Boys in a Bucket

I walked into the living room and there is Fishy and The Ride hangin' tight in a bucket. They are chillin' and watching the tube. I love it. The kids are diving into all the new games, toys and sugar a-plenty and Lance and I are just trying to recoup. I like to call the day after Christmas, The Christmas Hangover.

It's the closest to an actual hangover I think I will ever get. It's the I-stayed-up-into-the-next-day-ate-2-tons-of-candy-got-up-way-too-early-assembled-25-and-a-half-toys-day-after-Christmas-Hangover.

Did I forget anything?

Oh yeah! The cleanup! Don't forget the cleanup :)


All in all it was wonderful. I love my family. I only got "this was the worst Christmas ever," once. That was, until I reminded him (Trapper) that his future downloads for his SPYTRKR was all dependent upon his attitude. I was amazed at the revelation that took place inside his head :) Before bed it was all smiles and even a sweet sorry and a retractment from his previous statement. We even got to end the wonderful night with "This was the best Christmas ever" from the kids and even Trapper himself!

Least to say, he got a few more application downloads the next day :)

I really hope your Christmas was wonderful too.

Santa, Singing, and the Snow

Our township, Southington, has awesome seasonal activities. For Christmas we all go to the town pavilion, listen to the carolers and we get to have a visit from Santa. He comes in on the firetruck! After Santa's awesome entrance he performs the lighting of the tree. Where he is silly and tries to light the tree with magic and needs all the kids to come up and spread some magic dust to help light the tree! Its adorable:)






My super neat son, Lance Albern, joined choir this year. He even tried out for a special ensemble that sings for special events, such as this. They were the carolers this year. It was sweet to watch him up there singing well and being serious about it!




After the lighting of the tree ceremony all the kids get to go and visit Santa in the fire station. He even gives out goody bags :) It's total fun for boys because as they are standing in line they get to check out the killer firetrucks and equipment. It's a wonderful small town feel and everyone is laid back and enjoying their time.




It has been snowing since last weekend. I love it! I took the picture of our picnic table and we have had more snow since then! It's a winter wonderland here! The trees are covered in a soft powder of snow that is just hanging off their limbs. Early Christmas present, but hard to wrap :)

Crisp Morning

It snowed last night. It rained until 4 am then "poof!" the rain transformed into snow, like magic. It was crunchy this morning on our way to seminary, crunchy and beautiful.




I am in aw many times when I look out my window, or when I am walking down the drive, that this is my yard. Those are my trees, our pond, 11 acres of beauty. I am in love with our property, down to the bees nest (not my fav) to the moss covered stump (one of my favorites).

Shylee drives to seminary. She did pretty well this morning. The roads were kinda slick and had some snow on them, so for a novice in the snow, she did well, I am proud of her. I loved the sounds she would make when she would come up to something that looked harrowing, like a corner that looked icy. Her "ooh" and "ack" sounds were fun to listen to. I was giggling....inside (I'm not stupid I giggled inside).
I had to take a picture of the windshield of the truck, even though I didn't have to scrape it,because we took the car...I did have to brush off the snow on the car. That's okay. It was pretty!

Mystical Land Full of Puppies

We are keeping two puppies. Of course it started as one, then became two. We are keeping a black one and the brown one. The black one is our favorite. He reminds us of his dad so appropriately named "Black Dog." That is what the kids would like to call this one. Hmmm. Then there is the brown one. She has been under deliberation. She is the rough and tumble type and a bit dense, but cute.


They are so cute when we bring them in and let them warm up in the room with the wood stove. They just pile up, snuggle in and sleeep! It's adorable.




I love the foggy days here. It's nuts when people (us included) here burn wood in the stoves it just sticks in the air. It almost just stays right in path and you can follow the stagnant trail leading right to the chimney it belongs to. The air gets 100 percent humidity often here. With burning the wood stove it dries it out inside, and makes it nicer and not so humid. Outside is a fog wonderland.

