Baking Sugar Cookies

This was Grace "helping" with our sugar cookie baking for church. It was a pretty messy endeavour and she ate more than she cut out (of course so did I). We had the Grinch on while we were working. They sure were good!

Bryon's Doe

Bryon hunted harder and more this year than he ever has. Of course he was on a trophy hunt this year. He saw plenty of decent ones but just never got the right opportunity. Our redneck poaching neighbor (Dudley, no kidding) has ruined so many of his hunts this year it wasn't even funny. Bryon would do the whole scent free shower and clothes thing and sit out in the woods for hours at a time and then Dudley would come driving up, guns hanging out the windows and ruin his whole setup. This happened time and time again. Finally in the extended season he shot a doe to give to a girl at work (we still have quite a bit of venison from his last deer). Thankfully, the coveted monster deer still hasn't fallen prey to the Dudley poaching team, but it's probably just a matter of time.

The last gift!

I bought the last Christmas gift today for Bryon. I really thought maybe we could tone things down this year and not spend as much but I think we have spent more than ever. It's fun but a guilty pleasure at best. Bryon worries Grace won't appreciate her toys and belongings because she has EVERYTHING without even asking for it.

As parents we WANT to give her everything we can, but it's a fine line to travel. I don't want to create a monster. Right now she doesn't know the difference and isn't demanding and I would like to keep it that way. I can't stand those kids screaming for stuff in Wal-Mart and I think I'll just croak if she does that.

I think it's time for a fiscal fast at our house. I'm hopeful that after the holidays we (I) can stop spending so much. It's hard in an age of instant gratification and me with little patience, but that's my goal. I think I'll make it my New Years Resolution. It's good to have goals I suppose. Let's see how long it lasts.

Enough with the pictures already...

December 2007 020
Originally uploaded by trlrover

First Kids Christmas Program

This is Grace's Christmas Program at First Kids on Thursday. Their verse they memorized was "Joseph went to Bethlehem with Mary who was expecting a baby". They did a pretty good job! Grace had it down pat :) She did however pick her nose on stage for several minutes! Whose kid is that?

Santa Claus is coming to town!

Friday night we took Grace to Bass Pro to see Santa Claus. I took her the first Christmas (she was only 6 weeks old) to the Mall to get the requisite Santa picture taken but I didn't manage to get her anywhere last year. She didn't really know the difference but this year I knew she'd be into it. We actually tried last year to go to BPS but the line was sooooo long there was no way that was going to happen and after that my ambition for it waned.

This time we got there at 5:30 and NO ONE was in line. Bryon got a call and lagged behind but Grace and I went right on up and got the ball rolling. She kept peeking around the corner to see him and it seemed like she was going to just go right up there with no coaxing. When Bryon got there she said she was going to do this to Santa and popped her wet finger out of her mouth in preparation for a wet willy. (I taught her that, but it was her idea to do it to Santa!) Pretty funny but we said she probably shouldn't do that to Santa :)

When it was finally time to go up and sit on his lap and tell him what she wanted for Christmas she got a case of stage fright and wouldn't do it. So Bryon and I got on either side of Santa and she finally reluctantly stood in front of him for this pic. Then Santa bribed her with lolly pops and she cozied right on up to him and told him she wanted a BOW and a GUN for Christmas so she could go with Daddy and shoot deer. (not however, reindeer :) She actually came up with that on her own even though no one will believe us. Bryon had gone out hunting a lot this season and everytime he went out she wanted to go. I told her she could go someday because Daddy really wanted to take her and she said she needed a bow and a gun. I said yes, you should ask Santa for those and she did. She'll be getting both of course :)

Finally they got a picture of just her and Santa and the deal was done.

Twizzler Bliss

We spent the Thanksgiving weekend in Nebraska again this year. It's a 9 hour drive one way and I was a little worried how Grace would do but she did GREAT! She was an awesome traveler. She watched movies, colored, played with her baby and looked out the window.

She didn't fuss one time the whole trip either way!

I passed the time knitting and actually completed two scarves! It was very gratifying to finally complete a project! We had a great time with all of Bryon's family and this picture was of Grace at Gary and Vicki's apartment in the throws of decorating graham cracker houses. Vicki had the patience of Job and she had all the fixins and the basic house prepared in advance. I could have never completed this project alone. I just don't have the patience I should with her sometimes. Grace just loved it and she and I both ate lots of the decorations :) That girl loves candy! We both have a big sweet tooth!


