I've been up to here with it...

that would be stuff. We've celebrated 2 birthdays, visited family, worked on projects for school and home, and basically have been busy with the want to's and the have to's.  

Here's an action shot of Monkey blowing out his candles.  He had a little party with some friends, and boy did they have fun. He wanted a pirate party, so I made a treasure map cake, with ideas from some cakes I found online.  I made two 9x13 cakes, but lined the pans with foil to make it easier to get them out of the pan in one piece.  Then I inverted them on the board side by side and frosted them with half chocolate and half tinted blue frosting,  The sand is crushed graham crackers which didn't taste that great with the cake, but looked great.  The flag has a skull and crossbones on the other side, and the x is made with red sugar because I forgot to buy some red icing.  Oh, well.  We just roll with it around here!

I've also been doing some crafting.  I'm working on putting things away where I want them.  Luckily there is a hallway to our bedroom that has plenty of room for a couple of bookshelves I bought used and a small dresser that are housing all of my scrapbooking and sewing supplies.  Since I'm trying to organize them I've been wanting to play a little.

I did a little bit of the opposite of what I usually do...I made some cards, then put together a page from the scraps.  Just a little different from putting together the page and making cards from the scraps!  The big red rectangle is the mat for the picture of Natty in the sombrero.

I've gotten a little bit of inspiration from the Winter issue of the Somerset Life magazine.  I don't usually buy it since it's not in the budget, but I found it at Costco, and it was 1/3 off the cover price.  I had to buy it since I had actual heart palpitations when I thumbed through it.  Seriously.

The next few pictures are my Christmas present to my Mom.  I altered a plain house cutout from Say it with Letters and made it into a mini album by drilling a couple of holes in it for book rings.  I had fun putting it together and used a favorite quote for the front.  The pages are random sized tags and paper scraps with a bit of this and that for the trims, and of course some paint under all of that.

Even though it feels and looks like spring here, everyone in the Midwest is under a blanket of snow and ice, including my family.  You are all in my thoughts and prayers! 

I'm comfy right here on my couch, sitting next to Monkey, who is snoring softly.  He's thoroughly worn out.  Up too early this morning, and now he's sporting a huge shiner after being clocked in the eye by a baseball thrown by his brother the birthday boy.  (Pictures to follow when I can get him to let me take one.) 

I can't believe my first born baby is 16 today!  I brought him home a Whopper for lunch, since I call him my Whopper Baby.  And that's for two reasons:  I loved to indulge in a Whopper (Jr.) when I was pregnant with him, and he was also a whopper of a baby. 

Well, I'm off to bed.  I'm hoping to get a good night's rest despite thinking about everything that is on the news tonight.  Egypt, the weather, and everything else.  Oh, my.

A Post Title I am Proud Of...

I am not very creative when it comes to titling my blog posts, usually just giving a little blurb about what I'm writing about.  Which is exactly what this one is.

Fried Food and Chicken Poop

So, yesterday I made an 8 hour round-trip drive with Andy. Well, 3/4 of the drive was with Andy and the other 1/4 I drove a mini-van back to his place of employment. This drive was made in the afternoon and evening, so the kids arrived home on the bus from their place of education. When they left for said place of eduction that morning, I didn't know that I would be gone when they came back to the home-base, so I didn't have dinner made for them.

Their Auntie Tara (sometimes know as Auntie Booby) came over and made cookies with Nattie, so I called her up to tell her that the kids could cook up some hamburgers and throw some salad on their plate and call it good. She took me up on it, and when Andy and I arrived at home-base the smell of fried food hit us like a brick when we opened up the door.

Andy's way to solve the problem of the smell was to open up the window in our bedroom. Whoa. Fried meat is not pleasant. The chicken barns are not pleasant. Add them together and you have downright biological warfare possibilities. I'm thinking about bottling it and contacting the Pentagon. There are possibilities here, I'm telling you.

The SITS girls are hosting a week long Back to Blogging event, with a washer and dryer set as a prize!

The contest is sponsored by Standards of Excellence, Westar Kitchen and Bath, and Florida Builder Appliance.

On the road!

We are heading out west, on the road for the third day today. Even while I'm typing this, I've got tears blurring the screen, so please overlook any typo's I'm about to make!

We left the farm in Missouri on Sunday, and it was so much harder than I thought it would be! I knew I wouldn't want to leave everyone, I'll miss all of the family terribly, but it was really sad.