In the morning, there is a mystical feeling, like you stepped into another dimension. I am waiting for a white stallion to run through my field (yard) so that I can jump on run through this magical land while the gentle breeze flows through my black tresses ( who said it couldn't be color treated to become "black tresses":).

Bacon Saves the Day!

As I am cooking at the stove I hear the familiar sound of Rider squeeling the stool over to me.
"Whatcha makin'?"...Bacon?!...I LOVE BACON!...Thanks MOM!"

This morning after getting kids off I laid in bed entirely too long. I parented from my covers. I finally got up after many "C'mon Mom, let's go downstairs."

But now that I made bacon, I am saved! Children are wonderful! I won't mention their fast turn-over rate from the "I love yous" to the "I hate yous" but wow, he just made me feel like mother of the year :)

Fisher is 7!

Fisher turned 7! He wanted a "Halloween" themed party. I put some sprinkles on the cake that were bones sprinkled (barely) with red coloring, to look like blood, and I get "Mom, I said Halloween party, not SCARY party!"





So, I have no worries that Fisher's level of gore is pretty low:)



He had a blast! This kid is a party animal! He loves to play, party and socialize. The puppies were the girl's favorite part of the party! They carried them around the entire time. We even had one girl bartering the ENTIRE time over the price of the puppies.







I am so grateful for my beautiful boy, Fisher! He is our happy-go-lucky-let's-just-all-have-fun kid!
It was a great day:)

What's in Your Couch?

Our next-door-neighbor girls brought over a Wal-Mart size bag of string cheese (sticks). When they came up missing, I wasn't entirely surprised when one of my children found the cheese stick filled bag in it's entirety

in

MY

COUCH!!!

Seriously? How does that happen? You want to know what else is terrible? When Moqui had her puppies she jumped on our couch and before I could get her down she birthed 2 puppies. I SUPER scrubbed my couch, and now I have an aversion towards it( so super gross). But to top all that off, knowing our history with treasure troves being dug up from the depths of our davenport, I checked, dug and double checked and double dug for another puppy that may have fallen into the mysterious beyond of the o'l chesterfield .

Even now that the puppies are a month and a half old, I still find myself wondering and triple checking for some skeletal remains of a tater-pup.

The allusive beyonds of my couch bewilder me. How does it happen? Is there some systematic form to the loss of our items...an unnatural gravitational pull, maybe? Perhaps the mice in our house have something to do with it all. Maybe they have drunk from some fountain of super intelligence and are now collecting, foraging and storing hoards of foods by means of our derriere lounger.

Is it just me? I want to know!

What have you found? I want the good, the bad and the moldy. Mellissa, you may not have one story. But maybe you have heard a terrible story, maybe it's about me though:) So try and share!!!

Happy Birthday Lance Albern!

Lance Albern Allen turned 15 on October 8, 2010! It was a wonderful day! We had been looking for a used weight set for a long time, and on the day of his birthday we landed and AWESOMELY SWEEEET one! The funny thing was, the 19 kid we bought it from, it was his birthday too!!! Then we took him (Lance, not the other kid:) out to dinner and a movie! When your kids don't ask for a party and pinata, you know they are growing up :)



Lance Albern is the second child, first boy in a string of 5 boys. The kid was born with a six pack:) and ready to use 'em! He has always been really really really energetic (it's my karma). He loves food, like me. I think he can smell chocolate 2 miles away. He begs and begs and begs for things. He is SUPER UBER goofy, but only around those he lets into his super uber goofy club. He loves to start fires (his dad's karma). He even set about an 1/8 of an acre of our property on fire:) Cleared out all the underbrush, what a nice kid :)




He hardly ever does anything consistently but~ begs, works out, starts fires, leaves his dishes out, plays with his lil brothers, and cracks jokes...and is nice. Lance has always been a very nice kid. I think I can count on one hand the amount of times he has said something short-tempered or back-talked me.



