Canton, TX - Here we come!

Going to Canton today with my new friends, Margo (Robolady) and Tina (Stitching in Texas). I'm looking forward to spending the afternoon with them. I'm so excited - It's been too long since I've gotten to look through any good junk! Hopefully, we'll find some bargains and get new ideas and meet some new friends along the way. I'm ditching my job today - well, the boss is gone to the deer lease as well as all the other folks. So, I thought, what the heck - Well, wish us luck and have a great weekend!

More Christmas...

More photos of our Christmas at the farm with my husband's parents. (I have yet to figure out how to move photos around and get them in the right order - any suggestions? I have tried dragging them, but oh well...) They are probably backwards from the way I wanted to show them... Here's our dinner table. Our little table is so small, we had to pull a card table up and put the two tables together. My hubby is hiding behind me because he loves getting his photo taken so well. Princess is taking the photo.

Next shot is Princess supervising the carving of the
Christmas (Greenberg) Turkey we always have. Best smoked turkey in the country. Funny how we've eaten it all our lives around here and think nothing of it, and then Oprah makes it even more famous! It's old hat to us! I'm sure Princess is doing a taste-test, too...


Jake is laying in the pasture behind the garden shed catching some rays. He loves to dig for gophers at the farm. We can look around and just see a brown dog rear end with a tail going 90 mph sticking up in the air just above the hay and know he's found another gopher. One day he'd dug a hole so deep that we had to go look for him. He was almost underground completely. He found a beaver on our pond one day that slapped at him and managed to avoid getting caught. Jake was determined to catch him - jumping in and out of the water and diving deep to look for him, but I would hate for him to have gotten ahold of that beaver. We'd have one Lab missing a nose for sure! The beaver moved to somebody else's pond we suppose. He never returned after that one day...

Our little homely looking dog is Bug. My two younger kids talked me into getting her from a lady at Canton. I have never EVER done anything like that before - not talking about it with the hubby first. We came home with that little hamster sized pup and we never did tell hubby how much she really cost. Be careful when buying pets from flea markets. They told us she was an apple-head Chihuahua, but turned out to be a deer-head. I personally think she looks like a 'possum-head. But we love her. I am her person. She loves me. I thought about giving her to a friend of mine a few years ago, but I decided that since she is so attached to me it might break her little heart to do that. I have actually grown more attached to her since my little Pom, Cookie, died a year ago. Cookie was my baby. I miss her so much. I had her for 13 years. She went everywhere with us. She loved everybody and loved traveling and meeting new people. She was never nervous or hyper. They say, if you have one good friend in your life you are really blessed... well, I say if you have one good dog in your life you are blessed, too. There'll never be another like Cookie. I'll have to see if I have a photo of her...
Bug shakes all the time. She was excited about Christmas and seeing all her family but doesn't like the noise that goes along with unwrapping presents. She finally fell into an exhausted sleep in my lap.

So did we all later that day. Wrapped up in blankets all cozy on the couch and full of turkey, ham, coconut pie and all the trimmings, I felt so content with the world to have my family all around me. Is there a better feeling than that in this physical mortal life? I think not.

Christmas 2007

The holiday season for us always starts out with the Birthday celebration of our little Christmas angel baby Josh (who's not a baby anymore - only in mom's heart). It was the usual with the whole fam including g-parents at our favorite Mexican restaurant. It was great as usual and we were stuffed. Josh ate his usual one bite of cake and the rest of us devoured it - on top of Mexican food. We were stuffed! Here's Josh & all 4 of his grandparents!

We spent Christmas at the farm of course with our family. It was so much fun. We went to my folks' house a few minutes away Christmas eve and had all MY family there and all us kids went in together and got my parents a nice Howard Miller wall clock that chimes that they'd wanted for a long time. They had no idea that we'd gotten it. We all pretended they didn't have any presents to open while all the rest of us opened ours. Then their present was the grand finale! They loved it!
Mom's and dad's faces say it all! They were thrilled with their clock!
Here's my hubby with a silly grin playing Santa Claus passing out gifts at mom's house.My three kids - I think this is the only one I actually got of them all together. They're never all in the same place at once. You know how that is... I'll get back to Christmas a little later...
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I lovedVee's post where she was taking random photos of things at her house. Made me chuckle cuz it's fun just to be random sometimes, isn't it? I've got lots of random photos myself. Lots of random thoughts, too, right? I randomly ramble alot, don't I?
Well, gotta get off the computer - this one is my daughter's and she swears she's going to have a cow if she can't check her MySpace or FaceBook one more time before she goes to bed (OMGosh). My PC at home is junk, my husband has his and is out of town, and the boys are not here of course with theirs, so I hijacked the Princess's computer for a few minutes. Photos are on my work computer - I'll be back soon - Take care everyone. Thanks for all your posts! I was so pleased when it said "8 comments" on my last post! Thank you thank you thank you!

