Random holiday thoughts

The test pilot has been working hard at earning lego money. He has become quite the chimney sweep. This works out well for all of us. His father loves to have roaring fires many times a week. The mother doesn't particularly enjoy cleaning out the fireplace. The kid wants to earn money. Now we are all happy.

It was pajama day in 1st grade today. He was so excited about this. Of course, Crash wanted in on this too. He spent all day in his pajamas. I, on the other hand, am not a all-day pajama kind of gal.

You know you have been baking a lot when you are excited that a recipe calls for almond extract instead of vanilla extract. Seriously, vanilla extract is in everything.

I love baking. I would rather bake than cook any day. However, I think I am getting to my limit. I can't tell you all the cookies, cakes, brownie-type dishes, cinnamon rolls, dinner rolls, and candies that I have made in the past few weeks. I have a separate baking calendar/schedule. Half of it is for pure enjoyment, the other half has been for various school, work, and church functions for the holidays.

We have colored lights on our tree this year. We have had white lights for as long as we have been the Apple family. The children requested colored lights this year. I am not in love with it. It's messing with my decorating scheme. However, it makes little boys quite happy. I guess it's going to grow on me.

I am not really sure what you would call our current decorating scheme. I used to have lots of sparkly, pretty looking (i.e. breakable) ornaments. This year's Christmas tree is primarily decorated with Jimmy Johnson race cars, Star Wars ornaments, and train ornaments. I don't think we are going to make it into the Southern Living Christmas book anytime soon, unless of course there is a NASCAR edition.

Here's hoping.

They start so young

When my dad gets a new cell phone, he passes the old one down to my kids. They have always loved playing with old cell phones. The Wingman has recently discovered the phone.

He grabs his cell phone, flips it open, and says, "Hi!" There's a lot of gibbering and then he says, "Bye, bye!" He's got all the basics covered.

Occasionally, he gets a hold of mommy's cell phone. So if you ever get a phone call from me and there's just a baby telling you "hi" over and over you will know what's going on.

Snuggle puppy

We are a big fan of Sandra Boynton books in our house. They are silly. They rhyme. They have animals. The boys love them.

"Snuggle Puppy" has become a new nightly reading favorite. Crash and Daddy read it to the Wingman who is just delighted. Crash yells at daddy as he frantically gets his pajamas on, "Wait for me, Dad!" He doesn't want to miss the fun.

There's lots of loving and kissing in the book. Wingman actually loves it. The picture caught him mid-expression but he usually has a big grin.

Thanks to Sandra Boynton. Keep writing your silly stuff.

Raking leaves

We are travelling to be with my in-laws for Christmas. We have been told that they have a LEGO store there. The test pilot can not wait to go see a store that only has legos. His parents, anticipating that there would be a need to buy something there, have instructed the boy he needs to get a job to pay for his lego needs.

He has regular chores that he has to do for no monetary gain just because he is part of the Apple family, but we have come up some extra ones to earn money. Raking leaves is one of them.

So I go and buy him a junior size rake and put him to work. Shortly, Crash is asking to rake. I give the junior rake to Crash and a large rake to the test pilot. Then I realize that Wingman has thrown himself on the ground crying because he doesn't have a rake. I am all out of rakes.

I called the neighbors and ask to borrow a rake because my boys are upset if they can't rake leaves. They just sounds funny to say.

Thankfully everyone had a rake and was able to work. They did a good job and actually enjoyed themselves.

Handsome boys

Here's a shot of my very handsome boys. Of course, I am not biased at all.

Thanks Nana for the Christmas outfits.

These boys look sweet and cute, but don't let them fool you. Yesterday, I had to tell them to get the football out of the Christmas tree 3 times. (That's something I never thought I would say.)

Life with boys...

Christmas tree 2009

Well, we went to our local Wal-mart to buy our Christmas tree. Can I say that sounds a bit odd, but that's what we do. We are those people.

Here's the Captain sizing up the trees.

Here's our 3 little elves who have been so excited all day to go get some Christmas as Crash would say.

