He's Quick

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My oldest son and I were having a conversation about the sad state of the world and Hostess going out of business. I told him how the shelves at the grocery store that usually held Hostess products were completely empty today. 

He then said, "This must have been what the Mayans were predicting."
Love that kid and his quick wit!

It was a rough weekend.

Do you ever have those weeks, or in my case weekends, where everything just feels heavy, wrong and difficult?

And when it's all said and done you have to remind yourself that life is still good and you've been blessed with so much?

I had one of those weekends last week.

It started out good.

My husband and our oldest boy headed off last Thursday to LasVegas to run in the Ragnar relay race.

They were excited and prepared and it even looked like the weather was going to cooperate....mostly.

 Besides snow at the beginning of the race at the top of Mt.Charleston and a strong headwind later in the race I think the weather mostly did cooperate and they had a good time.

Back at home however things weren't looking so good. A terrible storm was blowing in and earlier in the week our dog started eating less and having a bit less energy.

I guess we weren't too worried because she's been getting older and she kind of normally acts that way when the weather changes.

But by Thursday evening she was not doing well.

First thing Friday morning I took her to the vet and her prognosis was not good.

I took her home and hoped to nurse her through the weekend until my husband and son got home.

Unfortunately by Friday night it was apparent that she wasn't going to make it through the night.

Each of the kids said goodbye to her and we all cried.

She'd only been with us for a couple of years but she was truly a part of the family.

These pictures were taken the day we brought her to live with us.

Can you tell she especially loved my husband?

 She filled a place in our hearts we needed to have filled with unconditional, excited, happy, silly, slobbery, warm love.

Our youngest girl, who started out being terrified of dogs, ended up being McCall's greatest fan.

Early Saturday morning McCall passed away in her sleep.

It was hard.

I wasn't sure what to do because I'd hurt my back Friday carrying our sweet dog to the car and back.

She wasn't a small dog.

So I called my neighbor and asked him if he could help me.

What a blessing good neighbors are.

Friday night it snowed too. Something to the tune of 15 inches. It was a lot.

So my neighbor and his wife even helped me shovel the drive-way.

Calling my boy on the race and telling him about McCall was one of the hardest things I've ever done.

We were a pretty sorry sight around here all day Saturday, we were depressed and I was in pain.

So we decided to go see Brave at the dollar theater. That was a nice distraction but the best part was when I fell asleep for half of it.

Late Saturday, early Sunday morning, my little girl started throwing up........

As is often the case with little ones the stomach flu hit in the middle of the night and she didn't make it to a place that could contain the mess. Needless to say it was everywhere.

Around 4 AM my husband and son came through the door after driving all night, they were exhausted but happy and I was happy to have reinforcements arrive.

Unfortunately one of their team mates had gotten the stomach flu on the race and passed it around to everyone.

So my man and my boy got sick within a couple of hours of getting home.

I'm sure being exhausted from the race didn't help either.

Luckily only 3 of our 7 ended up getting it. That was a blessing too.

After spending Sunday cleaning and disinfecting and nursing I was exhausted both mentally and physically. And I was happy the weekend was over.

I think it's going to take a while for all of us to mourn our sweet McCall, but we are so grateful we were able to have her for the short time we did.

Today I looked out the back window into the yard and it just felt empty.

She was deeply loved. 

The neighbor who helped me this weekend has offered to give us a puppy when their dog has puppies in a couple of months.

I think I need a little time. It just feels too soon. The kids are split, a couple of them want a new dog right away a couple of them don't. I guess we'll see.

Sorry this has been a little bit of a depressing post.

Thanks for reading.

Sometimes......

Sometimes my daughter turns 16 (the age we told her, years ago, she could start dating) and thinks she needs to date.....

Sometimes I'm not sure what I think about that.

Sometimes the Christmas dance is girls choice and she thinks she needs to ask someone to go to the dance with her......

Sometimes I'm not sure what I think about that.

And then

I decide its better to 

get over it

and 

get with it

and

have some fun with my girl.

So that's what I did!

What we did!

Really, who could say no to that face?

So we bought all of the grape candy and soda we could find

We designed and printed the label (see picture up at the top of the post) and put it on the 2 L. grape soda bottle

and tied it all together with some cellophane and purple curly ribbon.

It was pretty cute (If I do say so myself).

Then she had her adorable little brother and sister deliver it to his house.

They went to the door with the treats and rang the door bell.

It was supposed to go like this.

" Hi, is (young man) here?"

give treat to young man

"This is from my sister."

"Have a good night."

It went like this.

