoming their own person.

I am sure that next year will be even different still!