This is a picture from the archives of how we used to do the tree thing before kids. The Captain and I would head down to the tree lot. We'd pick out the perfect tree and load it up in the mustang. Driving around town, with the top down (in the freezing cold) , and a tree hanging out of the back of your car definitely gets you some looks.

Now we are the family with the tree on top of the mini-van. Not quite as hip, but that's where we are in life.

Sweaters

I am wading through the mounds of laundry that were created by our latest excursion. Since NM is quite a bit cooler, we got to wear sweaters. Our sweaters don't get much use around our next of the woods. We were all excited to break out the sweaters.

Now I have to clean the sweaters. Why is it that ALL the men's sweaters and my boys' sweaters can be machine washed and dry, but my sweaters have an entirely different cleaning process? My sweaters have to dry cleaned or gentle wash/ lay flat to dry or (my personal favorite) hand wash/ lay flat to dry. Why? I hate to hand wash!!!!!!

Their sweaters will be back in their drawers shortly while two of mine will take 2 days to lay flat to dry and one will be off at the dry cleaners for a couple of days. Why do they do this? Not to mention, I have to find room for the sweaters to lay flat to dry. Agh!!!

Is it a plan to make me buy more sweaters because there is no way you can wash and wear them more than once in a week? Is is just cruelty to women?

Well, some day I will give "them" a piece of my mind. Until then, I will be hand washing sweaters.

Thanksgiving 2009

We had a great Thanksgiving in New Mexico with my family. There was wonderful food and lots of family to see. I love the chocolate pie. Yum!

My new favorite tradition is with the leftover turkey. The Captain takes the leftover turkey and puts it in a croissant with green chili and cheddar cheese and then toasts it. Oh yummy! We ate that twice. I miss New Mexico.

Here's the boys and Grandave. They were all excited to see him, but especially Crash. He has been talking about seeing Grandave for weeks. He started crying when he realized we were driving home and not back to Grandave's house.

My poor mom is going to need some chiropractic care. Wingman's favorite game was to "bump" down the stairs with her. (Essentially going down the stairs on your bottom with cool sound effects from Nana.) They played that game a lot.

Uncle Jason came over for food and football. It wouldn't be Thanksgiving without watching the Cowboys with Uncle Jason.

We had a great time! Can't wait for our next visit.

Something funny

I just had to share something funny, because it happened again yesterday!

When the captain and I got married, I just assumed our children would have dark brown hair and brown eyes. I am the genetic variant in my family with the auburn hair in the midst of the brown headed people.

When the test pilot was born I was proven right. Dark brown hair and dark brown eyes like his mama's.

Then Crash comes along with hazel eyes like daddy and curly red hair. That was a surprise! I love his hair. I am so sad the curls are falling out.

Then comes the Wingman with strawberry blonde hair and blue eyes. (People on the street call him red headed.)

Yes, we have quite the genetic mix in our family.

So yes, we don't look exactly alike, but this is where it gets funny. For example, I will be out with all three of my children and I get asked if they are all three mine. (I think they are thinking that Crash and Wingman look similar making the test pilot the odd man out.)

This has happened 3 times in 3 different settings.

Or they look at the kids with me and say, "Oh, they must look like their father." I try not to take that one as an insult.

It's just amazing that 3 very different little boys can come from the same 2 parents. God is amazing!

AWANA

I am in the middle of my 7th year as a Cubbies leader. Here's a picture of Crash in his vest.

It's hard to believe that I have been involved that long. The first years I promised myself I would never do it again.

The test pilot was 6 months old when I began teaching (or was roped into teaching.) I had no idea what to do with 3 and 4 year olds. I kept wondering if it was "normal" for them to act this way.

(I have learned it is normal and it's just a little crazy especially when there are 20 of them.)

Now I have come to really enjoy it. Here's an example of why I love being involved with Cubbies.

I have this sweet little girl in Cubbies named Rachel. (I am using a pretend name.)

This is Rachel's first year in Cubbies. They go to a different church so I am slowly getting to know her. You know how some kids just attach themselves to an adult for no apparent reason. Well, she has attached herself to me.

Every week she wants to tell me what she has done in school. She is just a sweet child. This past Wednesday, she made me a picture. She had drawn all over the paper. She glued leaves to it. Then she added some glitter. It was beautiful. She was excited to give it to me.

