Over a Year?

I can't believe its been over a year since my last post. I've been slacking. And busy. But mostly just slacking. Lets see....

David is now in 2nd grade. We pulled him out of public school and put him in a private school in Sparta. He loves it, and is doing very well. He's learning to write in cursive and has words on his spelling lists that I can't believe are on a 2nd grader's spelling list. He consistently brings home spelling tests with A+s on them. David is also taking piano lessons, and is doing fairly well. He just needs to learn to count a steady beat while he plays. He'll be going to church camp this summer for the first time with his cousin, Owen, in Minnesota. He's very excited about it, and a little nervous, too.

Nathaniel is in his 2nd year of pre-kindergarten. Because he has an August birthday, he turned 5 about 3 weeks before he would have started kindergarten. At the end of last year, his pre-k teachers, Richard & I made the decision to have him repeat pre-k - he just wasn't ready for kindergarten; he would have ended up repeating kindergarten. His teachers now assure me that he's ready for Kindergarten. He'll have David's Kindergarten teacher, Mrs. Fawcett, who is awesome! :) Nathaniel is our stubborn one, the one most like Richard. He wants to do things his way, or no way, and isn't afraid to butt heads with anyone, anyone except Daddy, that is. He loves to play outside, and keeps asking if its spring, even though just a couple of days ago we got 6 inches of snow.

I started working out in late December with a gal from church, and we've been pretty regular about it. We've been going to Snap Fitness, and I've really enjoyed it, although when I'm there I usually don't want to be there. I've also been playing piano and singing on the church worship team, which I really enjoy doing.

Richard has been keeping busy at Ft. McCoy, instructing for Blue Force Tracker. He's getting ready to head down to San Antonio for an Army rifle competition; he's very excited (although you'd never know it), this could open a lot of doors for him.

Well. A brief synopsis of the past year. I'll try to be a bit more regular from now on. Ta-ta for now!

Yes, Yes I'm Here!

I know, I know, its been a while. Ok. A long while since my last post. I've been trying not to spend so much time on the internet, so I haven't even been reading the blogs that I did before. Call it a New Year's Resolution.

So what's been happening here? Lets see......

We had a really nice Christmas holiday. We went down to my parents' house and didn't get to go to Christmas Eve service because it was canceled due to bad weather. Dad and I almost didn't go last minute shopping for Mom due to the yucky weather. But we managed to make it into town. A couple days after Christmas, we went up to Richard's sister's place in the Twin Cities, and spent several days there. A nice suprise for the boys was Richard's aunt Cherie was visiting from Boise, and we didn't tell the boys, so they were excited! They had another suprise when we finally got home. "Santa" left a Wii and a bunch of games. The kids could hardly contain themselves, they were so excited. The most popular game by far has been the Lego Star Wars: The Collection. It has all 6 episodes on it. I have to admit that it is rather fun.

The boys are still enjoying school. We haven't had any more snow days since the last post, which is good, because then the kids will actually get a 4 day Easter Weekend, which also doubles as their Spring Break.

My bread machine finally died, so now I'm using my Kitchen Aid stand mixer to make bread. As long as I preheat my stoneware loaf pan (pampered chef!!) in the oven before I put the bread dough in it, it rises pretty well.

Richard is keeping busy with work, although during the winter his hours are a little more normal. He's been getting home between 4:30 and 5:30 pm, which is a lot better than, "I don't know when I'll be home". We actually get to eat dinner as a family most nights.

Richard now has orders that will take him through April, 2011, so we're here till then. Yippee! We asked for our landlord's permission to paint our front room, and they said yes, so I'm hoping to get that done in the next few weeks. I had to promise that we wouldn't use pink, purple or black though. :)

Midnight is doing pretty well. She still doesn't have a lot of feeling in her back feet, she can't "tell where her feet are". That's what the vet says, anyway. But the vet was also surprised that she's still up and going. The vet didn't think she'd last this long.

Richard and I had a nice Valentine's Day. We went to a couples banquet at church. It was a lot of fun, and the food was excellent! A couple who is working on opening a real French restaurant (she's French, he's a chef) in La Crosse did the cooking, so everything was great.

Can you believe that in just over 2 weeks, Richard & I will be celebrating our 11th wedding anniversary?

I think that's it in a nutshell. I'm going to try to post at least once a week from now on.

Snow Day!!

Today is the first snow day of the school year. David & Nathaniel slept in till about 7:45 am, much to my delight. They wanted to go outside right away, but I've been making them wait a little while. They do need to eat breakfast, and they have a few chores to do before heading outside to play.

In the meantime, here are some pictures just to show how much snow we've gotten since yesterday afternoon.

