Thanksgiving

Every year for thanksgiving we go to my Aunt's house for dinner. The same cast of characters is always there and it's a wonderful thing. I love my Aunt's house. For starters, my aunt and uncle both have hearts of gold towards my family. My aunt also has a wonderful sense of style, her house is gorgeous. Between her and my sister's beautiful new house, I have no hope! Does baby slobber count as a decoration?  Here's a few glimpses of our night.... I'm already looking forward to next year.

The true gentlemen

Princess Goofy almost went ballistic until one of the Cousins retrieved this dollhouse from the attic

I made all the dresses for the Princesses. Yes Princess Newbie, your momma is an overachiever. Do you see the matching booties and headband? Yup. overachiever... especially since the headband and shoes only lasted 5 minutes.

Princess Newbie and Granny. If you found one, you found the other.

 I love thanksgiving and I'm thankful for all these guys.

A Few Things....

1. We are home tonight. Thursday and Friday were spent with family in the DFW are but we came back today.
2. It took a looooong time to get home tonight because of a gorgeous crying baby.  We still think she hangs the moon.
3. Princess Goofy was given some play dinosaurs this weekend that were immediately put in her special honor spot the moment we arrived home. She also threw a loud screaming fit in Braums during dinner. It's true.
4. I got up at 4:30 and went black friday shopping. I scored a new rug for 25$ from Lowes and a new down pillow!
5. I''m tired
6. This has been a crazy week.... Sunday my knee took a hiatus, Monday our water line took a hiatus and Tuesday and elderly gentleman decided to makeover the bumper of our van. Between that and the traveling this week, I'm really tired.

I am thankful and grateful. Tonight I will definately be thankful for my new pillow!

To Water and Health....

Sunday our Pastor preached on being thankful for what you have.  In the message, yes I really did listen, he specifically mentioned two things. 1) being thankful for your health and 2) being thankful for your home and water. He probably did mention a few other things but I was busy smelling a gorgeous baby's head.

It was a great sermon that His Royal Highness and I both gleaned stuff from. Sometimes you listen to a sermon on sunday and file it in your brain to revisit later and sometimes you listen to one and then the truth of it smacks you in the face later in the week. This week the truth of the sermon has just showed up and it has showed up big, mainly because God is big. He is too big to fit on a piece of paper, right Pastor Amish Beard? See, I was listening!

If you read my blog yesterday than you know that I was slightly injured sunday evening which resulted in my kids eating pie for dinner. Yeah, it's a funny story and slightly trivial to some but when you look at the grand picture of things, it's a great story of thanksgiving. Most of all, I'm thankful that I still have working knees. If they occasionally want to pop out of joint and take a small hiatus, they probably deserve the vacation. We've heard for years about the explosive mines that were left over all parts of Africa after various wars and children that were loosing limb after limb because of the mines. We have soldiers everyday returning from overseas without limbs. I have two knees that work, not the best but they work and I'm thankful. I'm also thankful for that apple pie that our church gave us on sunday. Again it seems trivial but I haven't gone grocery shopping for this week since we are going out of town. I didn't have anything to quickly fix my kids for dinner and it was really late. Not only that but they had been trapped upstairs having to be quiet while His Royal Highness and I were trying to get my knee back in place. They deserved a special treat and it was provided.

Now we come to yesterday when I was sitting at the table working on a craft project. The doorbell rang and I opened it to find the company that takes care of our water. The county does not  take care of our water here, a private company does. The guy told me that I had a major leak down by the street and I would have to call a plumber to fix it. Mass panic between HRH and I ensued because we just don't have the money for a plumber right now. I started digging the hole to fix it while HRH rushed home from work. Well, he commutes an hour each way so he slowly made his way on the bus. No rushing available when it comes to Houston public transportation. The hole I was digging kept filling back up with water so I had to call the water company back out to help get the water out of the hole. The guy that showed up helped HRH locate the leak but told us several times that he could NOT help repair it but he just stayed at our house, he never left. To make a long story short.... At one point I was outside supervising and the guy was just standing by the hole, watching HRH work, then I went inside to do something. When I came back out, 5 minutes later, the guy was in the hole helping HRH. We were trying to figure out everything we would need to go buy to fix the pipe when the guy pulled it all from the back of his truck. We never had to buy anything. We never had to call a plumber. It was all provided. God provided. HRH and I couldn't keep the grins off our face. We were so blessed and we are so thankful.