I don't know why she has attached herself to me, but I like it. She keeps me reminded of why I do what I do.

Thank you God for this opportunity to be able to share the Gospel in fun ways with little children and make a difference in their lives!

Too many tables

In case you were not aware there has been an Apple family tradition of using office conference tables as dining room tables. The captain grew up eating at one and for many years we followed the same tradition. Until now.

We were given a set of dining room chairs by my parents a few years ago. They had been the ones my family used when I was growing up. One day we were wandering through our local furniture store and found the table the perfectly matched the chairs. We were astounded. To top it off, it was very reasonable priced.

The Little Apple family has their first real dining room table. I love it. It's simple yet pretty. It works for us.

We were not sure what to do with the conference table. Any one need a table???

It was pushed aside in the dining room and today it looks like this.

The lego kingdom has taken over. Apparently, the boys think they need a desk and a full size table for lego world. I beg to differ.

Please contact me if you would like a free table. Help save my dining room from the invasion of the lego people.

Gold medal reader

At the end of every 6 weeks, the test pilot's school as an awards assembly. The test pilot received the Gold Medal for Reading.

They handed out little medals and even had podiums to stand on for the picture perfect moment. It would help if your mother brought her camera to such things, but we will settle for an after the fact picture.

He was so excited to get his award. He is reading so well, although he is getting picky about his subjects. The books he wants to read are decidedly boy topics such as- Star Wars battles, books about tanks, policemen, firemen, etc. He's growing up!

As I was giving instructions to the test pilot for the picture, I realized the rest of our crew was assembling themselves. I have them trained so well. (Ha!) They went to their "spots" and started smiling. I will take it!

The joys of motherhood

I discovered how to instantaneously ruin your 6 year old's morning- Serve him oatmeal.

I have not had good luck in the past getting anyone to eat this, but I decided to try again. Let's just say it did not go well.

There was lots of complaining.

There was lots of gagging. I thought he might make himself vomit.

There were questions like, "Why do I have to eat this?"

There was crying.

He did finally eat 6 bites very, very reluctantly.

I don't think we are going to have oatmeal anytime soon.

Books

I love to read. I am not sure how that happened. In high school, I had lots of summer reading for English. I would wait until a couple of days before school and cram 3 books into my head. You can imagine that my comprehension was a little fuzzy.

Through the years, I have learned to enjoy just reading. I can attribute this predominantly to Jane Austen. I saw the 1995 Sense and Sensibility movie and decided to read the book. In the following 14 years, I have read all her books many times and seen most of the movie adaptations which I live to critique. I just finished Sense and Sensibility again. I love that book.

I generally read 3-4 books at once. It's probably not the best way to go, but I have different alert periods during the day so I have different books to go with that. First, thing I read my Bible. I am the most alert and can handle a little critical thinking at this hour.

This HUGE book is on my nightstand next to the Bible. The Captain and I started a Sunday School class based on this book that runs until the end of 2010. I have to read this mid-morning. (It has way too many big words and deep concepts to read any other time.) I usually read this while waiting for Crash at speech therapy. This book was overwhelming at first, but I actually am enjoying the class now. I highly recommend it.

In the evenings, I am reading American Lion by Jon Meacham. It's a biography of Andrew Jackson. This is a great read but I don't have to concentrate on it. I just let the words flow.

Through the years, I have discovered that I like very little fiction unless it's a classic like Austen, Dickens, Hemingway, etc. I have fallen in love with non-fiction, specifically historical books. I have read all about the American Revolution and the War of 1812. I have read a biography of each American President and some of their wives through Andrew Jackson. It's quite fascinating.

There's usually a parenting book I am reading too, but I currently don't have one going.

I hope I have made my high school English teachers proud.

Brrrrr!

Here are the boys all bundled up for our early morning football/soccer games. It was 35 degrees when we got up. The boys were excited to wear hats.

By lunch time, it was 75 degrees. We have the craziest weather.

All I want for Christmas...

The other middle top tooth came out at school. I taught him the traditional "All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth..." song. He responds, "Is there a song for when you lose your other teeth?" I guess we will be working on that.

