Ten Random Tidbits

I was on such a great blogging roll, but have stalled out.  I have lots of little things going on and keep waiting to download pictures from my camera to post about them.

Well, the heck with that.

I am going to lay it all for you with a "Ten Random Tidbits" edition, no pictures, and move on!

1.  After a recent housekeeping exercise performed by one of my boys, it became apparent to me that I was not preparing them well to be able to survive in the wild...or living in an apartment or home on their own.  They most definitely need more guidance and practice in these areas.  That spurred me to mandate that they both pick one night a week to cook dinner.  I will be right there with them in the kitchen, but they will be doing all the work.  Chip started us off with Spaghetti and Meatballs on Tuesday night. When I say Spaghetti and Meatballs please do not get any notion that any of this was made from scratch. Frozen Italian meatballs, Prego Spaghetti Sauce, HEB frozen garlic bread and pasta. One of my boys favorite meals.  I know...they are so weird.  Chip did every single step (except pouring the boiling noodles into the strainer) and he rocked it.  He was so proud of himself.  Harry's night is Monday and he is making....drum roll....Fried Rice.  He said he already knows how to do everything but cook rice in the rice cooker.  That couldn't be easier, so once I explain that to him it looks like I will be loafing around in the kitchen supervising!  Yea for life skills!

2.  Skylanders figures....where oh where are you?  Sold out all over town.

3.  I'm painting!  Finally!  I bought paint and filled holes in the living room wall last night.  Once I hit the publish button on this post I am going to get busy!  I love fresh paint!   I hope to take some before and after pictures to share, but don't hold me to it.

4.  Leak under the kitchen sink discovered last night at 10:15.  YUCK!  I think it was the spray hose deal which was spraying weird yesterday and needed to be tightened up. I am letting it dry out under there and see if any more water shows up.  What is with the plumbing issues?????

5.  I have cleaned out the guest room closet and am transforming it into a little bit of craft heaven.  I am putting up a pegboard where I can keep my craft tools (glue gun, scissors, tape, etc.), putting in a little short bookcase to store fabric, paints and papers.  I have also purchased an over the door clear shoe organizer to put all the little pompoms, googly eyes, gems, pipe cleaners, etc.  I bought a four level pant hanger to store my ribbon.  It rocks.  I am also painting a long wooden board to serve as a makeshift temporary work surface in there. I can put it across the dresser and the nightstand to make a work surface for my Cricut machine and other things when I am crafting.  When we have company, it will be easy to put the board in the closet and clean up the craft clutter.  The best news is that I won't have to do my crafts on the dining room table.  I am totally jazzed!  It is going to be awesome!

6.  Weather here is spectacular.

7.  Getting back into the exercise routine.  Walked everyday with Martha in the wee hours of the morning and then we doubled up and biked yesterday afternoon.  It almost killed me.  I haven't biked in so long.  I am terrifically sore today.  I so wish that being sore was not the reward for a good workout.  It really should be the other way around....If you workout you feel wonderful and if you don't you are sore and stiff.  It is not a very good reward for working out to be sore and stiff.  I'm just saying.

8.  Chip has his first basketball game today.  Can't wait.  Go Thunder!

9.  Yesterday I was walking through the living room and a wild green lizard was walking across my  floor.  At first I thought Bama had made a great escape, but this was a lizard from outside.  I tried to catch him, but he was under the couch in a nanosecond.  I had to leave to go get Chip from school and when I came back he was no where to be found.  Hmmm.....I wonder if he heard crickets were being served, dusted with yummy calcium powder, every other day.  Would that be something if I found him on Bama's cage?

10.  Whenever I am out of something (which is often) I call my awesome neighbor Karen.  Now when she sees my phone number show up in Caller ID she answers with "Are you cooking again?"  So yesterday, I was going to try a new recipe.  I had glanced at the ingredient list and it seemed like regular staple items I should have.  Well, dang first ingredient I needed was cornstarch.  Everyone has cornstarch, right?  I could have sworn I had cornstarch.  Well, I didn't.  I called Karen and of course she does.  As I am walking across the street to pick it up, I actually laughed out loud, because I thought to myself "I really should have looked at the rest of the ingredients before I came over here, I will probably need something else!"  Thank goodness Karen loves me or she might not ever answer the phone!