This is Stormy, up to her chest in snow, but she loves it.

Our poor grill is covered.

Stormy again.

And somewhere, under all that snow is our red car. Oh, right. There it is.

We've gotten over a foot of snow so far, and it just keeps coming. The wind is starting to pick up too. I'm guessing when the kids finally go outside, it won't be for very long.

In other, non-snowy news, Richard has bronchitis. He went and saw a Dr on post yesterday. So he's on drugs for the next 10 days. Poor guy. I'm still not feeling great, but I am feeling much better compared to a week ago. I still don't have my appetite back, which is good for the waistline.

Monday evening was our last FPU lesson for this class session. I'm going to take a break until the end of February, and then start another one.

Have a great Snow Day!

I Have a VERY Good Reason....

for not posting anything for an entire week. In my previous post, I mentioned that David was sick. Well, he was running a fever all last weekend, and then Monday afternoon, while Nathaniel was out with Richard, he got sick as well. But not just throwing up sick. Out the other end as well. So I made a Drs' appt for David on Tuesday, and of course had to bring Nathaniel along. Turns out it was H1N1. Yep. Both at the same time, just a couple days apart symptom-wise. So we didn't go to Iowa for Thanksgiving. So up until yesterday (Saturday) we were all doing fairly well. Until about 2:30 am, when it was my turn. So I spent all day yesterday in bed, while Richard held down the fort. He called the Dr for me and a Rx for Tamiflu was called in for me, so he and the boys went and picked that up. The highest my fever was all day was 101.9, and its down around 99 now. I'm feeling much better now that I'm not throwing up every 30 minutes or so like I was early yesterday morning. Richard is such a good hubby, he even ran a bath for me yesterday since my back was hurting from laying in bed all day.

I did get some Christmas shopping done on Friday, the craziest store I went to was Old Navy. There was a line to check out almost all the way back to the back of the store. I was out of there quick. Not wanting to fight crowds.

See? I did have a good excuse for going so long without a post.

Only 25 shopping days left til Christmas! :)

This and That

Let's see... what has been happening around here?

Oh yes, Richard finally got a buck a couple of weeks ago. It was the 8th of November, to be exact. A little rack, but he doesn't usually go for trophy bucks, just something to put meat on the table (or freezer). That one he shot with his bow. He just shot one yesterday, another buck, with his rifle. Actually, with my rifle. His buddy talked him into doing a European mount of the head/antlers, which translates to a bare skull & antlers. Much, much cheaper than a full mount. By about $400-450 dollars.

Richard took the boys with him yesterday up to his buddy's house to cut up the deer. He called me about a hour after they left to tell me to come get David. He threw up in the parking lot of a gas station. I talked him in to letting him rest and see if it was just motion sickness, but he kept throwing up. So I had to drive an hour and 15 minutes to get them (all 3 came home with me). I left at 7:45 pm, and we all got home about 11 pm. We, of course, had to stay and visit for a little while, which is why we got home so late.

Oh, and I celebrated my 30-something birthday this past Thursday. Richard and the boys took me out to eat at Famous Dave's in La Crosse. It was a lot of fun. That day I also went to help out in David's class, and I brought in birthday treats for the kids. There was a substitute teacher, and she was helping the kids make a giant birthday card for me when I arrived. It was really sweet. And they sang Happy Birthday to me and I got hugs from several of the kids. They kept asking how old I was and I told them I was older than 30 & younger than 40. They were a little disappointed with that answer.

Can You Believe It!?!

Yep, its another post from yours truly. Finally. We haven't had much going on since David's exciting coloring contest win, so no posts. Still don't have much going on, so this is likely to be short.

Have you ever seen something that just breaks your heart? Of course you have. And I have too, but what I saw on Monday ripped my heart out and stomped on it.

I go in 2 times a week to help in David's class. Monday I went in, and went to PE with the class. I noticed a little boy who was wearing jeans that were so short on him that they could've been capris. And his long sleeved shirt was more the 3/4 length. I didn't see any kids teasing him about it, but that doesn't mean that it didn't happen. And this isn't the first time I've seen this boy wear clothes that were obviously too small for him. Obviously, his parents either can't afford to buy him clothes that fit, or, well, I guess that would be the only logical explanation. So after thinking about it & praying about it, I asked Richard if we could buy the boy some new clothes. Anonymously. And he agreed. I was almost in tears talking to Richard about it, it had me so upset. So I'm watching sales, and hope to go shopping for him this weekend. We're going to make sure to take all the tags off everything so that nothing can be returned for cash that the parents will spend on themselves.

