Craft #1

I'm not committing to anymore posts. I have some great plans for some fun crafts with the boys this week, but I do not know how many I'll done.

But these are the first. They are chocolate covered marshmellows rolled in goodness. I am not a big fan of marshmellows but the ones rolled in nuts are yummy.

The boys got hermit crabs this week. They really freak me out but I will post pictures tomorrow. Cody will be bathing his today.

Merry Christmas

I'm stealing this idea from my cousin. Merry Christmas & this is your Christmas card.

I have no update on the Blue Screen of Death - still getting it at home & not at the computer repair place & still do not know what's causing it.

Blue Screen of Death

This is what my computer has been doing for the last week. The problem had been getting progressively worse, but it would make my computer reboot. Well this problem kept occuring & my computer was set to reboot every time this screen came up.

I have a friend that fixes computers & they refer to this screen as the "blue screen of death". They told me that the name is worse than the real problem but I did not believe them. My computer was doing this just once a day but it go so bad it was doing it every time I turned the dumb thing on. So I took it in yesterday to get fixed. I was there 30 minutes and the screen never came up. So, he fixed it so it would not reboot & then this screen would stay up & I could get the code from it so he could trouble shoot from there. Well, as soon as I got home the blue screen of death came up again. So I called & gave him the code. He told me to bring it back so he could check a couple of things. I took it back today & I was there for over an hour and it did not show up & everything he checked was fine.

Long story short he narrowed down that it was "enviornmental" and asked me what all I had plugged into my computer at home & when I told him, he informed me that it was my wireless mouse. And sure enough it is. BUT I am not sure if the whole mouse is the problem or just the fact that it needed a new battery. Because the light has been on for a week that it needed a new battery. But when I got home & turned on my laptop WITHOUT plugging in the wireless mouse it still gave me the blue screen, I had to actually take out the battery before it fixed the problem. I have not put in a new battery yet because I am afraid. I will try it tonight. Wish me luck, otherwise I will be getting a new mouse.

OOPS never mind all that - I still just got the blue screen of death - NEXT???

Citizen of the Month

Brayden was Citizen of the month for November, for his class. Every class chooses a citizen. Every month they have a “character word.” November’s character word was Citizenship. Which meant being loyal to your country. I asked how Brayden demonstrated being a good citizen and he said that he did not know. At least he is honest. They have the same character words every year & he has never been citizen of the month before so I guess some how he showed good citizenship.

My guess is that in October & November they did a lot of studying of the elections. And Brayden seemed very political, so maybe the teacher saw that & realized that he was loyal to his country by being so active in the political system. Or something like that. But seriously, he was very interested in the elections.

Leftover Night

I have been a bad blogger because I have been sucked into the Facebook world.

But last night was our first of many Left Over Nights. I do not like leftovers therefore I do not keep left overs. I guess I also thought that if we were going to eat leftovers then we needed enough of one meal to re feed all of us again. But the other night I was somewhere where we each picked out which leftover meal that we wanted. What a novel idea. It is weird how we just think in a box sometimes & the simplest ideas are right in front of us.

SO, last night & every Wednesday night will be left over night. It was as to be expected. Mediocre at best. I know lots of people that just eat left overs when they do not feel like cooking. And when I do not feel like cooking I microwave a dinner or some easy thing. If we ate them when I did not feel like cooking, I would not feel like eating left overs that night either. Looking forward to next week!

Do you eat left overs?

Thanksgiving Pictures

Here are some pictures from our Thanksgiving this year. We had 23 people, including all of the kids.

This is my mom with my 2 Grandpas. Her dad & Marvin's dad.


This is our group at the table.


The kids sat at the bar, expect Neviah, she sat next to her mom at the table.

Mom instructed everyone to take a picture of the couple sitting accross from you. This is my grandpa & Esther.

This was the couple sitting across from Marvin - empty seats (not the walker). Matt & Eric were not there yet. They both came late.

Grandpa & Grandma

Uncle Phil - Aunt Evelyn did not make it.

Mom & Marvin. She did a really good job with Thanksgiving dinner. We had a nice time. The weather was great & we had TONS of food.

Sam & Teri. They left right after dinner to head to his family's in Arkansas.