Today I watched a video of a healing that happened at our church a few weeks ago when we were out of town. It's not for everyone because we do go to a charismatic church but I believe it was truly God providing for our worship leader who was starting to have a seizure. I cried, which I do often and freely. But I did cry because God is just pouring out so much to be thankful for right now.

I have a new saying that I'm starting with the princesses. Whenever they fight over something saying, "that's mine,". I tell them, "that is not yours, that is God's, He is just letting you borrow it."

Some of you may not believe in God but for those of you who do, open your eyes, look outside the box and see what all He has provided. Then let's give thanks together.

Mother of the Year

I have been working on some crafts, I promise. Actually I think I've been working overtime on crafts.

My plans yesterday was to take pictures of a few things I've been working on and post them for you to see.

But in the midst of my day, my trick knee decided to do a few backflips, followed by a joint popping dislocating freeze. Does any of that make sense? My knee sometimes just gets stuck out of joint. It's happened for about ten years. I know I need knee surgery but we live in a two story house with all the bathrooms upstairs. hmmm... Ever try to make it upstairs on only one leg? It's really not that hard, you can crawl up the stairs. The tricky part is making it back down again.

Yesterday as I trying to turn around on the couch to look at Princess Newbie, who was asleep in her pack and play behind the couch, my knee just slipped out of place. Usually I can work it back in place within a few minutes but this time it stayed out of place for over two hours.  It hurts pretty bad but I think the worse thing to me was what I was wearing. What kept going through my head non stop was that we might have to call an ambulance or try to make it to the ER if we couldn't get my knee back in joint by ourselves. It was laundry day and I had just slipped on whatever I could find. The ensemble consisted of pink striped capri pajama pants, a very bright green shirt that has a zillion holes and a breastmilk stain on it (I'll let you figure out where that stain is located), a very old mens bluish gray shirt that I wear when I'm cold, and rainbow colored dress socks leftover from church that morning. Oh I would be admitted to the hospital alright, but probably not for my knee. So I was stuck in a weird position on the couch, wearing a goodwill inspiried clown's outfit, unable to move for two hours. lovely.

Finally I was able to move with His Royal Highness' help and my knee slipped back into place. However after all the craziness of the day, my kids ate pie for dinner.  I'm sure there are some vitamins in apple pie. Don't you think? Oh yeah, and they ate it at 8pm.

Mother of the year award.... it's in the mail.

Maybe I'll get those crafts posted today, or maybe you'll just get a piece of pie, at 8pm.

Things to Do....

We have things to do today....

a lot of things to do...

but first we must play!

Enjoy your saturday!

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Paw Paw. We know that your birthday isn't until tomorrow but we didn't think you would have WiFi in your deer stand.

love,
your favorite grandchildren and kids

A peek inside.....

Here's a little peek inside my daily life via my iPhone.



























Hope you enjoyed the ride!


Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Gobble Till You Wobble

These cupcakes are old and these photos are blurry. Now you know where I stand.

I made these cupcakes two years ago but I found the pictures tonight when I was going through the old pictures on our hard drive. This is the perfect time to show you them! You will have time to make them for your kids thanksgiving feasts, well some of you might. These would also be the perfect dessert to bring to a get together this weekend.

They are so simple to make. Frost a cupcake with light brown frosting. If you want to use canned frosting (yuck.. agh. .uck...) just mix chocolate and vanilla together to get lighter brown. Ice the cupcake with a thick layer of frosting on top.

Take gel icing colors you buy at the store and make big rainbows using different colors. Now take a toothpick and drag from the outside of the cupcake into the middle, going around the outside edge of the cupcake. This makes the tail feathers.