In other news, David gets out of school early today & will be home around 2pm. He's excited about that. Except that I told him he might have to take a nap. :) Maybe. We'll see.

Oh, and Richard & I went on Sunday afternoon to see the high school production of "The Sound of Music", one of my very favorite musicals. The cast did a fantastic job! It was actually made up of elementary school age up to high school. The girl who played Maria did an awesome job! And the boy who played Captian von Trapp was very, very good as well. Richard basically went because I really, really wanted to go, but he ended up being very impressed as well. Two of the von Trapp children were played by two girls from church. They did a great job as well. The entire cast was great. I do have to say that the boy who was cast to play Rolfe did a good job, but his makeup made him look like a girl. It didn't help that he had long hair that was in a pony tail that was tucked into his collar. But other than that, I'd go see it again. But it only ran over the weekend.

David's Picture

For those of you who asked, here is a picture of the picture David drew for the Hometown Heroes Coloring Contest that he won (see November 6th's post). I jokingly asked him last night if I could throw the picture away. With a look of panic on his face he said, "NO!" To which I answered, "I'm just kidding!" What a look of relief!

Among other news, Richard is out hunting this morning. He left the house around 5:30 am. I still haven't heard anything from him, and I'm not going to call him either. Hopefully he'll get something today.

I'm also taking David to the eye doctor this afternoon. He started complaining on Thursday that the words in a book we were reading were fuzzy, and when I mentioned it to his teacher, she said that he said he couldn't read the words on the board at school. So we'll see what the Dr. says.

A Big, Super Cool Announcement!!

Ok, some of you are probably wondering what my Big, Super Cool Announcement is. So let me tell you now......

No, I am not pregnant. :)

Here's the announcement part.....

David, was one of 2 1st graders (they picked 1 boy & 1 girl) that won the Hometown Heroes 2009 Coloring Contest, sponsored by the Piggly Wiggly grocery stores in Wisconsin. From what I understand, all the 1st graders in town entered in the contest. They had to draw a picture of a hero(es), on the back of a Piggly Wiggly brown paper grocery bag. David drew a picture of an army tank and a helicopter. He got a huge trophy, a $50 savings bond & a reuseable grocery bag full of junk food from Piggly Wiggly. We went to the dinner/ceremony last night, where David was given his award. His teacher, Mrs. Vian, was there with her husband. We sat with them & chatted & ate dinner together. It was a nice time. Below are some pictures of last night.

Nathaniel gives me a big kiss. Do you see that mischevious look in his eye?

David & his teacher, Mrs. Vian, and her husband. David is showing them how to play Big Game Hunter on Richard's phone.

A self-portriat of Nathaniel. He loves taking pictures.

A picture of Richard taken by Nathaniel.

A picture of David & I taken by Nathaniel.

David explaining his picture to everyone. He then walked around and showed people his picture. He is such a ham!

Here he is getting his $50 savings bond, which was promptly handed over to me.

David and the big, big trophy. Its at least 2 feet tall!

David and all his goodies. Sorry the picture is sideways. He got lots of not-good-for-you treats in that bag!

So that was my announcement. Sorry to disappoint some of you. :) I'm so proud of this boy, I'm about ready to burst. He was great!

Oh My Goodness!

Has it really been over a week since I last posted anything? I am slacking. In defense of my lack of posts, I, well, I don't really have any. Wait, wait, yes I do! We were gone from Oct 28th to Nov 1st visiting my parents in Iowa. Ok, that does nothing for anything prior to the 28th or after the 1st, but still!

We did have a good, long weekend visiting Grandma and Grandpa. The boys love seeing them, and I know the feeling is mutual. We got to take the boys trick or treating on Friday (in the rain) and although there was only 1 in 3 or 4 houses giving out candy, they still ended up with lots of treats.

One of the highlights for Nathaniel when we visit Grandma & Grandpa are Grandpa's trains. Dad has been working on a setup for a while, and although not yet finished, it thrills Nathaniel to no end. He would spend hours watching the trains go round and round if we let him. I think when he gets to be a little older, he'd help Grandpa with the construction of the train display.

David & Nathaniel also got to go outside with Dad and Grandpa and shoot the little .22 rifle we bought David a while back. David is getting pretty good at hitting the spinner target without the use of a scope. Nathaniel just had fun pulling the trigger.

And what was I doing during all this? Playing Scrabble with Mom, of course.

Soccer Pictures!

Yesterday morning (Satruday) was David's last soccer game. They lost 2-0, but they played well and had fun. There were 7 kids on the team, but only 5 showed up yesterday, and one was late enough that he missed the first quarter. And since there are only 4 on the field per team at a time, all the kids played the entire first quarter. David was the defender (of the goal). He really enjoys playing defender. Here are a few pictures of the final game.

