Finding Billy

The kids and I weren't the only ones outside enjoying the fine 74 degree weather yesterday. I lugged the tortoises outside to their pen so they could get some beneficial UV rays and some exercise. After getting home from collecting the kids from school I wandered out to their pen to see how they were doing. I quickly found the two large leopard tortoises but could not, for the life of me, find Billy Bob the smaller sulcata tortoise. He was gone.

I walked four laps in the pen and was starting to sweat, thinking some large hawk took off with him.

Then I finally found him. He is truly a master of camouflage and this color of dead grass works well for him.

Have you found him yet?

He even got the leaves to cover him just perfectly.  Good thing I didn't step on him.

There you are Billy Bob! You got me worried there......what with a cold snap and snow coming. You would not have made it outside had I not found you.

Everybody is back inside under there heating lamp today and winter has returned. Boo! The nice weather will be severely missed.

Record Highs

Nothing puts me in a better mood than record breaking high temperatures in January. Seeing 70 degrees in the dead of winter is truly lovely. We've been outside enjoying it every chance we can get. I gotta say the trampoline was one of the best investments we've ever made. All four of us get exercise on that thing....and it's fun exercise! If you are ever thinking of getting one, just do it. If ours broke tomorrow we'd immediately order another.

We made a family outing to the local park. Even with the 60 degree weather the big pond was still in the process of thawing. Half was thawed, half was frozen. The Canadian geese were all standing on the ice. Silly birds.

 

I follow a running blog called Runs for Cookies and every year for her birthday she has a virtual 5K. What is a virtual 5K you ask? Well, you sign up on her site and then on a certain day you run or walk 3.1 miles either indoors on a treadmill or outside. Then you do a finshers report where you enter your time it took to run or walk the 5K. So Sunday I drove into town and ran my 3.1 miles. It was horrible! I, apparently, picked the day with 35-45 mph winds to go running. We were actually in a wind advisory and it was North winds so they were bitterly cold. I'm running into this wind and can't understand why my face is covered in snot. It's literally everywhere. I wasn't congested or anything, but the freezing wind just caused it to explode out of my face. I'm sure this is more information than you need, I'm just painting a picture here. A very gross picture.  I just about turned around and went home, but I didn't. I ran those three horrible miles with an equally horrid time of 32:40. So glad that's done. I think I'll wait until spring to put on my running shoes again. 

One thing I was excited to try out on this run was the key pad on the Ford Edge. I took it into the dealership and had them reset the code so that I could actually use it to get into the car. I was debating on whether I'd ever use it. If I had the key why use the key pad? When I drive into town to go running and don't want to run with keys, I can lock them inside the car with my purse and then key in my code to get into the car after the run. Very cool!

It's Alive!

The 3D printer is up and moving! Sean is calibrating the motors and it's still got a ways to go but it's moving. The audio on this video is pretty cute as the kids were really excited to see it move, if you can't tell.

Pesky Possum

We've lived out in the country for ten years now. In those ten years we have seen a wide variety of wildlife from turkeys and deer to coyotes and snakes. What I haven't seen is a possum.....or opossum or however you want to spell it. I see them dead on the side of the road but that's about it. So I was kind of excited when I opened up the drapes to see this:

A real, live possum not two feet outside the sliding glass door! It was cool. Interestingly enough the cats weren't even phased by it standing there eating their cat food. They might have been thinking "if we don't move it won't see us." Because they weren't moving, not even a little bit.

So once it found the cat food it decided we weren't half bad and decided to hang around for a couple of days. For those two days things weren't too great in our house. Having three territorial dogs living in the house with a marauding possum just outside the glass door made for a very loud situation. So much barking. I couldn't take it anymore. I jumped in my car and went to the local farm and ranch store to pick up a catch and release trap. $24.99 later I got home, baited it with a can of cat food and waited. I locked up our cats in the shop so I wouldn't accidentally catch them. 

The next morning I eagerly peeked outside the window and laughed when I found this:

The neighbors cat. Doh. He wasn't too thrilled as you can see. I kept it baited but failed to catch the pesky possum. In fact, I haven't seen him since. He must have wandered on his way, in search of more tasty cat food somewhere else.

Mid Week Fun

The tooth fairy is showing some delinquent behavior lately. I mean, really, she has one job. Take baby teeth and put cash under the pillow. Right around Christmas Wesley lost one of his middle lower teeth. We did the normal routine and the next morning he comes down the stairs rather deflated. I asked him what's wrong and he's informed me that the tooth fairy didn't come and his tooth was still under his pillow. I hope the "oh crap" look didn't appear on my face as I quickly told him that the tooth fairy is really busy this time of the year and she'll visit the next night. Saying the tooth fairy was busy during the Holiday's was an understatement.

Yesterday Wesley told me he was ready for me to pull out one of his two front teeth. He'd been working on it and it was ready. So we did the normal dental floss routine which is making a small lasso that we loop around the base of the tooth, then with a swift pull it generally pops out. This time was no different.

The tooth fairy even made a timely visit during the night! Go tooth fairy! His cute smile is sure getting a little sparse.

