Happy New Years!

We are snowed in on New Years Eve and having a great "at home" day. The girls have been playing in the foot of snow and Milo is trying to play, but he's not very big yet and gets snow balls stuck on his underside. He does like to be outside though! I have to work a night shift tonight and our kind neighbor will drive me in his 4 wheeled drive truck. I wouldn't get past the stop sign right on our corner.
Wishing you all a very Happy New Years!

Look who's home!

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Originally uploaded by Omega Man.

It was an extremely happy day yesterday as the newest family member came home. This is Milo. He's 6&1/2 wks old and he's very sweet. Becky was a good mama last night and tended to his whines. He's getting lots of attention to help him not miss his mama and sister.

New Baby!

Milo
Originally uploaded by Omega Man.

This is the baby boy we are adopting! The girls have named him Milo and he's a sweet little fella. He may come home as early as next weekend....Yipes! His mama is weaning him and he's eating solid food already. He's definately going to be loved!

Pippi

Pippilotta Viktualia Rullgardina Krusmynta Efraimsdotter Långstrump
Originally uploaded by Omega Man.

Halloween has come and gone and my thighs will need some stair work soon. Jenny declared that this day is the second best day of the year, Christmas being the 1st. I'm surprised her birthday didn't rank but she is the kid who LOVES candy. She needs to be thankful for her skinny genes.
Isn't she cute?

Young kids...

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Originally uploaded by Jalosa.

Anyone recognize this fine looking couple? Well, hard to believe this was 17 years ago today. It was a beautiful, HOT fall day that I got to marry a guy who was full of surprises and still is. Thanks honey!

Friends....

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Originally uploaded by Omega Man.

We had a great afternoon at a corn maze this afternoon with a bunch of friends. I particularily like this picture of me and my good friend Karen. She's looking for the easy exits! (we made it without having to use them)

The other woman...

Well, my husband is in love with another. Her name in Mini....Mac. He brought her home yesterday and spent all evening gazing and learning all about her. She's all sparkly and new and even worse...tiny! She does have some good points...she's made him very happy and of course, I'm sure we've got much more memory now!

Rare

Well, usually Daryl is the one taking pictures and occassionally, I have the camera in hand. Here's a photo of us together taken by my brother in law, who got our camera in his hands. As you can see, I always take my supermodel background seriously and have posed for you. (HA!)
A completely different topic, the kids are back to school and mama is home alone during the day. I am contemplating another pet. Vinnie doesn't love me like Oreo did and I'm thinking of a small dog to baby. We went to the humane society once and only found big, black barking dogs and one that could jump like a kangaroo. The kittens were tempting but we did not cave yet. I'm sure our home has room for one more furball to love.

Painting

Well, the summer is flying by and we are getting some chores accomplished at home. I have started painting the house after we had a lady come in and help us choose colors. I am almost done this color, just the kitchen walls inbetween the cupboards etc to go. It's called old salem grey, which is really a green hue. Daryl also built a shelf to go above the piano in the alcove, something he/we have wanted for awhile. The kids are off to camp for the week and next week we plan to do some camping as a family.

Shade

Well, for those of you who know our yard, we have been shadeless due to the lack of trees in new developments. Our backyard faces south and I have an inability to stay in the sun for prolonged periods. I have been begging Daryl for some sort of shelter. Well, here is our newest addition that I am quite pleased about. I am totally ready to go read a book tomorrown under it's shade. You can drop in and have a cool drink with us too, we are willing to share our shade!

3 F's

Today is the day before mother's day. I am sure I will be enjoying breakfast in bed, although Daryl just checked the fridge and there is no bacon, which is a favorite breakfast treat. He blamed the girls for not thinking ahead....sheesh! I'll accept whatever their breakfast consists of, I'm not fussy. The mother's day treats began today though. I received these lovely flowers, we had a fire this evening with yummy smores and there were fireworks in southdale that we could see and hear perfectly. What a nice start to "my" day tomorrow.