David is the one with the ball.

David kicking the ball after the other team scored.

Here's the team after the game.

The team & their coaches.

And David.

After we got home yesterday afternoon, David asked what he could sign up for next. He said he wanted to play badmitton, although I'm not sure where that came from. I think there is a spring soccer league, so we'll probably sign him up for that. And maybe ragball in the summer. We'll let him choose. We're not going to let him do so many things at once that we're never home.

A Midnight Update

No, not an update at midnight. An update about Richard's dog, Midnight. Cousin Nancy was the one burning the midnight oil. I hope she's sleeping now.

Anyway, Midnight seems to be doing fairly well. We've got her on painkillers and anti-inflamatory drugs, and she seems to be responding well to them, aside from the fact that she sleeps a lot. More than normal, but that's the painkillers. It was really evident yesterday morning when we accidentally gave her a double dose of the painkillers. Richard gave it to her before he left for work, and I gave it to her after I got the boys on the bus. She slept very soundly for a good 6 hours. But she's none the worse for wear. Richard did comment the other day as to how much longer we want to keep drugging her. Eventually we'll have to up her dosage again. And then again. How long is too long to wait? That is the unspoken questions floating around our house right now.

Onto other things...

David has his last soccer practice tonight. If its not raining, that is. His last game is Saturday morning. Pictures. I must take pictures. One thing I thought was odd was that the kids didn't get any type of uniform. I remember having a uniform, at least a shirt of some sort. The kids here wear their own clothes and a pull over jersey that they give back after every game. For the $21 registration fee you think that they could give them at least a t-shirt that has "Sparta Youth Soccer" on it so something. Oh well.

We've Been Saved....

by the pest contol guy, Randy. He came this afternoon and sprayed the outside of the house. And bugs were dropping off the side of the house, like, well, flies. Ok, that was bad. Sorry. But seriously, they were, and its great. Well worth the $90.

David and I were talking about what he did in school today, and he mentioned a fight he had with a boy named Daden. I'm not sure what it entailed, exactly, but the school never called me, so I'm assuming no blood was drawn on either side. He then mentioned that sometimes he has doodles with his friends, Dylan & Tristan. I knew exactly what he meant, but it was too cute to correct him. He said that they don't doodle with guns, but they just hit each other. Yep, duels is what he meant to say. And again, I've never been called about these duels, so I'm guessing that its just playground games. But doodles was too cute!

We're Being Invaded.....

Seriously. By Japanese beetles. They look like ladybugs, but they aren't. They live in the soybean fields, and once harvest starts, they are all over the place. And guess what happened today. Yep, everyone and their brother are out harvesting. You can literally see them flying around outside, there are that many of them. I don't envy David having to walk down the driveway when the bus drops him off. Wherever there is a little hole, in they come. In through the air vents, through the window air conditioners, through the door when you open it. I feel like I have an inkling of what the Egyptians went through during the plague of locusts. But I'm sure that it was much, much worse that what we're dealing with right now. I just called our landlord to find out when the pest control guy was coming. No one answered. Someone, save us!!!

A Difficult Few Days

I haven't posted anything for a few days. Wednesday I had no excuse, but Thursday & Friday, I had other things on my mind. Richard's dog, Midnight, who is 12 1/2 years old, began having trouble walking Thursday afternoon. I took her to the vet on Friday, and after X-Rays, the vet had some bad news. Midnight has a degenerative spinal disorder. She's lost some control over her back legs, and can't feel much in her feet. Its not going to get better, it can only be controled with pain meds. She's on the doggy equivalent of Tylenol and Codine, so she's spent a lot of time the last day sleeping. She is walking a little better, but we can tell she's still hurting.

Richard & I slept on our hide-a-bed last night, since she's not supposed to go up/down stairs anymore. Neither of us slept well, and I woke up with a migraine.

The boys know that she's not feeling well, and tonight, as gently as we could, we explained to David that Midnight isn't going to get better, and eventually we'll have to have her put to sleep. The poor boy. It breaks my heart that we had to tell him, but we felt we needed to prepare him. Please keep us in your prayers, as the next few days will be very difficult as Richard makes the decision whether to put her to sleep or keep her around for a while longer.

David asked me if we had pictures of Midnight. I looked through a bunch of pictures, and found the ones below. Most of these were pre-Nathaniel.

David & Midnight, February, 2005

Midnight (laying down) & Stormy, June, 2006

David & Midnight, December, 2003

David & Midnight, July, 2003

What Is That Stuff?

This was yesterday. Yep, that white stuff is snow. It never did stick and it turned to rain in the afternoon, but the kids loved it while it was falling.