That is all!  Time to paint!  Time to transform a closet into a wonderland of craftiness!  Time to watch some basketball!  Time to get the heck off the computer!!!

Have an awesome weekend!

Post Christmas Festivities

Let's wrap up this Christmas season with a final "Post-Christmas" entry!  There are lots of pictures.  

I apologize in advance. 

I am going to center this text and see how that feels and looks. Let me know if you like it or not! 

So the day after Christmas we headed up to my brother's place in Tennessee.  You see, his two boys got a an all terrain go-cart and a dirt bike.  They have twenty or so acres to ride around on and the family kiddos all wanted to check them out. 

Here's Bob taking pictures of the gang.  Using the "Warrior pose" cause he is zooming in.  I have got to work with him on this.  I assume he knows there is a zoom button on his camera.  Maybe it just still isn't close enough so he adds in the lean to and the arm extension. 

Santa brought Guk a BB Gun so he set up an empty Mt. Dew 2 liter to see who could hit it first.  He tried a couple times. 

Then my Hubby, posing as Indian Jones for the day, gave it a try.  Missed it by this much! 

Then Bob struck his Warrior pose.  People were laughing at him.  He was in total concentration, taking himself back to his Army days...just him and the gun.  

First you hear the bang of the trigger, then the tink of the BB hitting the plastic bottle.  Then the bottle fell off the stand and the place went crazy!  

High fiving, screaming, jumping...it was pandemonium.  And that was just Bob! 

And then he gloated.  Cause he is Bob and he likes to celebrate.  Especially when he does something that the two young whippersnappers couldn't do.  And there were lots of witnesses.  He loved that! 

Give him his moment.  Let him shine, because he is having knee replacement surgery in March.  Can't wait for the material that surgical operation is going to give me for the blog.  

Back to the riding toys.  Harry couldn't wait to get on the dirt bike.  I nearly choked.  He took off, dragged his tennis shoes to bring his bike to a stop the first couple turns, just like when he rode a scooter and a regular bike.  He hates brakes.  Eventually he got the hang of it.  

This is what I heard from Harry after his breathless first ride on the dirt bike: 

 "Mom, why can't we have a dirt bike?"

Mom: "Cause we don't have any dirt"

Harry:  "Oh."

Then it was Chip's turn for a spin on the go-cart.  Chuck was going to give him a thrill.  This go-cart will MOVE! 

They went through mud and Chuck came back looking like this.  Unfortunately their wild ride knocked the muffler off the go-cart.  

No fear, Guk and Bob were at the ready to repair the cart.  You know how that goes. 

Not well.

Takes forever.

We are afraid someone is going to weld something and we all might blow up.

They finally get it rigged up so the fun can continue. 

Mer had run to the store and Indian Jones greeted her at the car. 

Wait a minute....does he have her by the hair? 

OMG!  He throws her against the car and makes her spread eagle.  Did she steal something at the store?  What brought this on?  

Oh yea, Hubby has a gun in his hand.  Never mind that it is only a BB gun.  He feels like he has some authority. 

Mer let him have it.  Gun or no gun.  No one puts Mer across the hood of a car! 

My boys in the country. 

Then another photo shoot broke out.  The Nice One kept saying "I want a picture of the girls".  Good Lord girl we took that awesome picture at Mom and Dad's yesterday with the cell phones and busy desk behind us!  How many pictures do you need?  

We all start trying to position ourselves to hide certain unflattering body parts and Hubby was nice enough to hand us two pillows and a giant table cloth to drape across our bodies.  

I don't think Mer hit him hard enough. 

I hope this is enough for "The Nice One".