Brian stayed behind to go to scout camp with his friends and maybe keep up the mowing until he leaves. We have Carmen with us, and it has actually been a much quieter trip than our usual road trips since Natalia and Carmen have made themselves a little spot in the backseat and sleep half the day away. I'm not sure how they get to sleep at night!

Joe is a pretty good traveler, just wants to make sure he gets his fair share of gameboy time, and an occasional snack or meal.

Monkey, on the other hand, is a little more high maintenance. If he has to pee, it's gotta be now! If he's hungry, he's starving! If his pinky toe has an itch, we all know about it. We stopped in Nebraska at Wal-mart, of course, and picked up some "garlic" pills for his cough. Luckily he hasn't figured out that garlic is not spelled d-r-a-m-a-m-i-n-e. A half a pill bought us a couple of hours of peace yesterday! I know, it's not great parenting, but it's carrying on a family tradition.
Monkey took a nap the first day, then woke up, stretched as much as he could while strapped into a booster seat, and said,"Can I call Aunt Emily? I want to tell Jack and Ephraim that I'm going to miss them." Breaks my heart!

Our car is pulling our packed-to-the-gills trailer, (Picture Beverly Hillbillies if they had a Suburban) and we're headed through some more mountains into the Salt Lake Valley this morning. We'll make a quick stop at Temple Square for our break, then keep on trucking. Keep us in your prayers, we're gonna need them.

It's a simple life...

So, I've been working as an enumerator for the U.S. Census. A lot of that work has involved driving around the rural roads of the area, and into the Amish communities. I've written before about going to the Amish store once upon a time, and I still frequent a different Amish store because the original one has since shut down. It's the only place I can find Polenta for 50 cents a pound, and herbs and spices for cheap, cheap cheap!

I love seeing the adorable children dressed in the perfect miniatures of their parents' clothing, down to the little black bonnets on the teeny girls' heads. I know! So cute! I also love the Martin houses; little bird houses that are about 15 feet in the air. They're for the Martins, birds that eat the pesky insects that are around. Some are made out of gourds that are hollowed out and painted white, and are just beautiful!

I spoke with an Amish farmer yesterday who also has a sawmill. I wish I would have asked him how he powers his mill, but I didn't think about it until today.

Anyway, they are the only ones who ALWAYS wave to me. Even the guy who was riding horseback down the road gave a big ol' wave. I can't even walk and chew gum at the same time!

What will you do now that you've won the lottery? "I'm going to Disney World!"

"And fixing my two front teeth."

Ok, that's not me talking, but Chris Shaw, a Missourian who won $258 million smackers on Wednesday.

Thursday morning I heard that the winning ticket had been sold in Marshall, Mo, at the Breaktime, and I called Andy to half-seriously ask him if he'd bought a ticket there. Only half-seriously, mind you.

Hope this guy manages it OK! Good luck, Chris Shaw!

Clean is a dirty word

When the chickens are shipped to be turned into the chicken nuggets that you may have just ordered at your local Mickey-D's, it's time for clean-up at the farm.

Adam has spent the last couple of days power washing the fans, etc., in the barns. But in order to do that, he gets covered in water and dirty feathers. So, the fans might sparkle, but the washer looks and smells like a wet chicken.

And apparently I've gotten a little bit of a reputation around the farm. I was looking for the thing-y (that's a technical term, you know) to put on the drill to raise and lower the brooders, and Adam asked if I knew how to use the drill to wind up the winch automatically. He said, "You have to be careful, though." Then he looked at me and just put that drill bit away. Hmm.

I did a little bit of mowing yesterday. Andy's been working long hours, and now that Brian is big and old, he's working on another farm full-time this summer. That means, with Grandpa gone, the mowing is falling behind. I like to mow, and I would help Andy with it sometimes, but Grandpa is definitely the resident mower. I miss looking up or out the window to see him bouncing around on the mower and then I would sometimes send the kids out with a tall glass of kool-aid, since he doesn't drink water straight, you know.

Storms

It's really been storming this spring. We've had a couple of them go through in this last week or so, but just with a few limbs and branches down. The town of Norborne, MO, was hit harder during the last storm, and a group from our church went to help clean up. My dad and brother included. If you watch this video, Dad is in the burgandy T-shirt with the chainsaw, and Ben in the orange T with cut off sleeves and a chainsaw.

