Proud Mom moments!

The proudest moment so far in the seven years of being blonde rascal’s mom came Monday night. That evening he asked Jesus into his heart to be his Saviour! I too became a Christian at 7 years old, so that was a special milestone to share with him. Hubs and I are so proud of him and are thrilled that he secured a spot in eternity with the rest of his family!! We are so looking forward to watching him grow in his faith.

To mark this occasion I took him to the Christian bookstore the next day so he could get a new Bible. Well, $81 lighter in the checkbook and we finally got out of the bookstore! He got a cool boy’s Bible that has blurbs of funky gross/gory tidbits of info related to biblical times. What better way to get a boy interested in reading the Bible than to include gross facts!!! Brilliant. Of course then we had to get a camo cover for his new Bible. Then a necklace, then a devotion book we could read in the evenings.... well at least it was worthy items and not a few mindless games for the PS2!

Here is his rad wicked cool new necklace that has a football player charm and a pendant that has Philippians 4:13 on it...

I tried to get a shot of a normal smile but this was right after school when the child is incapable of doing anything serious!



Another proud Mom moment came when 19 year old brown haired rascal put this sticker on my car.

This is not a new revelation to us as he has talked about this since he was a boy. Of course him actually signing the papers with a ship out date on them is a different story! As a mom (or stepmom, but he has lived with us since he was nine) my first reaction was of course dread and fear. This is not exactly the ideal time to be in the service. However this has been 19 y.o.b.h.r's...oh forget it his new blog name is now Marine.... anyway this has been Marine's dream, interest and passion for many many years now. If you can not live out your dreams when you are young, when can you? Life is not safe but I cannot keep my children locked in my house, to safeguard them, for the rest of their lives! Where would our country be now if men and women were not willing to serve in the armed forces? So for that reason I am proud. I am proud because he is excited. I am proud because this will make a man out of him.

He has kind of floundered around after h.s. Yes he got a job and moved out but really was not sure what he wanted to do. Not really college material at this point in his life either. I know the next 4 years will give him a sense of purpose and cause him to grow. It will also open doors for him when he gets out.

He ships out on March 10th for 16 weeks of bootcamp in San Diego. That is scary to me because I know that is going to be HARD, hard, hard and they will be mean to him. The kind of thing a Mom does NOT like to think about happening to her kid! His Dad however, after the teenage years this punk put us through, giggles under his breath at the thought of a big mean drill sergeant yelling in his face because his boots are not shined!

The Marine says they can choose if they want to go to Iraq. Which of course as an adrenaline junkie, invincible, machismo filled 19 year old, sounds like a great thing to do. Ugh. I have been rooting for....hmmmmm.... perhaps Italy, Greece, Austria, France, Japan, Germany or Sweden, you know someplace wonderful that we could go and visit while he is there!!!!!

I did tell him, in love of course, that if he did not get on that plane on March 10th that he would in fact be the one scraping that dang sticker off my window!!!! I am not a fan of having any paraphernalia on my car....only for my son whom I am proud of!

Soooo good...

....you'll wanna slap your grandma!!

I'll go ahead and say that if you are concerned with any of the following: calories, cholesterol, cellulite, plaque in your arteries, a bulging stomach....then don't read the following recipe. However IF you want to: fix your family a meal after which they will sing your praises for months, eat something reeeheally yummy or totally delight yourself in the ultimate comfort food then this is the recipe for you!

I'll go ahead and say this too, all of the credit for this tastebud fantasy goes to my crazy good pal Kristen! Check her out in my sidebar at The Lewis Family. I believe she told me this was a long time family recipe. Oh yeah baby, you know the ones!