Bob was taking these pictures and the whole time his cell phone is ringing.  No one recognizes the number so once he is done with the photo shoot he calls the number back.  He thinks it is a realtor lady named Danielle who he is working with.  He gets all laid up in the chair and starts raising his eyebrows in his sexy way talking to her about why he didn't answer the phone, family all around, he had a great Christmas, hopes hers was nice.  All the while we were all going "who's Danielle?"  He was really playing it up. 

A few minutes later he gets off the phone and comes in the kitchen.  I said "Who is this Danielle?"  He says "Oh, that wasn't her.  It was a wrong number."

CRACKED US UP!!! 

He is so smooth. 

A couple good shots of "The Queen".  The only poor girl out of seven grandkids!  

Chip's turn to drive this bad machine himself.

WEEEEE......for a while I think he was pushing the brake and the gas, but he finally got the hang of it.  

After everyone rode their fill we had to head back to The Bad Farm. 

 There was a Nerf War Challenge on and the sun was a setting! 

You see, Malarie's fellow Brett saw the Nerf gun Chip got for Christmas and said he was going to the store to load up and it was going to be on in the backyard.  Harry and Chip were stoked!  

We also made a little Walmart pit stop and loaded up on extra artillery! 

Indiana has been around guns all the live long day.  

Chip surrounded by the arsenal. 

Harry and Chip head out to stake out their base. 

I am blowing up this picture large so you can see Brett racing around the pond to get after them.  

It was getting dark and these pictures didn't come out very good.  Sorry.  It was too fun not to post. 

Here you can see Brett being chased by both boys.  I don't know how they circled around behind him. 

Harry GI Joe. 

This was serious business. 

They can't wait to do it again! 

Then it was back inside for more Left Right Center.  We were playing with Poker Chips and big money.  Every chip was a dollar.  Buy in. 

At one point, my Hubby was down $80.  Mostly because his family of four was playing at $12 a round and unfortunately NOT winning.  We all got bored after 20 hands or so and we skipped out. 

He was able to recover all but about $8 after another 50 rounds or so.  It was a marathon game. 

Then it was over.  Our Christmas vacation was wrapping up.  Time to pack up the boys, the gifts and the lizard and head down the road to Texas. 

Ugh.

It was 14 1/2 hours in the car.  

Ugh.  Ugh. Ugh.  

We pulled into the driveway and everything looked normal. 

Then we walked in the door.  

WHAT???  

Our house had been transformed into Elf World.

A big banner with "GIMBELS" written on it.  Hung up with a paper chain. 

Two elf wreaths adorned the kitchen area. 

The table was covered with cotton balls, pop tarts, sprinkles, syrup, spaghetti noodles, coffee and candy canes.  Candy canes were all over the furniture. 

World's Best Cup of Coffee.

Candy canes on doorknobs. 

Snowflake cutouts on the doorways. 

It was very festive. 

My desk, Hubby's desk, our bathrooms all covered in cotton balls and Elfisms!  

After some good sleuthing, we figured out that this was done by Cindy and Martha!  Nice job Ladies!   Creative, funny and perfect to lighten the mood after a long, long drive.  We loved it. 

Hmmm....wonder how we can pay them back????  

And that wraps up Christmas 2011!  It was great and now it is over.  We are so grateful and feel so ready for a wonderful new year! 

Come back tomorrow for pictures of Chip cooking dinner! 

Christmas Day

The boys slept until 5:50 a.m!  They came running into our room almost in disbelief that it was that late!  We were thrilled!

Santa was good to them as always! They fell on the floor and started sorting through their loot.

Chip was dumbfounded when he saw the lizard cage in his stack.  His mommy had forbidden him to even entertain the idea of a lizard.  Santa came through for him and he was thrilled!

He is a leopard gecko and his name is Bama.

He is pretty cool!