Chicks and rabbits

Crash and Wingman have developed an interesting make believe game. It started last month when we travelled for my niece's birthday party. The party was held at this great petting zoo. You can get right up there with all the animals. There are goats, llamas, baby chicks, rabbits, horses, tortoises, etc. The kids just love going to that place.

After the festivities, we took the kids back to our hotel room for bed. (The test pilot spent the night with his cousin.) I game out from taking a shower and asked what all the commotion was about. Apparently, there are some baby chicks and occasionally a rabbit that were hidden in our hotel room. Crash would find them and bring them to daddy to pet. Wingman had to join in, because that's what he does. (I am not sure if a 20 month old understands imaginary play but he seemed to catch on.)

Since then the game has evolved. Yesterday, I was having a migraine. Oh joy! I spent most of the afternoon laying around. The beauty of the chick game is that mommy can just lay there and pet chicks.

My children are running around my bedroom "hunting" for baby chicks. These are no ordinary chicks. Now the chicks have colors. Crash will bring a red, purple, or blue chick. When we found the rabbit, he was eating blue carrots. The chicks eat gold corn.

We laid the chicks down for a nap. They don't nap very long and then they run away and the game starts all over. The hunting begins again.

It's amazing what their little minds come up with.

Budding artist

Our county fair was last weekend. Crash's teachers had been working with the kids on some art projects that they were going to enter into the fair.

Much to my amazement, Crash won Best of Show in the String Art Category! We were very proud of him.

Grammie- His teachers were sad you had left so you could not see his entry. I told them I would show you a picture.

Way to go Crash!

Lint

I have figured out how to make the test pilot EXCITED about doing laundry. In the past, he has helped but not enthusiastically.

In challenge lab, he is doing a year long study project about Egypt. Last week his teacher sent home a sandwich baggie labelled "Lint." I asked what that was about.

He said they are to collect laundry lint and then they will make paper out of the lint. I have never seen this before so it should be interesting.

All of the sudden, he is so interested in laundry. How many loads do I everyday? Why is the lint different colors? Why do we have lint? Is there more laundry we can do today?

Let's hope the enthusiasm keeps up after the project is done. I will let you know how the paper turns out.

In the old days

The Captain and I were talking with the test pilot about a book of mazes that he had been working on. He flips to a page at the beginning of the book and says, "Remember back in the old days when I needed your help to work the maze?"

The Captain and I started laughing. The Captain says, "The old days! You are only 6. You don't have old days."

The test pilot replies, "You know- when I was 4."

I guess it's all relative.

Pumpkin Patch 2009

Our playgroup took our annual trip to the local pumpkin patch. We had wonderful fall weather. (Some years it has been 90 degrees so this was a welcome relief.)

I was reminiscing with some other moms about previous years. The pumpkin patch is always basically the same but it is somewhat different each year we have come. Some years we are pregnant while toting around other small children. The following year then there's an infant who is breastfeeding while toting around other small children at the patch. This year was nice. Everyone was weaned and could walk.


Crash's favorite part was the hay maze. He kept running around in there. At the end were some large bales of hay in which the kids could jump and play. The boys really liked that part.



They had a sing along in which the kids had all sorts of noise makers to accompany the musicians.

This is the hay ride with some of our friends.

I just love this expression on Wingman's face. We had a great day!

Sunday pics

We are finally having some fall weather so I was able to break out the boys new Sunday clothes. I like having one outfit in which they match or coordinate. Just because it's cute. They will probably give me grief for it later.


Crash exclaims, "I have spots on my pants!" He was thrilled with the camo pants.


Can I just say that it is getting increasingly difficult to take a picture of all 3 of them in which they are just looking at the camera at the same time, much less smiling. It's a lot of work getting them to smile. The Captain calls it the family torture session.

Here's all my handsome boys. I am one lucky girl.

Flag Football

I am very delinquent in posting some football pictures. Saturdays have been a little hectic with 2 boys in 2 different sports. Anyhow, the test pilot wanted to try football this year. He is on the Aggies. We are casual football watchers so this doesn't bother us, but the rest of the team is lamenting the fact that they are not on the Longhorn team instead.