Spring Cleaning

If someone tells me I need a pencil, crayon, pen or marker...they are mistaken! I think we have enough to last us for the rest of my time here on earth and maybe more. We are cleaning up our basement to finish it out and have "combined" all the loose writing utensils in this home. It's ridiculous! Make sure I don't buy any pencils for the kids this fall, they can use what we have.
Our garbage man will be busy again this week. Old pillows, carpet, boxes and non sentimental (even the odd one of those) stuff is hitting the curb.
Not to mention the pile for the garage sale (I'd rather give it away) but the girls want to make some money. Our neighborhood has one in a few weeks that is popular, so if we can make a few bucks, it will be worth it.
If anyone wants to come and help....feel free! It's way easier to throw away someone else's stuff!

Happy Easter!

Well, it's almost Easter and the weather has been great! We've even had thundershowers already. Daryl and I started on some raking and lawn work, we had voles chew up some of our grass (as did many of our neighbors) Yesterday I bought a wheelbarrow, I'm not sure how we made it through the previous lawn/gardening stuff without it. It's a beauty! 2 wheeled, self dumping...a woman's wheelbarrow! I was trying to put it together before Daryl got home from work but that didn't work out so well. He has that stupid gift of being able to put stuff together without even looking at the directions, it would have taken me til next week to get all the right screws and bolts in the right spot. Today I am in the process of making paska and I boiled eggs for the girls to dye. Wishing you all a wonderful Easter weekend!

Spring has sprung, the grass is green...

So, it's April 1st and it feels like spring is well on it's way. The snow is melting at a tremendous rate and the fresh air is so good.
We went to the Brandon Winter fair this week and met my sister and her family there. These are some new farm babies we saw, the girls all had a wonderful time. Another spring item, I filed our tax returns today after much frustration with the program we got. I started on tuesday and we had a very short power outage which lost all the info I had entered. Daryl's comment, "save early, save often". Advice that was "a little late". Hopefully the refund will push all bad memories to the back of my memory, I'm sure it will once I'm out spring shopping!

Farewell good friend

We had to say good bye to our great family dog last week. Sam was 14 going on 15 years old. Daryl and I acquired him in 1994 from someone who could not afford to take care of him anymore. He was a great family dog and I am the one who probably misses him the most as he figured out years ago that he was probably going to get the most love and human food from me. I still wait for the bark when the doorbell rings and breadcrusts now go in the garbage (what a waste).I am sure he's exploring doggy heaven and enjoying every minute of it!

Every Cat needs a Hat

No, it's not from Dr.Suess, but in Becky's world, it's a true statement! Isn't our Vinnie cute? Becky made this (her 1st) hat in about 1 hour with her new nifty knitter. Our friend Martin and his daughter got her started and she spent her $20 from Grandpa on it and the yarn. She's working on the second one, this one will have a brim and she may give it to her piano teacher who is almost due with her second baby.

? Scary neighborhood

So, yesterday morning I got up and out our front window was a police cruiser sitting beside our neighbors house. Not a biggie...maybe something was stolen. About an hour later, the picture you see is not one car but three. Eventually it was down to one car all day. As I left in the afternoon, around the corner was another car. It looked like they were waiting for someone!
Later around 4 when I was coming home with the girls there were about 1/2 a dozen ghost and marked police cars. So, I rolled down my window and asked if I should be concerned as I live the neighborhood. He said not really, they were about to enforce a warrant. Now I'm wondering....a warrent...for what? Must be realitively important as they used a lot of police hours to wait for the guy!

Wow

This is a picture of luxury and comfort. Daryl and I bought our 1st brand new mattress after 16yrs of marriage. I jokingly have said we wore the other one out, truth be told, the old one was a hand me down and was in dire need of replacement. This mattress is incredibly thick and if I were vertically challenged, I'd need a step stool to get into bed. I can literally swing my legs when sitting on the edge. If we have overnight guests anytime soon, I will be very hard pressed to give it up . I LOVE it!

Winter camp

I had the pleasure of attending winter camp for the past 3 days with the grade 5&6's from WMES. It was exhausting and a lot of fun all rolled into one. They had the kids very busy from breakfast to bedtime and more. Cross country skiing, winter skills (building a shelter...survivor like), tubing as well as using the very popular DOD's (disc's of death) and snowshoeing. Then the games...Spies and Chaos and today was capture the flag.
Becky and I are ready for bed and it's only 6PM. I was the only Mom to go down the tubeslide on the DOD, it was frightening and fabulously fast. A little jarring for old backs though! The dads were very competitive and tried to get distance, I was happy just to survive.