Next, top the cupcake with a Nutter Butter cookie. Add eyes and the red hangy thing (I don't know the name of it) using the gel icing. I added a beak using banana laffy taffy cut into a small triangle.

Voila'! Finished Turkey cupcakes. Now go out and Gobble till you Wobble!

                                                      

Hands

I rocked dinner tonight. Seriously. I don't usually brag about my accomplishments and we all know that I've ruined more dinners than I have completed in a satisfactory manner. Just ask His Royal Highness about the almond scented enchiladas, that's one that I will never live down. But tonight's dinner was outstanding and the fact that I used to leftovers to already prepare a second completely different dinner for tomorrow is just amazing. I was really proud of myself.

As I was cleaning up from dinner I started thinking about how my cooking has progressed over the years. However no matter how hard I try, I still am not as good at cooking as my mother and grandmother. I've tried over the years to recreate their masterpieces but they always flop. I call my grandmother at least 12 times a year asking once again for her famous chicken and dumpling receipe and at least 20 times a year, I totally destroy the same recipe. I don't get it. Then I thought that maybe it's just being in her kitchen that makes that recipe so wonderful. Her house has always smells the same and that kitchen is just magical. Then I started thinking about how I have seen her hands make the meals a thousand times for us. One thing stood out to me when I was thinking back to watching her cook and that is that I have never seen her without her wedding ring. Stay with me here because this is a crazy stretch and a rabbit trail of my own mind but I have never seen her without it. Whenever I think of her or her hands, I picture it with her wedding ring.

I know it's crazy to go from cooking to wedding rings but this is in all honesty, how my mind works. My mind is a scary place, this is not new information to anyone.

Her wedding ring is simple and pretty. The one I remember her wearing is not her original set, it is one that my grandfather gave her after years and years of marriage but it's the only one I remember seeing her wear. I have seen her original set and it's so small with a tiny diamond chip. I LOVE that original set. Today when everyone is putting huge rings on credit because it's a status symbol rather than a symbol of love and true commitment, I think back  to their original set. My grandfather couldn't afford a really nice ring when they were first married but he gave her what he could and they have both stood strong to those promises they made with that first ring. They have now been married 60 years. WOW.

Sometimes it's easy to forget what a promise is within marriage. Fights happen, life happens, baby diaper explosions happen, war happens, but to still wear that ring after 60 years is amazing.

Now that I've taken that thought the full circle that it will go, I'm really excited that I've been able to wear my wedding ring this week for the first time in three years. I've lost a lot of weight since I had Princess Newbie three months ago. I never lost any of the baby weight after Princess Goofy and I had gained more after I had her. I won't tell you the number amount yet because I'm stuck at one number that I can't get off of!!!! GRRRRR! but I will prevail! Last sunday on our sixth anniversary, I put my ring back on and it fit. From here on out, hopefully it will stay there for at least 54 more years.

His Royal Highness, the good news is that you only have at least 54 more years of my cooking experiments. You've already survived through six years! You must have the intestinal tract of a wildabeast!

A Letter to DoubleTree

Dear DoubleTree Hotel of Tulsa,

If you are missing a few dozen shampoos and conditioners, please feel free to contact His Royal Highness. He might be able to help you locate them.

Warmest Regards,
The Queen

P.S. Love the cookies





- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Girls Night

Tonight was a girl's night. It just happens that most of the girls here were under the age of 5. So how do you have a fun night for little girls? Funny Face pancakes of course!

The last time I was at the store I found Batter Blaster. I had seen this around blog world a few times but I was so excited when I saw it in our local store. It's the perfect way to make quick pancakes, or so I thought.

The pancake batter is in the can, ready to go. No messy mixing or stirring, just point and shoot onto the hot pan. That part was great but the pancakes stuck so badly that I could barely get them out of the pan.

I had visions of the princesses helping me flip pancakes and being the huge helpers they desire to be but I almost had to go rent a jackhammer to get the flapjacks out of the pan! They just waited patiently on the side, sneaking chocolate chips and wearing the evidence on their faces.