Busy Busy Busy Week

It's been busy busy this week! You all are, too, I know. I haven't had time for much blogging and today I'll make it short and sweet! Thanks to all of you who take the time to visit me.

Princess and I closed out the stores last night trying to get finished up shopping. Now all I need is gold ribbon and bows and would you believe that I'm having a hard time finding it! Everybody's about out. Of course, it's not really my fault that I've waited until the last minute, is it?????

MY KIDS ARE MY LIFE. Friday is #2 son's 22nd birthday, so we'll pause the Christmas stuff, and take time to make him feel special. I always order him a cake (even tho he doesn't eat sweets - but the rest of the family does!) and he'll smile, take one bite and leave the rest to us. #2 is the strong silent type. A young man of few words, but when he DOES speak, it's usually something worth hearing. Typical middle child when he was young. I miss him being little SO MUCH!!! He and I were so close and he "needed" more of me than my other 2 independent kids. My husband likes to tell him now that he was like a leech on me - we had to peel him off of me. He loved me so much. We always had a 1/2 year birthday for him when he was young since his birthday falls right at Christmas. We never combined birthday and Christmas for him. We always told him that he was our special Christmas angel baby. And he looked it - he was blue-eyed and had white blond straight silky hair. He really looked like a baby until he was probably 8 or 9. I kept him in bubble suits (which I smocked myself) and knickers until he was almost 5 and my husband finally told me that was enough. I had to let him grow up. : (

I made nearly all of his outfits - all English smocking and all originals - probably more for him for than my daughter. He had a new smocked bubble or knickers or button on shirt/shorts nearly every other Sunday when he was little)

#2 son is on the right and #1 son is on the left - they are standing with their grandpa. I think they're kinda cute myself. They are both tall like all my people. I miss them being little..... I would love to have them climbing up on my lap and snuggling. #2 son spent the first 6 or 7 years in my lap, but he's grown up into a very nice respectful and mannerly young man. I'm proud of all my kids.

Here is Princess, spoiled by our whole family - mostly her brothers - the only girl, so you can imagine she really IS a Princess. But she's growing out of it. I will fill you in on her and her oldest brother another time. (I think I said short & sweet on this blog, didn't I) I will say that Princess can slug and hit and scream and is just as tough and crass as her big brothers at times .... so lady-like.....

Back to the Birthday Party - We ALWAYS have all the grandparents and our whole family for our birthdays for the kids. They have a favorite Mexican food restaurant we always go to, and we take the Cake and presents and celebrate. Can you believe that my husband and I still have all 4 of our parents!!!! We are so blessed , and so far they are still in good health. They have been such an important part of our kids' lives and have helped to not only baby-sit (we never called sitters), but they have reinforced all the Christian ideals and morals and Godly ways to live that my husband and I have tried to instill in them. Of course they're not perfect! None of us are. But how great a blessing it is to have that extended family - and they all live here, too. Our kids have all admitted to us that they feel so lucky to know that they are loved, that our family is STABLE, that there was never divorce nor will be, and they have seen by looking at their friends how blessed we all are. I hope and pray that they will carry these beliefs and standards forward into their futures. I pray for their future mates every single day that they, too, will have these same beliefs and will be committed to God. It's so hard to find that nowadays. Most kids have experienced divorce and other traumas in their lives and it's no fault of their own. The Lord has been so good to us to leave our folks around to help us raise these kids of ours and to spend valuable time with them. What more could I ask?

Christmas blessings to you all - Vickie

Off to the Farm!

Hi - it's Friday so you know what that means!!! We're off to the farm again. I live for the weekends right now. Looks like we may need to find an indoor project to work on tho. Hubby says he's got lots to do outside tomorrow trimming trees and burning, etc., but I told him he may freeze his buns off. It's supposed to be cold and winds of 20-30 mph. Whew! We CAN build a huge fire tomorrow afternoon after the winds die down and if it's not raining, sit around the fire until late. I absolutely love sitting around the fire staring into the wavey flames. It throws me into a trance and I can get lost daydreaming or sometimes I feel like I'm just "zoning out" and think of nothing at all. I get all warm and sleepy sitting there listening to it crackle and burn.

We were sitting outside last night for a little bit and saw some shooting stars go flying across the eastern sky. I remember seeing a blurb on Yahoo or somewhere and it said Dec 13 and 14 were going to be good nights to watch for meteor showers. Of course tonight's sky is going to be covered with clouds. So I'm glad we caught a little shooting star action last night.

We're planning on making a huge caldron of venison chili outside tomorrow - the kids & various friends and our folks always come out for Saturday evening expecting good eats. Tomorrow I think it will be a "chili" day! (no pun intended)

I will take the Christmas gifts I've already got and get them wrapped and under the tree at the farmhouse, and do a little more decorating, maybe a little baking, who knows. I was thinking of looking at some of the great blogs I've looked at this week and find a neat project to work on for Christmas. It'll go by all too quickly I know.

Have a great weekend. I hope to have some more pictures Monday. I haven't shown you my family - Vickie