Here's a healthy comparison to let you in on the difference between Shylee and Lance Albern, and hopefully let you get to know Lance a bit better:)

If Shylee was tending the boys it would have gone something like this: they would have created some great craft (possibly based around the season at the time), eaten a healthy dinner (protein, fiber, low carb), had a (supervised) bath, brushed their teeth and watched a movie (with an uplifting message) with a homemade bed (so good that a doc would approve it for the lumbar) on the living room floor (vacuumed).

If Lance was tending the boys they would have~ eaten what was readily available..maybe a dinner of: crackers, cereal, dry Ramen noodles, and pancake mix; drank from the faucet, skipped a bath, wrestled until pure exhaustion, passed out on the living room floor (no homemade bed included) while watching their 3rd hour of the Simpsons, and there might possibly be a small fire on the stove:)

I couldn't imagine our family dynamics without Lance Albern. He makes it pretty easy to love him.

Muscle Man and Freckle Face

Muscle Man. He gets more ripped when basketball training starts...It's a sight to behold.





Freckle Face. So cute. I was called freckle face as a kid. But this kid owns it. With the big blues and mile smile. I love it.
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I think I post for myself. So when it comes times to put it all in a book, it will be my super-sweet journal with pictures! So, for those 5 of you that check my blog and think I post too much, realize that I am just logging away the history and tidbits of my family and I have a lot to log away :) One day I am not going to remember it as well. That will be a sad day.

We went to the Indians game in Cleveland and Harbor Port at Lake Erie this weekend. It was amazing. Out of the pics I am to post 2 of my kids for now~ Lance Albern and Trapper. I love kids. There is something adorable, obnoxious and unique about each one. I could have had 35 kids and I bet I would still think it. But then I would live in a shoe...

Just Tinklin'.....

Too bad they haven't found a way to harness the power of urine, because I was just cleaning my downstairs bathroom that my 5 boys use frequently, and.......

Record-Breaking Champ!

"I am the first 4Th grader to ever receive a green belt in the school."

I mean really, those words make a mom proud.

Trapper has received a white, yellow, orange, green and purple belt.....of the recorder :)




He is even at the point that he is mentoring others in this fine musical skill. He helps Brianna, our next-door-neighbor girl, whom can't quite master the yellow belt :)


and


he serenades us as we walk to the end of the driveway to wait for the bus.



Just look at how methodical he (pretends for the pic) plays...and plays....and plays.



It's no surprise that his band teacher is a guy (a good looking guy if you are to ask Shylee): the system is Karate colored "belts" ~a sign of passing off a song on the recorder. The belts are strings they tie at the bottom of their recorders :)




Trapper reminds me of me...very goal oriented. Someone tells him if you do this, you will get this, he is ALL over it!!





I hope everyone has a song in their heart they can hum, sing or whistle to. I hope it helps put a hop in their step :)

Maybe the song could be Old MacDonald, or Row, Row, Row Your Boat.


Just know my son is the champ at it :)

Puppies

I also posted pics on my Facebook photos. There are more there. They were born this morning at 7 am. We had a family contest when they would be born and how many and Fisher won both categories:)

Moqui had 6 puppies. 2 black and white, 2 brown and white, 1 all brown, one all black.

We bred her with Debbie and Greg's "Black Dog." He is half black lab half Spring Spaniel and Moqui is Springer Spaniel. It's a lovely mix :)

Don't mind the disgusting blanket. It gets changed tomorrow:)

Wood You? We Wood!

It has been a busy few weeks, and will be for a few more. We heat with a wood burner. So, here on the o'l homestead we are cutting, hauling and stacking wood. The kids and Lance work very hard and we stay warm because of it. I made sure they had a nice warm dinner and dessert (of course) to come inside for and I try to keep the kids alive and away from the chainsaw and falling trees.

The kids and I will go outside to carry, stack and watch dad and the older kids fall trees. The younger kids like to monkey around on the trees. Our neighbor (awesome neighbor) let us borrow his log splitter, so that's a step up from last year's ax throwing at 5:30 in the morning (ouch!)!