We had FPU last night. It was on credit bureaus and how creditors can use underhand tactics to collect debts, and what you can do to protect yourself. Dave Ramsey never teaches to try to dodge a debt, but this teaches you how to deal with creditors. We also had 4 people cut up a total of 5 credit cards to the tune of about $6000.00. It was great.

I just started a book today, and am about 2/3rd of the way through it. Its by Jerry Jenkins, co-author of the Left Behind series. The book is called "Soon" It was published in 2003. Here is what amazon.com says about the book.

"Paul Stepola, an agent working for the National Peacekeeping Organization (NPO), has been assigned to enforce compliance with the world government's prohibition on religion. Paul relishes his job and is good at it. He is determined to expose underground religion--flush it out, expose it, and kill it--until his life is turned upside down and he is forced to look at life in a different way.
As Paul begins to unravel the truth about what he has found, events taking place around the world start to make sense. Something big is coming--something that can't be stopped. And it is coming soon. "

Its very intriguing, and I just realized that its the first in a series, and from what I can tell, our church library doesn't have the rest of the books. Well, I guess I have something to ask for my Birthday & Christmas.

Let it Snow....

It is snowing. Yep. I said snowing. Its not sticking yet, but it is snowing. Has been for a couple of hours now. I love how pretty falling snow is. So silent and peaceful.

Snow?!?!

They are predicting a snow-rain mix tomorrow, around an inch. We'll see what comes of it, but it would please Nathaniel to no end. He's been asking when its going to snow for at least 3 weeks now. He desperately wants to build a snowman and play in the snow. It was so difficult to get him inside last winter that I'm not really looking forward to this winter in regards to that. I do love the snow, though.

Well, our team did it again. The Broncos beat the Patriots in OT 20-17. It was a good game. Did you know their new coach is only 33 years old?

David had a soccer game yesterday morning. Boy, was it cold! The team played hard, but the other team won, 3-2. No one from our team was very pleased with the other coach though. He was constantly trying to influence the ref's calls (She was an 8th grader & not much taller than the tallest kid playing), and his team was constantly pushing, shoving, grabbing, etc. And the ref wasn't calling any of it. Our coaches were going to have a talk with the guy in charge of the league about the coach and the ref, since she wasn't calling anything unless the ball went out of bounds.

David finally goes back to school tomorrow! He had a lot of school work to do after missing a week of school, and he got it all done today. Spelling & Math, mostly. He's pretty good at math, he just doesn't want to sit and do the work.

Finally!

David is fever-free! His temp was normal when I took it yesterday morning! Yippee! He would have gone to school today except that there wasn't school due to parent/teacher conferences. So he and Nathaniel got to go play at a friend's house while I got my hair cut & colored. I had the appt originally for last Friday, but had to change it since David was sick, and when I rescheduled it, I'd forgotten that the kids didn't have school. My friend Lisa, who has 4 kids, a boy who is David's age & her youngest daughter is Nathaniel's age, agreed to watch them for me. The boys had a great time with Daniel and Isabella.

We had our FPU class last night instead of Monday night because of the Monday night football game, Packers vs. Vikings. Its a big game since the teams are huge rivals & it was made even bigger this year since Brett Farve is playing for the Vikings. We usually root for the Packers, but wanted to see Brett Farve beat his old team. And beat them he did! Anyway, class was good. We watched the "Dumping Debt" DVD, which is my favorite out of all 13 of the lessons.

Tonight is the 2nd episode of Stargate: Universe. Well, technically, its the 3rd episode, since the premiere last week was 2 hours. But the 2nd week. I'm looking forward to it. Its also the season premiere of season 2 for Sanctuary. Both are on SyFy, back to back, starting at 8pm CST.

Really, Truly Almost Not Sick

David's fever has been down under 100 degrees all day! He won't go to school again tomorrow, and there isn't school on Friday due to parent/teacher conferences, so he has another 4 days to recuperate before school next week. I received an email from his teacher this morning, and 1/2 of his class was out sick Monday & Tuesday with the same symptoms as David. Apparently 2 students were back today, but probably shouldn't have been. At least he won't be the only one who is behind on his schoolwork.

Still Sickly....

David still isn't feeling well. His fever has been around 101 all day, just slightly less than that with Ibuprofen. While we were at the Dr's office for my appt, he re-checked David voluntarily (he offered, I didn't ask). He again said that if he's still running a fever over 100 tomorrow to bring him back and they'd run some tests. What I thought was neat was that he said even if he was booked full for appts, that he'd squeeze David in in between his scheduled appts. I really like this Dr! He's very thorough.