Busy Bees

Well, Sedalia made the news. Too bad it was the "Strange News"!

We've been way busy, and our schedules look like they won't be slowing down any time soon. Some things we have been up to are:

1. Basketball, basketball and more basketball. Brian had three games this week, and practice on the weeknights he doesn't have a game.


2. Valentine parties! I'm room mom in Natalia's class, so I planned her party then didn't get any pictures. I did get a minute to run down to the other end of the school to Joe's class and snapped a picture of him with his Valentine frame and picture he made for me.


3. Working the farm. Dad, Grandpa and I held down the farm while Mellisa, Adam and the three muskateers took a trip to see Adam's family.

What? It's October already? No, really, you're kidding, aren't you.

Wow, where did September GO! Not to mention this whole year. Lots going on here in the middle of MO, not the least of which is my new baby neice. I'll post pictures soon. (forgot the camera. Oops!) Oh, wait, I'll steal one of Tara's pictures. Her name is Kady Scarlett, and I'm already her favorite Auntie.

I know you're dying to hear more from me (just kidding!) so I'll post some more soon!

The farm dog

Hi, I'm Reagan, resident farm dog.

I'm named after President Ronald Reagan.

I like long drives on the back of the four-wheeler, any time of the day.

My interests are: eating, sleeping, barking all night, swimming in the sewage lagoon, and riding shotgun on the four-wheeler.

My dislikes include: coyotes, the dark, and coyotes in the dark.

Nice to meet you!

Where did she go?

No, I haven't maimed myself in the chicken barns, or fallen in a deep, black hole. My children have not tied me up, and I haven't gotten so deep into this book that I haven't resurfaced.



My computer is sick. So I haven't been on it. And you know how I feel about my computer!

But-

My very pregnant sister is here now. We've missed her.

It's been hideously, fiendishly, and down-right freakishly (that's for you, Tara) H-O-T here. I've been perspiring profusely. Or profusely perspiring. However you say it, I've been doing it.

I promise I'll be back soon. It's more than likely. Really.

So don't abandon me!

Odds and Ends

I haven’t been blogging lately, and I know that’s not unusual for me, but I have a really good excuse this time. No, really, I do!

--Let me start by referring you to an earlier post about chicken farming. Remember that? Well, the chicken business got uglier. And through circumstances that were totally out of my control, even though they should have been, I am now nursing a very banged up middle finger on my right hand. Do you know how much use that finger gets? Let me tell you, you can’t move your hand and keep that finger still. Believe me, I’ve tried.

--There have been no new pictures on the blog lately, and I have a good excuse for that, too. My camera is not working. Argh!! I just looked at Joe and Monkey this morning in their rubber boots and shorts and wanted to snap a photo, but alas, it will have to live on in my memory.

--Softball (for Natalia) and baseball (for Joe) season is in full swing. Refer to above paragraph for my excuse of no pictures.

--Brian spent all of last week at Boy Scout camp and had a great time. Our ward has a great group of boys in the 12-14 year old age range, and they all get along really well. Andy picked him up on Saturday, then, since Grandpa’s youngest sister Aunt Myra and Uncle Jeff, along with friends of the family Kim and Joel were visiting, we had dinner at Grammie and Grandpa’s. Brian and I sat alone at a little table, so I quizzed him about his camp experience. I asked about:
swimming (yes, they had a pool and swam every day)
canoeing (no, nowhere to do it)
merit badge class (got to skip one day because they were just working with the Tenderfoots)
bug bites – since last year he had chigger bites and scars for months after camp (none, except a tick that he had to pull off with tweezers)
where was it? (oh, I must have picked it up somewhere)
I meant, was it under your arm, on your leg, where? At this point, he looked a little embarrassed and said, “Well, it was on my third leg.” I couldn’t help but laugh. It was just so funny the way he said it! Like, “how am I gonna explain this?”

Sunday Morning

I just acquired this print of a painting titled Sunday Morning from my sister Emily. (Don't you like how I used the word "acquire"? Makes me sound like some sort of art aficionado or something!) It's about 2ftx3ft, nicely framed, and painted by well-known American landscape painter Asher Brown Durand.

The more I look at this painting, the more I love it! It shows people making their way toward the church in the background on the right hand side.