Now this, my friends, is "Chicken Pockets"

A rotisserie chicken, with meat taken off into bite size pieces/shredded. (I like these chickens because dang they are good, and I am lazy. But anyway, procure some cooked chicken meat by whatever method your prefer!)
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 can cream of chicken soup
1 small carton sour cream
1 small can evaporated milk
shredded colby jack cheese
2 cans crescent rolls

In a small pan on the stove mix the soups, sour cream and milk. Heat and stir just until combined, set aside. Press 2 triangles of the crescent dough into a rectangle. Sprinkle some shredded cheese and chicken onto the rectangle. Fold together, pressing & sealing edges to make a "pocket." Continue with remaining crescents, you will end up with 8 pockets.
Pour half of the soup mixture into the bottom of a 9X13. Place pockets on top of the soup mixture and then top with the remaining mixture. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Sprinkle shredded cheese on top during the last 5 minutes of baking.

Hubs went nutty over this, could NOT stop talking about it! I was the hero that night! Blonde rascal said it tasted like cheesecake! (Don't know if he thought that literally or if that was just his highest form of compliment!) It really is just downright soothing. Comfort food at its best. You won't leave the table hungry. In fact in preparation you should just go ahead and put on your velour sweatpants beforehand. You'll thank me, your family will thank me, for sharing this recipe!

Feliz Nuevo Ano!

After taking Spanish in both h.s. and college sometimes I feel the need to test out my rusty memory! I don't know how or where to find the appropriate foreign language punctuation on my computer so that will have to be all for my Spanish speaking today!

Anyway, it is the 3rd day of the new year already! Yee haw! Blonde rascal and I got back from Houston yesterday evening. We had a good time relaxing with family. Much to my delight the weather in Houston was nice....completely bearable...no humidity...I did not have to wear shorts!!! Blonde rascal was inundated with more presents, his every whim was indulged by his grandparents (he is the only grandchild on my side of the family) and Aunt Jill let him loose on her laptop. He found the onboard camera....

The picture captures the end of the holidays, ate too much, worn out, sugar high, tired & silly feeling perfectly! This would be blonde rascal and I with my Dad and sister. Blonde rascal requested that this picture make its debut on my blog. So there it is for all the world, well ok all 3 of you readers, to see!

Today I am feeling motivated to finish getting the decorations down, make the house sparkly clean, do laundry...get back on track for the real world. School does not start again until Tues. so we still have a few more precious days of down time.

I got in trouble in my previous post for not showing my gift from hubs. I am such the amateur photographer and a ring is a hard thing to capture, but here it is...

It was a complete shock of a gift. Hubs now has a "out of the doghouse" pass for at least 12 months, heck maybe even more!
It is a sweet and beautiful gift...I love that man I tell you!

So, resolutions. I don't like resolutions. I mean if you need to change something, just do it, don't put it off until January 1st for crying out loud! I do like the clean slate feeling of the new year though. One of the things I want to work on is my house! I have been a FlyLady follower in the past and sort of fell off the wagon. I am not anal about it and don't read 10,000 of her emails daily, but if you follow her basic principle then the house miraculously is perpetually neat and fresh. It really saves a lot of time and eliminates the one dreaded awful full day of cleaning.

We took an opportunity to help someone out this Christmas. Not anything earthshattering by any stretch of the imagination, but we knew of a small need and anonymously blessed someone. That was the best feeling. I thought why just do this during the holidays? We can bless people all year long. Just simply giving of our time, friendship, or cooking a meal for someone, sending a card... any random act of kindness. It is so easy, but I tend to get caught up in my own life. I want to give more of myself this year. I may start with making some simple quilts to donate to the women's shelter or CPS.

Another area I want to work on is our yard and patio. It is a bit of a challenge as we live in an area that is dry, windy and dusty. But if I stick with the local flora and fauna it will be simple! I really like simple and cheap! I want to make our patio a usable area. We have speakers mounted and a ceiling fan on the patio...both of which these damn little finches have taken over. Now don't scream at me...I love the little finches, they are adorable! But they build nests on top of the speakers and perch on the ceiling fan both of which lead to...poop! Everywhere you look is bird poop and that my friends is disgusting and so NOT sanitary. This is the year of me taking over the patio! The speakers have to come down, we didn't use them anyway, and the fan has to be replaced with a light fixture. I am through with bird poop! I hope the little finches take that hint...or I may have to use more drastic measures!!!!

