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.