Merry Christmas!

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Christmas Dinner Dance

Last Thursday, Brent and I were invited to attend the Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) Christmas Dinner and Dance at Ceruti's. I wasn't sure what to expect. The place was beautiful. We had such a good time and thank Bill and Mary Lou Arnold for inviting us. Bill owns L~A Electric, where Brent has been employed for the last seven years. We had a wonderful dinner and the band played some really good music.


This is Bill and Mary Lou Arnold dancing. Brent and I did dance a few dances too. So fun!

This is the newest addition to my snowman Christmas collection. When Mary Lou and I sat down, she said, "Check the backs of the programs for something different. We checked everyone's and didn't see anything out of the ordinary. Well, imagine my surprise when they announced the winners at each table of the centerpiece for that table. If the last line on the program was in black, you were a winner. MINE WAS BLACK!

A woman (they announced her name and I can't remember it) made all the centerpieces for this dinner. There were quite a few and they were all beautiful.

Also, when we checked in at the door, we were each given two drink tickets. When we ordered our drinks, we kept the little top half with numbers on it. Throughout the evening, they called out numbers. If you had that number, you went up front to a table FULL of wrapped presents. One of MY numbers was called first!!! I went up and, not wanting to be really greedy, chose one of the bigger presents, but not the biggest. I can't say what it was, because I already have one and I'm regifting to one of our kids for Christamas, but.....HOW COOL WAS THAT?

I won a centerpiece that I love and a door prize! The dinner and desert was delicious too.

Thanks Bill and L~A Electric...................we had a lot of fun1

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like..............WINTER!!

Wow! The weatherman wasn't kidding! I've been up for quite a while this morning and it was very cold and windy. I had to go fix a strand of lights that had blown down from our front tree. No snow though. Then, after I just posted yesterday's pictures from the GORGEOUS day we spent outside, I looked out the window to see SNOW! LOTS OF IT!! COMING DOWN HARD AND FAST!!!

It is such a good thing that we got the yard done yesterday and the outside lights up. I am SO happy about that. Look at the difference in just hours. Amazing~Beautiful~Wintery~Christmasy!!!


Doesn't this look beautiful? And, look, no leaves under the snow!! Maybe, if the snow is just right, we can build a snowman with Maddison and Mackenzee this afternoon when they come over.

It looks so beautiful out in the woods. I could see the squirrels scurrying out there.

The big white ball in the picture above is either a snow flake or water droplet cathing the light of the flash on the camera.

This is the same view I took yesterday with Brent mowing and the girls playing in the sandbox with the sun shining brightly.

Today might just be the first time we shovel this season. It's really coming down fast.

Looks like Christmas, huh?

The Weeping Cherry tree in all it's glory!

Weird, but the Bradford Pear tree was the last in the area to have the leaves turn and most of the leaves are still on the tree.

Beautiful November Day!

I picked up Maddison and Mackenzee very early yesterday morning. The sun was shining and the morning looked deceivingly warm. It definitely wasn't, but in the toasty car, the girls were getting carried away. They came up with a plan to go to the park and have a picnic! After a lengthy conversation between the two of them on where we would go, what they would play on and what we would eat, I interrupted to let them know that we may not be able to go today.

They are so easy going! They continued on with their plans "just in case we were on that side of town". When we got home, Brent and the girls played chase and be scary games for a while. Then we all played a Nickelodeon Interactive DVD Bingo game they brought over. I am amazed at these girls. They knew exactly what they were doing and they showed us how to play!

At 10:30 a.m. (remember, I went to get them very early -- at 10:30, I was almost ready for a nap) I mentioned that today was supposed to be the last nice day of the year. The rain and snow was forecasted to start in the middle of the night Saturday. So we bundled up (it was still pretty chilly at 10:30) and all went outside. Maddison and Mackenzee played and played and played! They don't know the word "bored" because they do so well at entertaining themselves.