Holiday Hangover

No not THAT kind of hangover but you know the holiday one...tired, full, bloated, worn out, weak from all of the overstimulation, dreading the mass exodus of the Christmas decorations. Ugh.

We had a wonderful Christmas, a nice quiet time with family. MIL spent the night Monday night and that was fun to have her with us for the Santa frenzy Christmas morning. That experience started at 6am but with enough coffee the adults made it through.

Santa brought a little ranch type vehicle to help move, load, carry any and all ranchy type things and make lots of ranchy type duties easier AND it is 4-wheel drive so there does not have to be any more of these predicaments...


Blonde rascal was over the moon with this new addition. He drove it from about 8:30am until about 7:30pm!




Santa brought hubs and I a digital video camera with a hard drive which means no pesky tapes or mini cd's to fumble around and keep up with. It is tiny and I love it! We knew we has been relatively good this year and were therefore confident that Santa would indeed bring us this camera, so we agreed that we just exchange simple & low key gifts with each other. I kept up my end of the bargain getting him the weird and random horse tack pieces parts that he circled in the catalog. He kept up his end of the bargain sticking to my list of some MAC lipglass, a book, a movie...blah, blah, blah and a dadgum new wedding ring!!!! That was NOT on my list!! It was the year of the Christmas bling! I was shocked, I screamed, I cried, I drooled, I yelled, I fainted, I convulsed!! He ended up NOT sticking to our agreement of low key gifts, but I forgive him for that!! Oh, and he is now forgiven indeed for this too....

Wading in cow poop becomes such a minor offense when gifted with diamonds!!!

My pesky brother-in-law Mark and his family will be arriving from TN. this afternoon and so we will all be gathering at MIL's house for another round of eating and gifting! Then blonde rascal and I will be leaving early tomorrow morning for Houston to be with my parents and sister. It is a 9.5 hour drive, Texas is a big state ya'll! And we will have Missy in the car with us, lots and lots of fun it will be tomorrow! Are you jealous? Can I get an amen for portable DVD players! We will stay a leisurely week. Hubs has to stay home and work to recover from the checkbook drain of the last month!!! Poor guy!

In between packing and getting ready for tomorrow I may take down and few decorations here and there today, just so when we return on the 2nd I won't be faced with that huge dread. I hope each of you in the blog world had a nice time celebrating with loved ones! I think I need to go make another pot of coffee as I bask in the Christmas afterglow...and all of the duties that now await me!!!

Baby it's cold outside!

We went to see Santa on Thursday after school. For 7 years now I have taken my camera and just snapped pictures while blonde rascal chatted with the jolly big guy. However this year there were "No camera" signs posted all over Santa's lair. So as I stood in line fuming over the racket that is Santa pictures I decided to just let him talk to Santa and no pictures. As we inched closer to Santa I was waging a battle in my mind, sensible vs. sentimental...."we don't need a silly picture....yes we do, this may very well be the last year the little guy believes in Santa." The sentimental part of me won! But seriously, look how cute he is (my son, not Santa)! That was worth $19.99 for 2 rinky dink 5x7's! Right?

I made the master grocery list last night and was at the Super Wal-Mart at 8:30 this morning. Smart move on my behalf, if I do say so myself, because it was not crowded, yet. I am set. I will not leave the house again until the 26th! Yeah! Yippee!I have to finish one gift today, make cookies for Santa, balance the check book (yikes) and pay all bills....then I am on easy street! No thinking, no lists, no errands... I am done. I am eating, drinking, lounging around, laughing and being merry until 2008!