Yesterday Greta and I got to go out to lunch with my parents. The nice thing about retired parents is that they are able to go out to lunch in the middle of the week. They took us to an all you can eat BBQ buffet downtown. It was really good! Next stop was a big bulk candy and nut store that's also downtown. I'd never been so it was a real treat to see all the candy! The place was huge and Greta was in hog heaven. I'm amazed I made it out of there with only $10 worth of candy. Fun times!

 

Roller Coasters, Cookies and Lipstick

The kids are at a pretty fun age. Five and seven years old is fun when it comes to Christmas presents. I always try and buy something that we can do or build on Christmas day or the following week. This year I found a fun thing called K'nex. It's a building toy, a very complex one! I settled on a roller coaster kit and I started building it a few days after Christmas. I bought it with the intention that Wesley would build it but it was a bit harder than I thought it would be. So about four hours and three days later (it hurts your fingers!) I completed this giant roller coaster. It's pretty cool! The up side is that there is a giant roller coaster on my dining room table that the kids play with pretty often. The down side is I have a giant roller coaster on my dining room table that I have no idea what to do with.

As a last hurrah before school started I took the kids to see Big Hero 6 at the movie theater. It was a very cute and very sad movie. I bawled......well maybe not "bawled" but there was some crying. Kids liked it.

Greta started up preschool again yesterday and Wesley didn't have school so I had the rare occasion to spend the afternoon with my son instead of my daughter. He insisted on Panera Bread with their tasty cookies and cupcakes. A giant frosted sugar cookie caught his eye, then he inhaled it. I drooled but stuck to my hot tea (must get back on track after the Holidays!).

Then we headed to Target to spend some money he had saved. Since we were there I headed over to the cosmetics to pick up a new color of lipstick. I have never been a big lipstick gal, the thought of all those chemicals ingested just kept me away. But then I found Burt's Bee's Lip Crayons. No nasty chemicals and they stay on! Yay! So I let Wesley pick out a new color. He, of course, picked the darkest shade of red they had. I thought "what the heck!" We get in the car and he informs me he picked it out because it was "creepy". Haha! Nice. It's not so bad, I kind of even like it. It's out of my comfort zone which isn't a bad thing now and again. I had a very nice time with my oldest child, I hope to do it again soon.

The Newest Project

I'm thoroughly enjoying the last day of the break. It's been a relaxing two weeks. I've spent the majority of it in flannel pajama pants. There's been a lot of WiiU and board games being played. Since the family left last week there hasn't been a stitch of house cleaning done. It's been lovely. But it's back to school and work tomorrow.

I honestly haven't seen much of my husband the last two weeks even though he's been home. You see, he started a new project. Something he's been wanting to do for ages. He finally decided it's time and started ordering parts a few weeks ago. They are all spread out on one of the desks down in his basement man cave. Can you figure out what he's making?

No? Can't figure it out? Well he's making a 3D Printer. Here is a video similar to the one he's making (although it will be larger). LINK It looks pretty cool and I know he's pretty excited to start making stuff. He's been out working with aluminum on the milling machine to make the carriages. They look really nice.

It's sure coming together.  Good job Sean!

Traffic Jam

I love this picture. It was a couple of weeks ago and I had just dropped Wesley off at school and was heading home. The neighbors down the road have a flock of geese that wander. This particular morning they were wandering across the dirt road....very slowly. In fact I had to stop the car and put it in park because they just wouldn't move. I was in no hurry and there wasn't another car in sight so I got my phone out and snapped a shot of this lovely winter morning. I enjoy my morning commute, traffic jams and all.

Merry Christmas!

We had a lovely Christmas at home this year. My folks came over early in the morning to help us celebrate it and my sister and her family arrived later in the day. The kids made out like bandits. Wesley was very much into Minecraft this year so he got fun gifts relating to the game. His favorite thing were the books! He got a Minecraft set of books and they haven't left his side. He's always sitting and reading about fun new things he didn't even know he could make. Here he is with my cute mom and his stuffed Minecraft pig.

Greta is into girly toys and loves her dolls and dress up items. She's still very much into stuffed animals and was super excited to open her Granny Randi's present. Randi made her and Wesley stuffed animals this year. Greta got an adorable bunny (she named Rose) and Wesley got an awesome dragon. I can't even imagine how long these took. Truly a gift a love. Thank you Granny Randi!

It was a very relaxing day full of good company and delicious food (which I'm so thankful my mom cooked, being sick leading up to Christmas did not leave me with much energy for meal planning). Thank you mom and dad for a wonderful Christmas!

Holiday Prep

Oh did we have a fun week leading up to Christmas! I always have a checklist of things I want to do with the kids and I'm pretty happy if we get through most of them. This year I was rather sick in the week leading up to Christmas. The basic sore throat and cough that wouldn't leave but I mustered up the energy to get some memorable things done with the kids. We rolled out sugar cookies and decorated them, which is super fun.