Let me tell you, this peaceful scene looks nothing like our Sunday mornings around here! A typical Sunday morning finds me up at 6:30 to take a shower and dress, then I start to wake everyone else up by either yelling a "wake-up" at the top of my lungs, then doing it over and over again until my bleary-eyed children are out of bed. Andy usually ignores me and sleeps right through it all.

I rush around barking orders, getting clothes together, arguing with Joe (who never wants to go to church) and ironing above mentioned clothes. When we finally get to church, we squeak in right before the opening hymn, if we're lucky.

Once in a while I get it together enough to have all of the clothes out the night before, and tonight is going to be one of those nights. I hope. That's my new goal: Peaceful Sunday Morning. Maybe not quite like the painting, since I really don't want to walk to church, but peaceful nonetheless.

Chicken Farming is an Ugly Business.

That phrase was uttered by Andy this morning, right after he took a look at me in my power-washing get-up: glasses (since my eyes were too sensitive for contacts after yesterday’s power-washing experience), jeans tucked into knee-high rubber boots, an old T-shirt belonging to Andy, purple bandanna covering my pony tailed head (purple, to match my purple plastic apron) and a lovely mask, similar to this one, to block all of the debris from flying into my eyes again. I was pretty…ugly.

Then, to add insult to injury, Mom and Mellisa were cracking up when I walked up to the shop. Good thing they didn't have a camera with them, since they threatened to take a picture!

Why do men look ruggedly handsome when they're farming - dirt, manure, and whatever else might be mucking them up?

We're moving on up, to the east side...

Not exactly to a deluxe apartment in the sky, but to an old farmhouse in the pasture.

We're in the middle of moving out to 6 Feathers, the chicken farm owned by my sister, brother-in-law, and his family. We'll be living in the old white farmhouse, the one that my parents bought when they moved out here 14 years ago. The same farmhouse they lived in when I would come out to visit them with no kids, then 1 child, then 2, then 3, then finally with 4 kids in tow. Now we're busy moving all of our c-r-a-p into that there farmhouse. I'll post pictures later!

The Moon is Whole! (And other happenings in MO)

As we were driving to Brian's basketball game on Tuesday, this is what we saw on the horizon.









OK, so I didn't actually take this picture. Not that I couldn't have, since, you know, my photography skills are so awesome {snort}. I stole this picture from Wikipedia. But this is exactly what the moon looked like Tuesday night, hovering right above the horizon, a huge, orange orb suspended from heaven. Joe spotted it first and said, "Look! It's a Whole Moon! Wow, the moon is whole!" We all agreed that, yes, the moon is whole. And it's FULL, too. He then said, "Yeah, and it's shaped like a 'suh-phere' (sphere), too." The things you learn in Kindergarten. And from kindergarteners.

So, in know-it-all Mommy fashion, I told him that a sphere is a circle. Then my know-it-all 4th grader had to correct me by saying, "Technically, a sphere is shaped like a ball."

I really need to go back to school. Am I smarter than a fifth-grader? I don't think I want to find out.

According to Wikipedia we were seeing a Wolf Moon, not just your regular, run-of-the-mill whole moon. The Wolf Moon is a full moon that occurs in January. Its name comes from hungry wolf packs that would howl outside the villages of Native Americans. Cool. Sends shivers down my spine just thinking about it.

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We woke up this morning to a balmy 7 degrees Fahrenheit. It's cold. I'm glad the wolves aren't howling outside our village. Brrr.

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The know-it-all 4th grader just won first place in her grade for her Smoky the Bear poster contest. Then she won first place in the district competition. 6 dollars total. She shrugged and said, "Cool, I'll add it to the rest of my money." The girl has more money than I ever did at her age, and more than I do now. She saves every cent. Her cousin talked her into spending some on a shirt and jeans one day. Cousin said, "Aren't you tired of my hand-me-downs?" Natalia said, "Nope!" I had to return the clothes a couple of days later, since Natalia decided she would rather have the cold hard cash in her hands than non-hand-me-downs. She's so practical.