They got out the sidwalk chalk and decorated our driveway and Grandma Great's driveway. At one point, I came around the front of the house and saw Maddison walking around in circles in the driveway holding the sponge from the chalk box to her hand and whispering to herself. I asked her what she was doing and she showed me her hand. It's hard to see in the picutre, but she got carried away coloring on the cement and rubbed all of her fingers really hard on the cement.....taking a few chunks of skin off in the process. She didn't cry and whine. She wasn't even going to come tell me. I took her in, cleaned her hand, bandaged the bad spots (Mackenzee needed the same amount of bandages too for some "ouchies" that none of us could see, but she could feel!) and put a pair of pink gloves on her. They were my gloves and a tad too large for her teeny, tiny hands, but she kept them on the entire time.

They entertained themselves with the pogo stick, Razor scooter, a stroller and the sleds. Mackenzee pulled Maddison, then Maddison pulled Mackenzee. In this picture they have blue rubber gloves on that were humongous on them. I used some inside of my garden gloves and they wanted some too. They didn't keep those on very long!

They had so much fun just being outside.

When Brent was cleaning up the leaves in the back yard, the girls discovered their sandbox down by the woods. The sand was amazingly clean and bug free! Once they opened the sandbox, that was it. They played in that for almost two hours!

Brent used my Mom's lawnmower with the bag on it instead of raking. Man, our yard looks good now! I cut down all the spent summer foliage and raked out the flower beds. Brent was able to put down fertilizer as well....knowing it's suppose to rain soon.

After a yummy lunch I made with Thanksgiving leftovers, Sara came to pick up the girls. I then climed up in the attic and brought down our outdoor lights. I thought I'd better get them done NOW instead of doing it in the cold or wet or windy weather. Around 4:30, Brent had finished the yard, had just finished blowing off our driveway (he pulled our cars out in the cul-de-sac at the end of our driveway, just like he ALWAYS does). The lawnmower was still sitting out in the driveway. There was no mistake, if you happened to pull into our cul-de-sac, you would know we were right in the middle of yard work. I was putting up Christmas lights on the weeping cherry tree. Brent was in the house for a minute. I see a Fort Wayne Police cruiser come into the cul-de-sac. He circled a total of three times before stopping next to my car. My heart, by then, was just pounding. Laurel had left a couple hours before. I couldn't imagine why he was at OUR house unless something had happened with Laurel. WELL.....................I raised my sunglasses to get a good look, expecting him to get out and come up to talk to me. Instead, all of a sudden, I hear him on his LOUDSPEAKER ... in our quiet little cul-de-sac. He is screaming at me to move our cars our of the street and into our driveway). Then he pulled away as I stood there for a few seconds with my mouth hanging open. I didn't comprehend right away. Then I stormed in to see if Brent had witnessed that. He missed it, he was upstairs. Absolutely unbelievable. First of all, there were other houses on our street with vehicles parked out in the road. I did not hear him stop and scream at them on his loudspeaker. Our vehicles were in front of our driveway, not blocking or obstructing anything. And, truly, they were there only temporarily. Just by looking at what was going on in our yard and drive, a normal person would have come to that conclusion almost instantaneously.

I tried to call the non-emergency number for the Fort Wayne Police....they were closed. You can bet, though, that I will be calling first thing Monday morning. I, unfortunately, did not get a car number or anything. I was so stunned, I didn't even think. But you can bet, someone is going to get an earful from me!

Happy Thanksgiving

Brent and I started at 9:00 this morning in the kitchen. We watched some shows on the Food Network last week and wrote it all down. This turkey was what we were so excited about. We thawed it just like they said in a big stock pot under a slight trickle of running cold water for eight hours. Then we put it in a brine we made for sixteen hours. Then we roasted it just like they did. and Voila! We thought he was a beauty!

We also made an Italian sausage dressing, some extremely yummy cheesy potatoes with mozarella and parmesan cheese. Also, the old stand-bys: green bean casserole, sweet potato casserole, regular stuffing, rolls and Brent's special stuffed mushrooms. Sara and Mitchell brought the all time favorite, deviled eggs.