Sadly, he eats crickets.  LIVE ONES!  Which means not only are we the proud parents of a leopard gecko, but we are also the proud parents of 50 live crickets.  Even more sad is that we feed Bama six of those suckers every other day.  Our herd of crickets is shrinking rapidly! 

We call feeding time "The Circle of Death" and all gather around the tank to watch Bama do his thing.  It is quite fascinating.

Everyone was thrilled with their presents and it was a wonderful Christmas morning.

Also quite fascinating is the Christmas wrestling match that broke out after the presents were opened.

It was three against one.

They were all supposed to be trying to bring down Hubby, but in this picture it looks like Chip is taking a cheap shot at his brother squeezing his head between his legs.

Does anyone elses family do this on Christmas day?  Anyone??  Anyone???

As we got dressed to go down to my parents house, Malarie started trying to assemble a wrestling ring.  It was not easy.

Down the road we went to see Mer and Grandpa and the rest of the clan.  Family picture.

"The Nice One" and her family.

Guk's family.  Aren't they festive in their hats?  We all actually had to wear them, but me and "The Nice One" were smart enough to get another picture without our hats on!

Hubby promptly sat in a recliner and fell asleep, so my Aunt Gail decked him out in hats, holly, ribbons, a dog, some poinsettias and an Auburn scarf.  It's a look.

We ate a scrumptious meal with all the trimmings and then it was time to open presents.  We all crammed in to get a spot by the tree.

Gifts were passed out and opened.

Harry's Cam Newton shirt brought "BOO's" from the crowd (he played for Auburn, what can we say?) but he loved it!

After presents we broke out a new game called "Left Center Right".  You are supposed to play with three chips, but we went hard core and decided to play with money.  Everyone started with three dollars in front of them.  There were 19 of us so that made the winning pot worth $57!  I can tell you there were some kids around that table that were drooling for that money!

So you roll the dice and money changes hands just about every single roll.  It is a complete game of chance, but there was a ton of smack talking, screaming, hollering, jumping up and down going on.

The game lasted about thirty minutes with all of us around the table.

Ms. Tennessee was the big winner!  She was rolling in the dough.

Then me and "The Nice One" and the Queen tried to take a girl shot.  I look like I just woke up from a two day drunk and the Queen's glasses look like they are fogged up from doing dishes or something.  Painful.

Look up girl! 

We get so tickled at any silly thing and then that is all she wrote.  We can't stop laughing.  It is ridiculous.
 

This is almost decent, but look at the background.  Busy much?

After the photo shoot we all gathered for a game of Dirty Santa.  Again, we had some awesome laughs on this one.  It was a fun addition to our normal activities.

Once we wrapped up at Mer and Grandpa's we headed back out to The Bad Farm.

Callie and the girls had put together Chip's ring and he was happy!

We found George in the kitchen carving up a big ham and he also made some delicious ribs.  So when he wasn't in one bathroom or the other he was in the kitchen.  It was a great change from the traditional Christmas meal.

Joey and his family came over as did Mike and Shannon.  It was nice to see them.  Mike turned Joey on to an iPhone app called Hollywood Action Stunts or something like that.  You make a video and it can look like a missile is blowing something up.  That provided most of the entertainment for the night as Joey shot action movie after action movie.

In this final shot of Christmas day you can see the aftermath of my husband diving across the living room floor to fake save and cover Malarie and Brett from a fake missile.  There was a friend of Megan and Patricks that came by for a visit and bless his heart he had to be in a movie.  We had never met him and my husband is telling him to casually look at ornaments on the tree and when Joey says action he is going to tackle him and throw him in to the chair.  Merry Christmas Andrew from New Jersey, this is how we roll in Alabama on Christmas day! 

It was a wild one! 

After enough action movie to thrill Steven Spielberg we showed this side of the family how fun Left Center Right was to play.  Everyone loved it and we broke out an official poker chip version of the game the next day.  Big money was switching hands and the game went on for hours and hours!

Come back for pictures of Post Christmas activities and our "Welcome Home" decorations left by our sweet friends!