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Brian's in the middle of basketball season. I would post a picture, but every time I take one of him on the court, it's like a picture in a great big cave. The lighting in gymnasiums is not ideal for photos. It's so fun to see how much he has improved each year that he's played basketball. Andy was kind of disappointed when Brian was told he would be a substitute. On the "B" Team. I said,"What do you expect? There are only 2 seventh graders playing on the combined 7th and 8th grade team, and the 2 seventh graders are substitutes." And he's played at least half of each game, and played well at that. I keep telling him he needs to be a little more aggressive, though. Maybe it will come with age. Or maybe he will just take after his Auntie Tara. hee hee. I'm hoping he grows into his size 11 feet, though. He's taller than I am now, although Andy likes to say "That's not saying much." So I'm vertically challenged. You wanna make somethin' of it?

Santa's Workshop is in full swing around here.

The sewing machine is revved up, and last night it produced a lovely Christmas stocking, this sweet and simple blanket for Mellisa and Adam's new baby girl {she is due to arrive fresh from heaven any time now!} And a card for my cousin's new baby. Now I'm off to continue, while Andy watches the Mizzou vs. Sooners game. Tiger fever is in full force around here!

How we decorate for Christmas in the Middle of MO

After a yummy dinner of lasagna, polenta, salad, and garlic bread, the cousins headed out to decorate Grandpa's golf cart for the Christmas season. As the adults sat at the table contemplating dessert, the little elf cousins were busy stringing lights, garland, and hanging decorations. They even had Christmas music playing in the background. Monkey can multitask; he can chew on a piece of garlic bread while decorating. That's my boy!

Winter Bizarre

If September = Apples and October = Pumpkins
Then November = Cranberries!

That’s my kind of equation!

I Love Cranberries! And here are a few reasons why.


1. Andy’s friend Jeff has a cranberry farm in Banden, Oregon, and we’ve gotta support the farmers! Plus I love the Ocean Spray commercials. Go here to see their funny Thanksgiving video, and download their free recipe e-book, too. The farmers totally remind me of Jeff! Andy was up there for the harvest a few years ago and his whole body was sore from wading through the bogs. I really would like to see the farm someday, before Jeff goes on to something new.


2. My FavorITEST EverEVER EVERRRRR sandwich was the “Plymouth Rock” made by the lovely deli employees at my local Safeway grocery store. Every other week I would do my grocery run and stop by the deli to order my Plymouth Rock, and only a Plymouth Rock would do. The #10 sandwich on the board. Only made on the Multigrain roll. With the real, thickly sliced roasted turkey breast, mayo, jellied cranberry sauce, some thick slices of Havarti cheese {until then I didn’t even know that I liked Havarti} and green leaf lettuce. Heaven in a sandwich. Fast forward a few years where I now live in the middle of nowhere Missouri with no Safeway within a few states of here. You and I can {more like have to} make a reasonable facsimile of this sandwich, just use your favorite roll, and pile it up nice and thick with the rest of the ingredients. If you like cranberry sauce, I promise you won’t be sorry.


3. They’re RED! What more can I say?


4. Cranberry cookies. {They’re really bars, but who cares?} This recipe is from my mom, and made it into our family cookbook. I bake these every year at Christmas time and always get requests for the recipes. We moved to Missouri in November, and when the girls in Andy’s office found out we were moving, they mourned the loss of him bringing in plates full of these babies. Yum!


Cranberry Cookies
¾ cup shortening
1 cup butter
2 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 ½ cups flour
½ teaspoon baking powder
2 cups fresh cranberries
1 cup butterscotch chips
½ cup chopped nuts
Cream shortening, butter, sugar, eggs and vanilla. Mix in flour, salt and baking powder and blend. Fold in cranberries {just toss them in whole} and nuts. Spread evenly on a jelly-roll style cookie sheet. Sprinkle butterscotch chips on top. Bake at 350 degrees for 25-30 minutes.


Go see what all the other Winter Bizarre-ies are doing at Scribbet's blog!

Mischief

Here she is, the little mischief maven herself, my little sister Monie. Oh, yeah, and that's Kyle, her "intended". This picture is one from their engagement shoot. She's planning the wedding, but really doesn't care too much about the details. You know, like wearing actual shoes, not flip flops.

Tara is in Utah trying on wedding dresses for her. Hard to find a nice, not too price-y, modest wedding dress in the middle of nowhere Nauvoo, and Middle of noWHheRe MO. I asked her {Tara} if she told the guy she's dating that she's looking for a wedding dress, and she said "Of course not!" Even though she's planning on wearing the same dress as Monie. Cuz we're nothing if not thrifty Mormon girls in this family!

Don't they look like they have fun together?