There were very few of us this year. My mom is in Dallas and Ricky couldn't come home because he's on global alert. He can't go more than two hours away from his base.

Still, it was a wonderful day.



Brent and I are SO proud of this!

Such a pretty sight ~ I was referring to the bird, but yeah, Laurel is too!

We could be on the Food Network!

The girls toasted with their special bubbly.

Oh my gosh! After dinner, we all sat down to play games on the Wii. Well, you can see what happened, I sit ~ I sleep! Only for a little while though. The girls are spending the night and we're getting ready to go up and watch the Santa Clause.

I have so much to be thankful for.

Moving Day

Wow, the last eleven days went fast. Ricky was originally going to leave this morning for Fort Drum, but he and Brent talked about it and decided if he leaves Wednesday, he'll have plenty of time to get there and report by Thursday. I think it's a nine hour or so drive.

This is really it. He's moving. Fort Drum will be his permanent duty station for the next three years. Oh, he'll be back to visit, probably even this month at Thanksgiving. But, he's MOVING. I went up to his room tonight and he's got his stuff all in piles....he'll load his car in the morning. Wow, the memories in there....all over his walls.

I made this poster for him when I first started working at FedEx Kinko's. I thought it was pretty cool and so did he.

Brent MADE this skim board for him for his 10th birthday. It hangs on the wall now, but while we lived in Corpus Christi, it was used weekly. He's even taken it back there when we went to visit.

I made this poster for his 18th birthday. The picture is actually him just before his first birthday. Even back then, he loved the guitar!

Vincennes is where he took classes while he was an electrical apprentice.

This is a panoramic picture of the entire St. Vincent eighth grade class during their trip to Washington D.C.

This is a picture of his entire class at Bishop Dwenger on Junior Day.

Wow, oldie, but goodie. Here's one of his acoustic guitars. The stand holds two more (I haven't seen his other ones....maybe they're packed), but it was also good for holding ties, belts, etc....

I made this poster too from a picture that he or Brent took when they went to the concert together.

Awwwwwwwwwwww......I couldn't resist. This bag was sitting on the floor, looked like he had it almost all packed, but I put in his super loud, vibrating alarm clock and the Sock Monkey I made for him years and years ago. Think he'll notice?

Pictures from over the years..... I see him holding Maddison when she was a tiny baby, one of him and Ashley years ago at Johnny Appleseed....some of Panama City.....

Aw....and this frame collage....all with him and Ashley.


Wow, Brent and I have talked about making this room a sort of office. How do people do it? He's not actually taking everything with him right now becuase he won't have room. He's starting out in barracks. He won't be in married housing until after they actually get married early next year, THEN they'll have to be put on a waiting list for housing.

So.....I'm not sure if I can actually take everything off these walls and box it up. Then paint over the dark red and dark blue (was not something I would have chosen at all), and just put away all these memories. Then disassemble the bed (which he outgrew several years ago!!) and get rid of it. And store everything else up in our attic (along with his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle wooden toy box that was made for him when he was FOUR!)

I'm excited for him....really I am. He's all grown up now and movin' on. Everyone does, it's a fact of life. But, MAN, it went way faster than I'd have ever imagined.

....just hangin' out with us on his last night home.

Cheesin' for the camera.

Ringo givin' some love!!

Happy Halloween!

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Laurel!!!

She was SO getting into the Hula-Hoop on the Wii Fit!

Yep, still cold when it got light!

As I was leaving for work this morning, I told Laurel she probably should go warm up her car.
She followed me outside wearing a TANK TOP and complained how cold it was. She saw the sky and insisted I take a picture of it. You can't really see how red it was at the bottom, but his picture is pretty cool. Definitely snow clouds!

Then she scrambles to her car, freezing all the way, as I get into my warm car wearing a shirt, TWO sweaters and a lined leather coat with gloves. BRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!