It is 30 degrees, flurrying and the wind is ferocious with a bitter wind chill factor. We had firewood delivered yesterday, got "A Christmas Story" on pay-per-view last night. Of course we DVR'd it......and we are watching it again, per blonde rascal, this morning! Add to all of this Shabee Chick's homemade hot chocolate, dang folks go and get that recipe, it is really good....rich and creamy! That is how it is going down today....sugar both in baked and liquid form, fire in the fireplace and the ultimate Christmas movie of all time!

Need a last minute cheap, or it would sound better to say inexpensive, gift? Check these out...




Cute ornaments! So fun and easy! I got the idea off of some, no doubt brilliant and creative, person's blog but forgive me as I don't remember who it was in order to give credit. Glass ornaments, scrapbook paper & sticker letters and a little ribbon. Blamo~ quick, easy and cheap!!!

What else....

Now that I have shared the most unflattering picture of myself in my previous post, there are no secrets to hide between us bloggy friends! However, I am way too busy right now to do anything worthy of being a secret, which I would in turn immediately share with you. So you'll have to wait until after New Year's, I'll have more free time then!

I have blonde rascal's Christmas party at school to attend at noon, so I will be brief.... let's see....

Here is how God greeted us yesterday morning...

This is the payoff of living in West Texas with no trees, you see some incredible sunrises, and sets too. It was the marking of a good day yesterday...ALL of my online ordered gifts arrived in the mail AND I got the email from Wal-Mart that Guitar Hero was in! Yeah! No worries now, we are wrapped and ready to roll around here!

I sat and worked on my scrapbooky gifts while watching "Miss Potter" on my trusty laptop. Good movie, chick flick for sure so don't torture the men in your life with it.


I got this little desk top calendar completed....


Then I made chocolate covered pretzels, with sprinkles of course, as treats for blonde rascal's class.

Whew...that was a mess. Hmmmm, the kitchen is still a mess this morning. Drats.

My pesky brother-in-law Mark emailed this morning and said that my wonderful sister-in-law Sherri will be on "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" on Sunday January 13th. I believe I briefly somewhere in a past post mentioned that Sherri's brother is Christian recording artist, David Phelps. The recipient of this home makeover is a fan of David's music and that was part of the wish to hear him sing. If you are not familiar with David's music go pull him up on iTunes and take a listen. The man can hit notes that makes your spine tingle and bring a tear to your eye! However, my wonderful sister-in-law Sherri, who sings backup for David, has an even MORE incredibly beautiful voice! Not that I am playing favorites or anything! Sherri would probably slap me for saying this because she does not want attention, but she fought breast cancer this year and won! She is a trooper, a miracle, totally adorable and blessed with a God given stunning voice. So mark your calendars and I will remind you as it gets closer!

I will sign off now. It is time to party like it's 1999 with 22 2nd graders! Has anyone seen the Tylenol?

It always starts out so sweet.

The phone call from hubs. For example the one that came after I dropped off the carpool bunch at school yesterday morning...

Hubs: "Hi hot mama, did you already drop the kids off"
(Hmmmm a cute little term of endearment, I am suspicious.)

QC: "yes"

Hubs: "Now what are you going to do?"

QC: "Just go to the gym and then back home"

Hubs: "Will you do me a favor when you get home?"
("favor" usually means some kind of grunt work outside, ALWAYS messy and probably perilous!)

QC: "uhhhhh.... OK"

Hubs: "Well I think the hose to the trough in the back pasture froze and popped off so the water needs to be turned off. No big deal, I will fix it when I get home but would you turn the water off for me please?"
(sure this sounds innocent but it means wet, messy, cow poopie, sloshy mess!)

QC:" Uhhh, well...is water spewing everywhere, are the cows in the pasture, is it flooded...?"

Hubs:"ThankyousomuchIloveyoubye!" Click.


When I get home I am thankfully smart enough to pull on sweats and a jacket over my gym clothes and put on hubs mud boots. As I traipse out to the pasture I am greeted by the pesky wildlife...



"Hey silly pansy ass human girl....how fast can you run?"




