Christmas cookies

Why do I so easily forget how time consuming these things are?

I really wish my camera would have been handy when we were in the middle of the BIG mess! I spread frosting & the children had a lot of fun with the sprinkles.:) Believe me if you eat one of our cutout cookies you will  have plenty of crunchy sprinkles to eat!

This is what happens to the rest of the house!

Sierra had just had enough of it & went to sleep.:)

We have enough cookies & choc. candy around here now for a good long while! This weekend feels like the kick off to a Christmas vacation.:) Party tonight, ladies Christmas supper Saturday night, caroling Sunday evening, school program on Wednesday & Thursday we start out LONG journey to PA... We are really looking forward to being together with family again, but the getting there is what I am not anticipating!

Look who is sitting big in her "blue" bumbo.:)

Love that little raised arm, like she is riding a bronco.:)

Sitting on the couch with Brit...

Who needs toys?

Cole loves playing with pillows... They are bucking broncos, racing dirt bikes... Today we even had a fire truck in the house! The one on the video is a very calm horse.:) BTW the side show from the girls was not planned :(
 Other excitement for the week... We got SNOW! Saturday morning we awoke to the sight of freshly fallen snow 3-4 inches of it. Dale was not expecting it to snow & felt his heart sink to his toes when he saw it. Snow removal is part of his work & the commercial jobs want theirs complete by 7:00. It was after 7:00 when we woke up! But all was well, snow in this part of CO can be very spotty. We got a good bit, but Montrose where his jobs are got just a little skiff of it.:)
 Last night it snowed again & he got a taste of snow removal! He was out the drive by 2:00 am & didn't come home till around 11:00am. He sure is glad it doesn't snow every night!

Thankful

Today I feel so blessed... For the first time in 3 weeks I've had a day that was virtually pain free!!! Wow, its amazing what it does for my disposition to feel good again. Having said that I am convicted of the fact that I should also be able to be joyful in the midst of pain... Nevertheless I am REALLY thankful that God has brought me to this side of things.
 Whats wrong you ask? First I had a bad tooth & rather then pay 2k to have it repaired I chose to have it extracted... Warning! Having this done means a long slow recovery.
 I am positive I had a dry socket & was constantly on Tylenol, in desperation I started searching for other pain relief & discovered clove oil. WONDERFUL stuff! I really think it helped my gum to close up & heal, after using it for 2 days I saw a big difference in the over all appearance of my gum & it started closing up.
  9 days after the tooth was pulled, when I knelt beside the tub to wash my hair I felt sharp pain in my left knee. That was the beginning of another whole story! I believe what happened was something called housemaids knee, & the pain of it is nothing to be laughed at. Throughout that Friday my knee kept hurting & getting hot [feverish], by Saturday it was REALLY bad. After taking ibuprofen for a few days it got much better & then I over did it & the next day it was awful again. Twice this foolish woman over did it & the last time was the worst yet. I learned my lesson then & decided to take it easy for a good week till the thing is healed. Today is day 6 of that week & I can really tell a difference in it.
 I don't know what all I was to learn from this experience but I know that I am much more aware of what living in pain feels like...
 Today I marvel at how wonderful it feels to snuggle my baby girl, to listen to the prayers of my precious children, I count my blessings, they are far to many to list.
 Ashlyn has been very concerned that I will die from my sore knee... She has told me many times that she hopes I won't die from it because she likes her mama! 
 Another thing that I often thanked God for was my dear husband. He has had to pretty much take care of everything on my really bad days, its good this all happened now while he is able to be at home. His lawn work is pretty much over for the season, now he waits for snow to fall. :)

Elsewhere in the family... Miss Sierra is doing great! Hard to believe that she is 12 weeks old already. Those 12 weeks went much faster then the previous 12 did!

Shane is 7 now!!! Party pics will come later :)

Micah gave him his one pump bb gun :)

This is what happens when Ashlyn bribes you to let her comb your hair!

He was just as impressed as he looks.:)

Little missy herself :)

She still loves holding her baby sister

And Briana is still a great nanny.:)

Miss Ashlyn is 5!!!

Her big day finally arrived. :) [Now Cole, whose birthday isn't till Feb, keeps saying "My birthday is this Saturday..."] Why is it so important to turn one year older when you are under 20 & now I really don't care how long it takes my next birthday to roll around!

Nope that's not a fish on the cake ;) She wanted a football on it.:)

She was DELIGHTED to have her best buddies here...

Kyle & Aaron Mast... They are actually Micah's friends, but she thinks they are the best friends around.:)

Notice the basketball & footballs??? That's our little girl for ya!

We waited to give Ashlyn her presents from us till the next morning...

She has been without a bike since I drove over hers earlier this summer.:(

She is quite happy with her bike, even if it isn't the "dirt bike style" one she had picked out.

She did a great job sweeping the floor for me this morning!

Drum Roll Please....

This big boy is potty trained!!!!!!!! [Can you tell his mom is very happy?]