We went bowling one night and watched the Nebraska vs. Colorado game on Friday and the Mizzou vs. Kansas game Sat. night. Nothing like watching Nebraska football in Nebraska :) We all got up WAY before the crack of dawn to shop on Black Friday. The alarm went off at 4:15 am and Grace and Bryon went to Radio Shack for me to get a little video recorder. I stood outside at Target in 16 degrees for 45 minutes freezing my ears and toes off for a 500 Gig external hard drive. I got the LAST ONE ON THE SHELF! It's a good thing too because I would have been none too happy if I had missed out! Once the stress of getting "the bargain" was off we all met at McDonalds (not even 6:30 am yet) and ate breakfast. Bryon and Grace went back to Aunt Jan's and Uncle Kelly's and slept for a few hours and Grandma Fellows and I (I picked her up at 5 am) continued on the quest for Black Friday wonders.


Shopping on Black Friday is a lot like drinking. Every few years you forget how crazy bad it really is and do it again. Mom and Brenda were shopping in Missouri and Dad and Susan were out and about too so the cell phones were jingling all day with news of the progress. It was pretty fun but I think it's out of my system for a while now :)

I was glad to get home last night and already have most of the laundry caught up. Tonight Grace and I will get the Christmas stuff out and start decorating for our big party with our friends at our house this Sat. night.

Lots of fun stuff this time of the year :)

First Job

This is a photo of my dad and his brother Gene on their first jobs as newspaper delivery boys for the Springfield Newsleader in 1955. Pretty cool I think. My first job was as a grocery carryout at Consumers in Bolivar. I had no inclinations to climb the grocery chain of command, I just got a job there to keep an eye on Bryon. The first of many stalking moves to win him over :) That was a great job. I got to bump my crappy late hours to Damon (who also got a job there) and then Bryon would only have an hour to get into trouble before I could track him down! We all cruised around town a lot then (miles and miles, gallons and gallons of gas) and eyeballed the out-of-towners and listened to our music way too loud. Good times were had by all.

Speech Therapy

Grace will start having speech therapy in a few weeks. She's been pretty difficult to understand (especially for strangers and family who doesn't get to see her much) but I figured she'd grow out of it. The more I heard her other daycare kids talk, the more I realized she had a problem. I took her last Friday for a screening and the therapist said she thought she was probably 30% inteligible to others. Her speech has no bearing on her intelligence and she knows LOTS of words and uses them correctly but her articulation is the problem. The therapist diagnosed her tentatively with Phonological Processing Disorder. It IS something she'll grow out of but it might take the next five years to happen and that's a lot of communication frustration and stigmatism to consider between now and then. She does get frustrated when I don't understand what she's trying to say and I don't want it to affect her self esteem sooooooo she'll have a full-fledged evaluation in a week or so and then we'll get her setup for therapy (hopefully at her daycare) in the next few weeks.

She's so funny because we've already started trying to sneakily work with her and get her to finish the hard consonants at the end of her words. She'll say Ba for Barn or Ball instead of finishing up the word. She can't say F's or H's hardly at all. We'll say BARN, can you say BARN or DOGGG can you say DOGGGG and she'll say "I already said Da!". She's no dummy that's for sure! She's already tired of our speech therapy efforts! Ha!

I'm looking forward to her speech improvements.. It will be good for us all. I had a lisp and remember going to speech therapy myself in Kindergarten. I just remember going to the little trailer with the slow kids for it. I hope I can get Grace caught up before the other kids know the difference.

FLEAS!!!!!!

So we gave out cat fleas. That's really the only explanation since she's never been outside except on her yearly trip in the cat crate to the vet for her shots. So since she has fleas...we have fleas. We've had pets in the house for years but NEVER had a problem like this. The exterminator is there today trying to erradicate the little monsters. They are just awful and of course having such a huge house doesn't help. We decided not to waste our money on bombs and go straight to a professional. Poor Bryon, Grace and Pansy have taken the brunt of it. They have bites, but I guess I don't taste good because they have totally left me alone. The vet said this has been a terrible year for them and the more I talk to people the more they tell me their flea stories as well. Misery loves company. Pansy is at the vet to avoid fumication and Grace is spending the weekend with Nana's. I'll be washing bedding and stuff all weekend. Good times.