You can't tell in this picture but yes the water is spewing and yes the wind is blowing some 50mph! So I wade my way through the muddy, stinky, poop enriched water and turn off the faucet.



To this punk I say...

"You are HAMBURGER dude, now scram!"


As I return safely from my adventure, albeit sufficiently sprayed and now shivering, look who is waiting for me,

It's Skeeter looking all dapper in his coat.


Then there is Leo.

He did not give me the time of day, a little preoccupied you might say.

But never fear, my sister friend Josie was so glad to see me!

I told her I was sorry about the blue coat. I assured her she did not look fat in it. I explained that I really rooted for the pink one with leopard trim when the coats were being ordered but her masculine owner dude wouldn't not have it. We chit chatted for a little while longer, I told her Jamie Lynn Spears was pregnant and then we posed for a self portrait...


Hey don't hate! Not everyone can look as incredibly fantastically beautiful as I do after a sweaty 3 mile run and then being doused with cold water WHILE walking thought pools of cow crap in 45 degrees & high winds!!! It's just the way I roll!

Whew.

I am done. Finito. Washing my hands of all shopping. Yesterday I went out with my final, revised, edited, re-edited and scratched through master list. I got it ALL. I am done! Even down to the stocking stuffers! Everyplace was crowded but since I knew exactly what I was getting and where, I pretty much zipped in and out. OK well, except at Circuit City with the pimply faced teenage holiday help who have no customer service skills and only begrudgingly have jobs because their parents made them! I do have two catalog orders that I am keeping my fingers crossed will arrive this week. Not to mention the Guitar Hero I ordered from WalMart online...and chose to have it shipped to the store, because it is free and I am cheap. Well it would be the nature of the beast that I will probably sweat that one out until Christmas Eve!!!

It was cold here Friday and we got a little dusting of snow Sat. morning. It is warming back up to the 60's this week. Saturday night we had dinner with two of hub's friends from high school and their wives. Those 3 boys were trouble makers of epic proportions back in the day and are still the best of friends. We had an uproariously good time at dinner and no doubt made way too much noise with our laughter at the quiet reserved restaurant we were at!

So today, today I am wrapping (in order to keep a curious blonde rascal out of trouble.) I am cleaning this house. Oh my heaven above it is a mess. Blonde rascal's room looks like the end of civilization as we know it! I am throwing away broken and/or missing piece toys, giving to Goodwill what the child no longer plays with and I bought a shelving unit to put in his closet. (Architects should hire moms as consultants before designing closets, yes?) Of course I must do the throwing away and donating before the little elf gets out of school! You know what I am saying!?!? Then I must finish my scrapbooky gifts AND I saw some cute and easy ornaments on a blog that I am going to make. I will show you later.

My neighbor is having some sort of book party tonight. Osbourne is the name of the company I think. Never heard of it. I am a sucker for children's books, but really need to lay off the check writing...for the rest of the year!!! Tomorrow night is book club, we are going out for Mexican food as a little Christmas celebration and drink margaritas....oops well I mean discuss our book! Thursday is blonde rascal's party at school. Finally that is it, the obligations are OVER! Then comes the reward of the crazy month, when you can relax with your family and enjoy the beauty of the season. Ahhhhhh.

Sewing Room Fun!

This picture has nothing to do with my sewing room. Why should my blog start making sense now? Anywhoo, I was looking at past Christmas pictures and dadgumit, here is blonde racal 2 1/2 years old Christmas morning 2002. He is checking out all of his sweet loot from Santa. Kristen, (hi Kristen!) don't tell me that Carter is now wearing those jammies. Please no, I will cry big sad Mommy tears realizing how quickly my tiny love of a boy has grown!


I started out my morning in my sewing room to finish the tote bag. Here is what some ill-mannered puppy did while I was slaving away at my machine...


So much for that random Nerf ball. I doubt that its trajectory will be as straight as it once was when launched from the good ol' Nerf gun now!

Naughty Missy then scampered off to wreak havoc somewhere else.