Ashley & Neviah. They left right after dinner too to go back home to Oklahoma.

Eugene & Sarah or Richie is his real name.

Me & J

Uncle Rick & Aunt Mona came from Oregon.

Matt made it just as we all had started.

Eric made it too.

Brayden Video

Every Tuesday Brayden's school does Rise & Shine Assemblies & each week a different class does a "show case". This week Brayden's class demonstrated their progress of learning sign language. They signed "Take Me Out to the Ball Game."

Another Weekend in the Windy City

I was off to Chicago again this weekend. But I brought a little piece of home with me this time. My friend Suzanne & I traveled to Chicago together. She has friends & family there so we decided to go up & hang out. We spent one evening together, but then she spent the rest of the time with friends.
Friday night Jeremy & I went to PF Changs, it was super good as usual. Actually it was better than usual, but it could be because I had a real taste for it. We went to the one downtown, which was a bad idea. We had a hard time parking, we had to fight traffic & we had to pay $19.00 to park!!!

Then we met up with Suzanne and a couple of her friends for a couple of hours.

Saturday we just hung out & did a lot of nothing. But we did spend some time babysitting Jeremy's niece/god daughter Sophia. As you can see we have some mad babysitting skills. We were having fun, but I do not think Sophia felt the same way. When Chris, Jeremy's brother, got there he informed us that she had never been left with anyone other than the sitter & grandparents & she had NEVER been left without her big sister. So we were pretty excited about that. But this was right when they left. It only lasted about 5 minutes then she was totally fine!

Sunday we went to see Role Models. UBER funny!!! Then we did some shopping. And I got to see my first snow fall of the year.

I refuse...

I refuse to fall into the trap of letting Christmas take over Thanksgiving. I took this picture of a house in our neighborhood on November 13!! Not only did they already decorate, they already have lights on!!

Personally, I find it very annoying. Thanksgiving in not a 2nd rate holiday. I understand that "Branson" starts celebrating Christmas in November to take advantage of the vacation season but we are not out to make money on tourists so the residents should leave the Christmas season to revenue generating operations.

I guess these people are thankful for Christmas!

MAHA

Missouri Association of Hospital Auxiliaries

The hospital auxiliary is a volunteer organization that raises money for the hospital. This past year I was the President Elect for our auxiliary so I was able to go to the annual convention at Tan-Tar-A resort in Osage Beach.

Like this picture demonstrates, I am by far one of the youngest volunteers. But I don't mind because I enjoy volunteering and I am hoping to re-evaluate my volunteering time & maybe going to expand into other areas of the hospital.

I will not be an officer next year and I am sad that I will not be able to go. Because believe it or not I enjoyed it AND I learned a lot about the auxiliary. Mainly, that I should have done more for the auxiliary and that we do raise money for good causes. So I decided to "rededicate" myself to the auxiliary.

Planes, Traines & Automobiles

I have had several posts regarding my different experiences with airplane travel. Most of my stories were about the airlines themselves or delays in the airport. I have not had too many about people that I have met.

On auto trips, it is usually me & the boys. So nothing too exciting there on road trips either. They all have been pretty uneventful.

BUT, within my 2nd train ride, I had one of the most unusual experiences we the passengers:

Part 1 - St. Louis to Bloomington Normal, IL

There is this middle aged lady sitting a row in front of me to the right. She is talking to a lady a row in front of her & I am just being nosey. So, she is telling the other lady that she is going home from St. Louis & she had some type of medical thing done in St. Louis. She proceeds to tell the lady that when she gets home she is going to a wedding on Halloween. The wedding is in the morning & the reception is a costume part at night. So this story gets my attention & I then start taking more of an interest in this lady. They finish their conversation and the middle aged lady goes to the snack cart & gets some type of Vodka drink. This lady is hard core because she makes the drink & downs half of it in one drink. I am thinking that this could get interesting. Some time later I notice she is throwing up. She is still in her seat! I walk past her to throw something away & on my way back I decide to assess the situation a little more. Well she has a cup & she is leaning over in her seat throwing up. I listen to her for about 20 minutes. The whole time she does not leave her seat & the whole time I am totally getting grossed out & thinking that I should do something. At one point someone calls her & she answers the phone & tell them that she is sick & hangs up. Then someone else calls her & she answers. She talks on the phone & continues to throw up while she is on the phone!!