You can see where the wood is stacked now. By the time we are finished the stack under the eves will be entirely filled. We still have to carry in more wood Lance has cut. Then we will split and stack. We will do this for a few more weeks.

There is a part of me that will miss this when we move. I bet you have memories like this. That every time you smell hardwood in a wood stove it takes you back to some memory as a child.

The kids are getting an awesome experience. Its also nice to sit in the family room with a roasting fire all cozy on a winters night!! But I won't mention the 2 am stoking or 5:30 splitting (oops I already did:)

PS Do You like how Lance Albern is the Great Thinker! Poser!

Watch Out!

Rider was talking extensively about how when we see bad guys we should kill them, and if they are in our yard we should kill the bad guys, and if they come up to us, we should kill the bad guys.

So, I try and tell him that we shouldn't just kill a bad guy right when we see him
and Rider quickly states

"No, first we have to aim!" (Then we kill 'em!)

Happy 40th Birthday Lance!

Customize a picture slideshow

Black balloons? I can't decide. 40 doesn't seem too bad. Lance has definitely put in a strong 40 years! Talk about your hard worker! He joked last night that he couldn't go through a mid-life crisis even if he wanted to because we couldn't afford a new sports car!!!

I hope I get to enjoy at least 40 more years with him:) The last 18 have been pretty awesome!
Happy Birthday Lance!

First Day Back to School!

I have to rewind a bit and let you in on the harrowing 12 hours before. Although it doesn't include a loss of a limb or decapitation, it was close :)

Shylee wanted her hair colored. I am great with 1, I repeat 1 color pulled through a cap. But Shylee, being a dreamer, wanted 2.

I thought I had it all under control until the first color I put on, which was brown (on the box) turned out green. No worries, I knew how to fix it! I corrected it with a bit of bleach, which I tried only to leave on for a few minutes, just long enough to get the green out, but it was still too long.

Upon inspection everything looked good. So, then we proceeded to highlight. That is where things went askew (apparently the green was just child's play). Her roots were ......how's a nice way to put it, strawberry blond, orange.

For the most part I thought I knew what I was doing, even when I went wrong, I always was SO sure that I knew how to fix it! So at midnight I went down to Wal-Mart (20min away) and got another color. We put it on like a rinse, for maybe 5 minutes tops. TOO LONG! Now her hair had this beautiful silverish hue.

At this point she is bawling hysterically, like there was no coming back from it, like Anne of Green Gables would say: Shylee was in the "depths of despair."

I knew how to correct silver :) So we put a little bleach on for a few minutes and then her hair was at least back to the original state that she loathed the first time:)
I was so proud of her confidence in the end. She starting changing the way she thought about it. She said "I have nice clothes, and I am pretty, so what if my hair isn't prefect. It will just make for a great story to tell my friends." If that's not cool, what is?

If you will look on my Facebook pages, her hair looks fine. It's not entirely damaged:) And hey, at least I knew how to fix it.......

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=70046&id=1017568487&l=f5f4405eba

More Peas

We were all making pea puns at dinnertime

and my husband stole

the show when he quietly sat back down
after dinner was over

and made his


"Peas Offering" plate.

We all had a good laugh.

The Visiting Teaching Movie

The truthfulness of this movie is hilariously ironic! Found it posted on Facebook.

Rider Ridin' and Old Dog Paco

Uncle Luke was nice enough

to give Rider


a few rides on his mare.

Grandpa gave Rider a ride too
but I didn't have any pics left
on my camera.

But here's to the both of you "thanks a ton!"


Grandma and Grandpa have an old dog, Paco.
The kids have really become compassionate towards him.

Anytime it would rain or get windy they would ask if

they could bring Paco in. Now mind you, we had our own
dog there too, Moqui. But they didn't mention bringing her in when the weather would be inclement!

We have some great family reunion pics,
but they will have to wait until Shylee gets home:)

I can't wait to post my pics of my adorable "Dapper Dan." It will be a hoot!