Thinking the coast is clear, Val comes into the sewing room for a visit.

"Hello, I am insulin dependent. Good heavens woman, why is this room such a mess?"


Uh-oh, looks who's back!

"Hello, I am unbelievably cute, I know, but I am also irrationally, insanely jealous when any cat gets near my human!"


I am trying to sew and this ruckus is going on right under my feet!


The little game, between those two dopes, then continued like this...



There was lots of hissing, gnashing of teeth, slaps to the forehead but it was all in good fun. In the end they licked each other (well Missy licked Val's ear but Val would never stoop so low to lick a dog) and made up!

Despite all of this rowdy interruption I did manage to finish the tote!

Here is a glimpse, there is a small remote chance that the recipient may read my blog so I won't show too much!


The pattern was fairly easy to follow. There was some talking to myself and mumbling of measurements but I got it done! The next time around it will be much easier to make.

Look, I even put a pocket on the inside!

That was not part of the pattern, but Aunt Gay puts a pocket in hers...and well I do what she does because she is wise beyond her years! (That is not a reference of any type to her age. Honest! Actually it makes her sound young!! I'll be back in her good graces now!) And besides all that, I hate a big tote bag with no smaller side pocket. Don't you? I mean then you have to rummage through your sweaty gym clothes or whatever to try and find your cell phone or lip gloss!

So, I got that present finished AND mailed the Christmas cards. Score for me today!

Monday...again!

Yep, it's Monday. It is a cold and cloudy and misty and grey Monday. I did not go to the gym this morning...BUT I have already taken all the trash to the dumpster, fed the horses for hubs who was in a huge hurry this morning, put a load of laundry in, moved some firewood onto the porch, gave Missy a bath, have beans soaking and a ham bone defrosting so we can have a big ol' pot of beans for dinner!

Now I am resting for a minute with my cup of coffee. I have the tree lights on....ahhhhh. Missy, who is mad because of the before mentioned bath, is sitting behind me by my neck, shivering. I put the heating pad on her as a peace offering and now I think she may be a little less mad.

We had good weekend. Friday hubs took me out to dinner with MIL and blonde rascal for my birthday. We had mexican food and, as is always the case, post- dinner I felt uncomfortably full and questioned why I would stuff my face like that! Not too full, I should mention, to pass up ice cream afterwards. Hey, it was my birthday afterall!

So I got the results back from my blood tests and everything is completely normal. My thyroid levels were right on track. Obviously that day at the dr.'s office my thyroid was simply having a puffy day. It happens to all of us! I guess what I thought might be symptoms i.e. dry skin...hello eczema on my face..and hair loss...I thought I was losing more hair than normal when I combed it after a shower....are all just a part of my quirky self. Of course the eczema could be explained by the fact that I live in a desert...and the hair, I am letting it grow so maybe longer hair seems more substantial leftover in the comb, than shorter. The trauma of having blood drawn...all for nothing! Well, I am thankful my blood is normal though. That is very nice to know!

Saturday I was busy in the kitchen. I made cookies for Christmas Cookie Lorie's Christmas Cookie Exchange Party. (Say that three times fast!) And I made Shabee Chick's homemade hot chocolate mix for the neighbors.



The best part of that day in the kitchen was Pioneer Woman's "Penne a la Betsy" recipe, which is shrimp penne pasta. Holy cow, THAT was good. Blonde rascal even chowed on it! It had heavy cream in it......gee maybe I should have gone to the gym this morning!


Blonde rascal put on his dancing shoes Saturday morning!



Getting his groove on!


That kid, he is good for my soul. He does know how to crack his Mom up!


So, today. I am making this cute (and hopefully easy) tote bag...


out of this CUTE fabric...

for someone for Christmas.

I got the email from Shutterfly saying the Christmas cards are on their way! I have to get cracking on the address labels. Then, there are 2 remaining scrapbooky type gifts to be finished. Looks like I have enough to do today to keep me out of trouble. Better luck tomorrow!