Then she finally stops, composes herself & takes another call. I hear her telling the person on the phone that the Dr. in St. Louis told her that she is on the list for a new LIVER, but she cannot have a transplant until her cancer is in remission. I'm not quite sure what type of cancer she has but she has liver problems & I'm guessing the Vodka does not help. Well she tells the person on the phone that she thinks that she has the flu. I'm thinking it was the trip to the Dr. mixed with the Vodka. But whatever.

Then the lady makes ANOTHER call & tells the person on the other line that she LOST her teeth. Where? When? I'm not sure, but she had no teeth when I saw her again.

Part 2 - Bloomington Normal to Chicago

After the first part of the trip I was really looking forward to a quite end, no such luck. The guy sitting right in front of me apparently was aware of everything going on next to him too, so the told everyone that wanted to sit across from him that a lady was throwing up the whole time. Well a lot of people boarded the train. There was a guys sitting behind me that realized that he knew some relatives of the lady sitting across from him because he was CELL MATES with them!! So I find out that he has been in & out of prison for the past 10 years & I got to hear 2 or 3 of his stories on how he made it to prison. THEN he informs the girl that the guys in the front of the car all just got out of prison. There were like 10 of them. That made me EXCITED! I was never so happy to get off the train. (Did not take pictures of them)

Cards

I have recently started a small card group at my house. We play the last Wednesday of every month. This is our 3rd time playing. We decided (or I decided) to make it a dress up time. So here is our group. One - did not dress up...

So here are the non-party poopers.

We meet from 12-3 PM. That way we do not take away from "family" time. We bring food & we are done by the time school lets out - as we all have kids in school. It has worked out really well so far.

The Great Pumpkin

Or 6 great pumpkins.The first 3 started at the pumpkin patch. We went there with Brayden's cub scout pack. Cody picked out an extra one for me.

Then we got 3 more. The boys & their friend Vince enjoyed some eats with their carving time.

Vince had to show his mom that I fed him well while he was with me.

The finished products. We are all a bunch of traditionalists. I helped Brayden if you could not tell. And mine is at the end. Brayden went the extreme with eye brows & you cannot see but he has a tear drop & a drool drop.

Cody got more creative with the asymetric eyes.

Vince's had a great smile on his as you can see below in the dark.

Eckelkamp Wedding

The night before the wedding Matt drove up from OKC & Jeremy flew in from Chicago & the three of us went to a Haunted House. Fun stuff. Matt made a new BFF with the clown in the fun mirror maze part.

The man at the door but not dressed too scary.

Got up & headed to St. Louis at 9:00 AM on Saturday.

We stopped in Springfield to pick up Liz's boyfriend Drew.

View of the arch from our room. Thanks, Matt.

Ted & Emily got married outside. It was a little cool in the shade but a very nice day.

Uncle Phil offering a prayer.

The proud Grandparents. A great night.

SNL

I'm sure most of you saw this, but it totally made me laugh!

Weekend Update

Weekend update with Kira Perkins, yes it is, no it's not, just kidding, yes it is...

Ryan, Katie, Matt, Ashley & Neviah all came into town this past weekend so it was fun filled cousin Saturday. Starting with pedicures for Matt, Katie & I. And ending with Nertz with many more family members. And a birthday dinner for Ashley in between.

Katie looks happy here, but her experience with the pedicure was not so much all smiles.
Matt's looking good & being entertained during his pedicure with his girl that was extra talkative.
Mine was the only normal one, but my mouth does not look normal. I look like a have a LOT of lipstick on & chocolate all over my face. Thanks Katie for not telling me I had chocolate all over my lips. Us at dinner. Neviah has grown up so much. I MISS HER. She is so big.

She also knows what she wants. She wanted to sit in GG's lap so she made herself comfy there.

Allen Wedding

A couple of weekends ago, we went to my friend Ashley's wedding. She married Stetson. I left my camera in the car, so I have limited photos.



But here is Brayden dancing with the bride.



And yes that is a Bingo board in the back.