Doesn't he look fierce?


It's pretty fun to watch. They have a small team so they play both offense and defense. They rotate the kids around so they all get a turn to be quarterback, center, running back, etc. He has grabbed a few flags this season so far.

He says he is enjoying himself so that's all that matters.


Here's the happy family. We have experienced many weather types during this season. There has been the sun-burning heat, the 50 degree chill, and here we have the drizzly rain day.

Thankfully few of their games overlap, so we can all go to one game and cheer and then move on to the next sport. It's fun watching the brothers cheer for each other.

Houseguest

Grammie from Ohio came to visit for a week. The boys are always excited to see her. Wingman had not seen her since he was 2 weeks old so it was a good time to get acquainted.


She read books to the boys. She was a quite a trooper and read the entire Star Wars chapter book to the test pilot. He loves Star Wars. The boys always love it when there are house guests so they have a guest book reader. Reading books to them scores big points.

She played legos with Wingman. Yes, you read correctly. My 20 month old loves to play legos. He doesn't eat them either. We are amazed ourselves.

Our guest bed is in Wingman's room, so we had to do a little kid shuffling for the week. The big boys slept on an air bed in our room since they have to get up early anyhow. The funny part of this picture is that they somehow ended up in each other sleeping bags and on different sides of the bed than how we put them to bed. Don't really know how that happened.

It was fun having Grammie visit. We look forward to seeing her again soon!

More teeth news

Hope you have a happy Saturday! We are headed towards needing two front teeth for Christmas!

My Memorial Stone

I thought I would participate this month with Grateful for Grace's Memorial Stone in Words. We were supposed to write about how God has worked in our lives.

We started this new year of 2009 like any other. We had just been with family for the holidays. We returned and everything sort of fell apart.

The Captain, with most of the remaining workers, had been laid off. He had work until the end of the week. I was devastated. I think I cried most of the next 15 hours.

Since the layoff, there have been numerous blessings, trials, and events that I am not sure yet if they are blessings or trials.

One huge blessing is concerning little Crash. We were not communicating well prior to those days. There were many frustrating days. I tried to get help for months, but our insurance at the old job would not cover speech therapy. I tried the school system and they would not help. Agh! To say that I was frustrated would be an understatement.

While working at the hospital, I starting asking around about good speech therapists for kids. One name kept coming up Miss K. When the Captain got the new insurance information we discovered that it did cover speech therapy and the only therapist in our town that it covered was Miss K. Wow! That's amazing enough, but the icing on the cake is that she is the best therapist in the whole world for my boy right now. She has been the tool for so much positive change in him. I still can't believe it.

When I left my job, I was able to stay on the weekend schedule. I work one Saturday a month. This extra money enables us to pay for his speech co-pays, other therapies, and schooling for him that would have been difficult to afford before. I just want to cry when I think of the huge change in Crash in the last 5 months.

While being laid off is no fun and we are still dealing with ramifications of that- I do know that it brought tremendous blessing in the life of Crash and our whole family in this area. God provided the needed services for our child plus the funds to pay for them.

Thank you God for abundantly blessing us in the midst of the storm!

Ladies Brunch

This past weekend our church had a ladies brunch. They asked for women to set tables with their china. I thought that was a fun idea plus my china had not been used in approximately 6 years. I was excited to use it!

The Captain and I used our wedding china a fair amount when we were first married for special dates, holidays, and such. Several moves and the addition of 3 boys have relocated those dishes to a china hutch that just looks pretty and has little practical function.

Here's my table. My plates have a gold trim on them so I thought it went well with the "fall" theme of the linens. I do not set a formal table very often so I had to consult a book and call my mom to determine the proper location for the dishes and silverware. I really should know that stuff.



My sister found this silverware for me. You can't tell in the picture, but it has a gold outline to match the dishes. I think it was the first time this silverware has been used.


It was fun being girly. I liked seeing all the other ladies tablescapes. I got so many good ideas. It was fun eating girl food as my husband calls it. We had mini quiches, scones, mini sandwiches, and fruit.

What a great kick off for the ladies ministry!