I had really good intentions regarding Christmas cards this year. I found a cute idea consisting of fingerprints of all family members that get transformed into reindeer. I went to the craft store and purchased blank cards, googly eyes, puffy paint, craft glue, a Merry Christmas stamp and ink. We all contributed our fingerprints and the cards were made. They turned out cute! I loaded them into their addressed envelopes and ran into a problem. As I was sliding the card into the envelope the googly eyes would catch and pop off. I wondered if they would all just come off during shipping so I sent an experimental card to myself. Sure enough all but two eyes had dislodged. I was bummed out! That was a lot of work to just scrap the idea. Oh well. I thought I'd take a picture so you all could see what your Christmas card would have looked like. :)

I thought since I'm sharing craft ideas I'd show the cute little snow men I made for Wesley's Christmas party.  There really are some cute ideas out there on the internet.

Sanity Regained

I must apologize for my dreary Christmas poem. It was just one of those days. I'm happy to say a lot has changed in the last forty eight hours! The kids are healthy again! I've completed and shipped all custom Christmas sculptures! Presents to family shipped off! Both kids Christmas parties are finished and I can officially let my hair down. It feels good to have so many projects crossed off. There is just one more day of school and then the kids, Sean and I are home for 19 days with absolutely nothing to do but relax and enjoy each others company. So looking forward to that.

Greta has been accompanying me on my various trips into town for all the last minute Christmas things. You know, like tape. I went to wrap something and all I had was industrial strength packaging tape. This is because whenever I have normal tape in the house it is immediately grabbed by a child and poof, tape everywhere. I kid you not. So I just stopped buying it. I took Greta into Wal-Mart this week to buy tape and wrapping paper. I walked out with $60 dollars worth of stuff I didn't need. This is why I don't even go into Wal-Mart anymore. Greta, of course, persuaded me into taking her out to lunch (it doesn't take much to persuade me). There in the pastry window at Panera was the most heavenly cupcake I've ever seen. It was delicious.

While I'm talking about Miss Greta I should mention she had her Christmas program last week. She's been very clingy and anxious about anything preschool related. So needless to say I was a bit worried about how she was going to handle being up on stage. Turns out I had noting to worry about, she did awesome. I'm so proud of her!

One of our Holiday traditions is making gingerbread houses as a family. They make a gingerbread village with four small houses which works out great for us. The kids had a blast as did Sean and I. The most fun part? Eating them when we are done. Gingerbread houses don't last long in our house as decorations.....not with three dogs with great sniffers.

A Christmas Poem

 

My blogging has been dreadful.

The Holiday season is taking its toll.

The list of things to do is endless.

I dream of a deserted island full of pure bliss.

Cards and packages to wrap and mail.

All of this while the children hover over a pail.

Ah yes, tis the season of throw up in our house.

I wish I could scurry into a hole, like a mouse.

The house looks like a bomb went off.

Dog hair, mud....oh and Wesley has a nasty cough.

The FluMist he and his sister received is what I blame.

Last years endless coughing spell was the same.

No more FluMist for us.

I'm sure next years needle will cause much fuss.

The Holiday sculptures are nearly done.

If I don't wait until the very last minute it's no fun.

Once everything is done and the kids are healthy, I promise I'll cheer up. 

As long as I can keep myself from throwing up.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Visit with Santa

I don't think the sun has shone in at least three days. It's drizzling, foggy and all around kind of depressing. We decided to try and bring some cheer by going to the library Santa event. This is the third year we've gone and I'm so thankful that they do this event each year. The kids and I look forward to it. I think the word has gotten around because it's pretty packed. This year it took 2.5 hours to see Santa. Luckily we didn't have to stand in line, rather they hand you a little card with a picture on it when you enter the library and then they call each picture over the intercom. This keep the line small and allows you to go to the other events such at ornament making, letters to Santa and story time. No child, regardless of age, is going to stand in line for 2 hours!

I know why it's so popular, they get a spectacular Santa and Mrs. Claus. I'm always impressed by the amount of time they spend with each child asking questions and talking. It's very special and my children love it. It's was sunny point on a rather dreary day.

Thanksgiving

Hard to believe Thanksgiving was a week ago. The weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas run together into one hectic time. At least for me. I always tell myself to start Holiday shopping early and, for the most part, I do ok. This year I planned to purchase nearly everything on Amazon and I'm sticking to it pretty good. It's sure nice ordering presents and having it delivered to your front door. Have I mentioned how much I love Prime? I did venture out on Black Friday just because I needed to vacate the house and have some alone time. It wasn't too bad, got some cute clothes.

Thanksgiving was a quiet little event this year. Just the four of us and a giant pot of Snow Crab. I dare say it was too much crab. That could be because I make a turkey breast and shrimp scampi too. It was a massive amount of food. Oh and the pie! I took a vote with the family, I told them I could make an caramel apple pie or a key lime or a peppermint pie. Everyone voted for the peppermint pie. It was delicious and super easy. It's called a Peppermint Snow Pie. Here is the recipe.

Wesley had his 2nd grade music program a few weeks ago. Lots of cute little kids singing and acting out parts. Good times.