"Hi, can I see (young man)?"

His little sister, "No. He's not here"

"Oh"

Young man's dad, "Who's at the door?"

Little sister, "I don't know. Someone with treats....for (young man)."

Dad comes to the door.

"Hi, can I see (young man)?"

Dad, "No, I'm sorry, he's not here."

"Oh, I was supposed to give this to him."

Dad smiles and laughs, "Oh really? I can make sure he gets it. He'll be home soon. Who's it from."

"Ummm.....my sister."

Dad laughing and smiling really big, "Oh wow, that's great! Really? Ok."

Then we walk away.

As I'm letting the kids in the car and My Girl is setting in the front seat (in the dark because I had the forethought to turn the dome light off, it was a smart moment for me (doesn't happen very often)).

The young man comes running right past me and up to the front door.

I guess he'd gone for a run.

I said "Hi"

he said "Hi?"

and he ran into the house.

While my girl sat in the front seat giggling because he never saw her and he had no idea who I was.

Then I got in the car and my girl and I giggled together.

Sometimes it's nice to let your daughter grow up.

Sometimes.....

Yee-Haw, Happy Halloween and Say Boo to the Flu

Wow! Can't believe Halloween has come and gone already!

What an adventure!

The costume season started for our family on Saturday October 27th with a costume birthday party for Sweet Cheeks to attend and a church chili cook-off for the whole family.

I had the privilege of being a judge for the chili-cook-off.

It was interesting but I'm not sure it's something I'd like to do again.

Costumes this year were fun for me and I think they turned out pretty cute.....if I do say so myself.

Like I said before,

After many ideas of what she'd like to be this cute girl finally settled on 

Jessie from Disney's Toy Story.

Honestly, I think her choice was PERFECT!

She is Jessie personified.

She's the rootin'est, tootin'es,t sure shootin'est cowgirl ever!

Doodle chose to be Tintin

Just in case you don't know Tintin you can click here to read more about him

or

just read this from Wikipedia.

The Adventures of Tintin (French: Les Aventures de Tintin) is a series of comic albums created by Belgian artist Georges Remi (1907–1983), who wrote under the pen name of Hergé. The series is one of the most popular European comics of the 20th century, with translations published in more than 50 languages and more than 200 million copies of the books sold to date.^[1]

The first Tintin comic was published in 1929 and a 3D motion capture computer animated film was released in 2011.

When he was telling me what he wanted to be for Halloween I asked him if he thought people would know who he was or if he wanted to wear a name tag.

He told me the people his age would know but older people wouldn't.

Turns out he was right.....

Check out the Tintin hair!

Mr. Man chose to be Davy Crockett this year.

Is he his father's son or what?

Turns out most people thought he was Daniel Boone but don't worry my boy corrected every.single.person. who was wrong.

We told him they were both considered mountain men/explorers and that kind of kept him from being offended.

This picture is Davy preparing to attack a bear.

And

It was really nice to have Davy Crockett around when we were trick-or-treating.

He kept us safe from Cougars and other varmints.

We really couldn't have asked for better trick-or-treating weather.

The kids didn't even need a jacket.

Seriously, the nicest/warmest Halloween I've ever seen.

In years past we've had over 200 trick-or-treat-ers 

and with the weather being so nice I thought we'd have even more.

But we didn't...

I think we had under 100, kind of weird.

We call this version of her costume

Contagious Outlaw Jessie

When she got home from school on Tues. she had a fever.

During the night it spiked to 105 so I took her into the Dr. in the morning.

Turns out she has the true flu.

Luckily we got her in soon enough to take the medicine but she's out of school until Monday.

She had to miss her first class party......Oh the tears were so huge and heartbreaking.

We told her she could still go trick-or-treating but she had to wear a mask and she wasn't allowed to touch ANYTHING. That included doorknobs, doorbells and candy.

When people would say you can choose a candy she'd say, "I'm not allowed to touch any candy."

We got a few strange looks.

Her brother was kind enough to ask her which one she wanted and then he'd grab it and put it in her bag.

Thank goodness for brothers!

The older kids stuck around and passed out candy for us so that MDH and I could take Davy and Jessie trick-or-treating.

Isn't that great!

We had fun with the pumpkins this year.

MDH did a Scooby Doo theme.

I think next year our whole family should dress-up as the Scooby Doo Gang.

Here's Sweet Cheeks Classic Jack

I even tried carving one this year.

S.C. helped me choose Minnie to carve.

Hope you had a fun and safe and healthy Halloween.

 And now we're starting into the month of gratitude.

My favorite month by the way.