Breaking the Silence

This blog has been pretty silent for a while now, and it certainly isn't because we haven't been doing anything or don't have anything to report. It's because we have been in an Internet Black Hole for the last few days. I don't have time now to go into all the details, but here are some of the highlights:

• Weston completed his "13 Poster" and celebrated with a couple of games of pool and dinner at the local bowling alley.
• The kids finished up their CC semester and another month of school.
• We attended an amazing live performance of "The Miracle Worker" at the local community theater.
• We had a rockin' tamale-making party, complete with costumes, Latino music and our beloved Florez (a painting which, unfortunately, cannot be described). 
• I had a baby check-up, in which everything looked and sounded good.
• Ruth more than accomplished another AR reading goal by reading the unabridged version of "The Three Musketeers," which, by itself, is worth 42 AR points! 
• We made the trek out to the family ranch, where my father-in-law killed an enormous bull elk and Ruth shot her first deer--a beautiful 8-point black tail!
• We enjoyed a delicious Thanksgiving dinner in a rustic environment.
• Weston turned 5!
• We made another road trip to visit my side of the family. Here, we had another birthday party for Weston, read a family history (which includes Daniel Boone's brother and a lady named Elvira), and devoured another Thanksgiving dinner.
• Max is pretty much wearing underwear full-time now, with only a few accidents here and there.

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and enjoyed all the time spent with family! We truly have so much to be thankful for, as you can see just from this short list! I hope that I will be able to add pictures of all our adventures at some point, but I'm not making any promises.

5th Birthday Party

Progress

Well, I did get a good surprise today, as it turns out. The most recent draft of our house plan came back from the draftsman today, and it is the closest to what we actually want of any of the plans we have received so far. It still needs to be tweaked a bit, but we feel like we are moving in the right direction. We still have no idea when any actual building will take place, but this certainly has to be taken care of first--and has to be right--before we can move on. A couple of weeks ago, we felt like we were moving backward, so forward progress is definitely a good thing. Stay tuned in the coming months for the rest of the story.

Surprises

Consider this a continuation of yesterday's post.

I generally love surprises, but tonight at 9:00, when we finally managed to get the children moving in the direction of bed, I received two surprises that I wasn't the least bit fond of. The first was the announcement from a certain little boy that his sheets were all wet from an accident LAST night. This is never one of my favorite surprises, but when I'm hearing about it for the first time all day at bedtime, and I have to scramble around to get new bedding, I like it much less. 

After dealing with this crisis, I walked into the boys' bathroom to turn off the light and noticed that the toilet had not been flushed, as per usual. I reached over and flicked the flusher, and nothing happened. A closer look showed that someone (and I know who, because I could hear him banging around upstairs while he was supposed to be napping) had unrolled an entire roll of toilet paper into the toilet, sufficiently clogging it. Short on patience and equipment, I reached in with my bare hand to handle the situation (which certainly could have been worse), and then spent the next 10 minutes washing and re-washing my hands "just to be sure." Again, this is never a fun surprise, but it is considerably less fun at 9:00 pm, when all you want is for your kids to go to bed so you can prop your feet up. 

Such is life, I guess. Hopefully, tomorrow will bring a few good surprises. 

Boys

Being raised by a single-mom and having only a sister did not prepare me for the ways of boys. So, I'm getting my boy-training now. And I can tell you, the wiring is really different. There is a crazy obsession with bodily functions and parts. And critters. My boys capture new "pets" everyday, and today, I heard Max say he had caterpillar juice on his hand! Pockets are a prerequisite for dressing. And, not only are our jeans "stone-washed," but most of our other laundry is as well. Because all these little pockets hold a myriad of gravelly treasures. Hitting is a form of affection. And apparently, dropping something on a hard surface to see if it will break is a form of admiration. Boys don't get off of a piece of furniture; they jump off. Or roll off. Or slither. Or bounce. Sound effects are built in. Boys come preprogrammed with truck sounds, monster sounds, all the animal sounds (extinct, living and as yet undiscovered), train sounds, gun sounds, and tons of others sounds--some of which are not identifiable except by boys under a certain age. All are loud. Things are taken apart just to see if they can be put back together. And gravity is defied on a regular basis. It is certainly a different world than the one I grew up in, but it definitely keeps a mom on her toes. And I have to say, if you've never received a monster kiss or hug, you are missing out. 

Who says chivalry is dead?

In an effort to explore the new world around us, we headed over to Llano for dinner tonight. After a yummy meal at The Burger Bar, we made a stop at the grocery store for a few staples. I came up to the check-out line just seconds after a group of hunters with a full cart. They quickly realized what a light load I had compared to theirs and insisted I go ahead of them. As I thanked them and sat my two gallons of milk and carton of eggs on the counter, one of these kind gentlemen found his voice. "You look like a pretty good cook," he boomed. "We ought to just take you along with us!" I'm still not sure if it was my girth or my gender that led him to that conclusion, but my favorite (tongue-in-cheek) comment came from the female checker: "I have no idea what you can make with just eggs and milk, but you sure look like you could do it well!" I almost laughed out loud because Jeff and I had just been talking and laughing over dinner about a ridiculous man-on-the-street interview in The Onion (a spoof newspaper) where an old man was asked what he thought about the first woman to be elected president of Brazil. He answered that he'd be perfectly fine with it if the number was changed to "millionth" and the place was changed to "the kitchen." I wish I had had the wherewithal to tell Mr. Hunter that if he really wanted to have a fine meal prepared for him, he should go out to the van and talk to my husband.

Weekend at the ranch

Field Trip Pictures

Waiting for the show to begin

Posing with Mariposa

Guitar Man

Pickin' and Grinnin'

Shake it up, Baby 

Making Music