You know what you get when you try to make funny face pancakes with wrinkly pancakes?

Grandma Funny Face, white hair and all.....

Here's Princess Goofy

Princess Girly Girl

and of course, the perfect way to end a girl's night is with a little bubbly. But when 75% of people in attendance are under 21, you might just have to settle for peach sparkling juice, courtesy of IKEA.

I wish I had a Mercedes.....

Growing up we had an Airedale Terrier. He was a great dog and I've always wanted another one. My dad has also wanted another one for years and he recently purchased another one named Mercedes. I was jealous, really jealous. That's one good looking dog and she's in training to become a wonderful dog.  She has so many accomplishments in her short puppy life......

                             

Maybe she needs a little more work... and maybe I've changed my mind about that Airedale.

maybe.....

oh sweetie.....

How can you resist that face?

Thank You

Thank you to those of you who devoted their life to serving our country.

Thank you for being away from your families for months and even years to fight for your grandchildren's futures.

Thank you to those who didn't always have the choice to serve.

Thank you for going into the military and not moving to Canada to dodge the draft. (Although Canada does seem like a great place to be right now admist our current government issues)

Thank you for serving and learning the lessons that would make you a better dad.

Thank you to those who have enrolled in army in the past year.

Knowing that your future will probably include a war zone, but you go bravely anyway, to protect those little girls that live across the street from you. They still think you hang the moon.

Thank you to every veteran and service member today.

I am free to dress as I choose, vote, choose my own spouse, and raise my sweet girls because of you. I appreciate it more than I can say.

Choices

I had a rough morning.

1. The older girls made their own breakfasts while I was getting dressed. Cereal could be seen on the floor as far as Canada and all the yogurt is gone.
2. One of the princesses threw such a huge fit while getting in the car that she was sent to time out, in the driveway. Yes, I put her in time out by the garage door. My neighbors must think I've finally lost it.
3. Another princess, whom shall remain nameless, chose not to wear underwear again and I did not discover this until we had arrived at the YMCA. I cannot even count how many times I had already asked her if she was wearing underwear, to which she replied, "yes." So we had to get in the van and come back home to get underwear, hitting road construction and a wrong way driver on the way home.

I finally made it back to the YMCA and started listening to worship music on my Ipod, which helped my mood a lot but it was still a little stinky. The good news is that I had remembered to wear deodorant this morning, so my attitude was the only stinky thing around.

Not long after I started walking on the treadmill, one of the lovely women who work in the childcare there came to get me because Princess Newbie had a small diaper explosion. The woman next told me, "at least you got some of your workout done, some is better than none."  To which I replied, "I'm just glad I got a break from my kids." Then I stepped back for a moment and thought, did I really just say that? Yes, the break I receive when I work out is nice but is that my reason for doing it? No.

Why do I stay home with my kids if that's how I'm going to view my days with them? I know I should be lighter on myself because I was having a rough day but my attitude was horrible and not what I wanted my kids to learn. I'm here to enjoy them and teach them myself, so that others won't be doing my job of mothering them. It's a choice that I made and I need to remind myself sometimes more than others. But, it's my choice and it's one that I need to enjoy. Every single day will end and never come again. Twenty years from now I will be laughing about the princess who went commando daily and be proud of the way that the spunky princess has turned her temper into something good but today is just today and I need to hold onto it for now.

Natural Science Museum

Princess Goofy loves dinosaurs. Baby Dolls, Dinosaurs, and Tinker Bell are the only objects that revolve around her world. We decided to take all the girls to the Houston Natural Science Museum to show them the dinosaur fossils. At first Princess Goofy did not understand that she was looking at real dinosaurs but after a sweet little talk with His Royal Highness, she understood and she got excited, really excited.  From that point forward she never stopped running. One dinosaur, to the next, those chubby little preschooler feet when round and round the entire exhibit.

It was a great day full of culture and of course, there's not truly american culture without a stop at McDonalds, located directly in the museum.

Houston Natural Science Museum is currently free on Tuesday evenings.