One evening last week Inez & I went shopping in Grand Junction. We've lived here 3 months & I still hadn't gone there to shop! It was great fun, I think we should make it a scheduled activity.;)

One of our stops was Hobby Lobby, I found this cute little gingerbread man/woman kit for the children.

They got a bit carried away with the decorating & didn't have enough deco left for the last 6 men. Now we have little foam gingerbread men all over the house.:)

When I uploaded pics I was shocked that I had no new ones of Sierra! I'll have to take care of that tomorrow. She is growing fast, and is starting to enjoy her bouncy seat & swing a little more.

Oh yes, SNOW...

Saturday afternoon some flakes started falling & the excitement was so high among the children, that I wished for 6 inches of the stuff just for them to enjoy.:)
 You can hardly see him[in front of Briana] but Cole is right there with the rest of them gazing out at the wonder of falling snow.:)

Home schooling

It's Field Trip Time!!!

First they went to the Math & Science center where they could tour 100+ exhibits. They really enjoyed this!

I don't have pictures of the Enstrom's candy shop... We went there next & watched them make their wonderful toffee.:)

One of the fun things about homeschooling is getting to see what your children think...
Here is an example:

With Shane you never know what to expect...

He is very good at just going ahead with his work, following directions,etc.  When I scored this page I had my warm fuzzies for the day.:)

Look he even has the right brand name on the mower.:)
Little Sierra can hold her head & chest up like she is really big stuff!

Right after they pic was taken her head got too heavy & the weight of it dropping flipped her over on her back!

Attention everyone!!!!!! Wednesday is the big day, Ashlyn will be 5 years old.:) She has been counting down the days & reminds us daily that her birthday is right around the corner.

Pumpkin cookies...

Okay this really is totally random... Today as I was mixing up bread dough I was thinking of what else I could bake for my family & with it being fall pumpkin roll came to mind. Never fail when ever I think of making something with pumpkin this memory comes back.
 My sister Waneta & I were only 3 years apart & as we entered our teen years we finally became best friends.:) Now every once in a GREAT while we would get a baking itch. The kitchen would become a disaster zone [humm I wonder where Mom hid while we were doing this] we would not use common sense & just bake one batch of something, clean up the kitchen & be done. Oh no, we would bake several things & be totally sick of baking when we finally got it all cleaned up again.
 Back to pumpkin, as I remember this happened one day when Mom was not at home. But Waneta was old enough to drive... [Wonder why she wasn't at work?] Okay we decide we are going to bake pumpkin cookies, problem # 1 we couldn't find any pumpkin. Now this was not so unusual, Mom was not big on keeping a lot of unnecessary things on hand. She had a very small kitchen & very little room to store those kind of things. Okay so now we have to run to town before we can start, town meant the little town of Townville [If you are from SC think Donalds] [If you are from CO think... smaller then Olathe] Okay we get to the "Red & White", we thoroughly check all four of their shelves & they had the nerve to think this is a seasonal item & no pumpkin was to to be found! All right back out to the car we drive about 5 miles in the other direction to an other little hole in the wall store. There we again walked up & down the isles several times [never asking the owner for help in locating the item we were looking for][Dad would stop in there daily to "chew the fat" with the owner & he informed Dad that his 2 daughters were in there that morning. Took inventory of the store & left with no purchases :)] nope no canned pumpkin here either! Okay by now "Brukers" is open & we knew they would have it.This was a bent & dent store that always had anything you don't use all 12 months of the year.:) Sure enough they had cases of the canned pumpkin we needed.:) Back home we go, all goes well we got all the cookies baked. Now we look at the icing recipe... Humm what on earth is this? 10x sugar???????? Mom had some cookbooks that were meant for experienced cooks only & this was one of those. If I remember right it was some vague directions like, oleo, milk & 10x sugar to desired consistency. Okay the only thing we new x in math stood for was times, so we put 10 times what??? Now let me tell you we even called the big sister & asked her for advice on what 10x sugar is. Nope she'd never heard of it either. We finally decided to put in 10 times as much sugar as milk.:) But one of us wisely remember that you use powdered sugar for icing not granulated. It turned out fine, we iced our cookies & when Mom came home we told her about the weird recipe. She HOWLED with laughter!!! Then she explained to her 16 & 13 year old daughters that 10x sugar is a term used for powdered sugar.:) I have NEVER forgotten what 10x sugar means since that.:)
 Isn't it funny how silly things just never leave your memory?

It's a beautiful time of the year

The weather is really great right now. We have cool nights & pleasantly warm days. The leaves are a brilliant yellow & some are falling fast. [Well if you have trees they are.;)]
 We took a ride up to Ouray on Saturday, wow it is just gorgeous up there. Sometime Dale & I are going to leave the children with their "favorite" Aunt & Uncle and we are going to spend the night in Ouray.:)
 After we got up to Ouray those snow covered mountains called us to come closer... So we drove on up to where we could actually feel the snow.:)

Beautiful isn't it?!?!

Of course they had to see how easily they could make snow balls with the snow.:)

Sierra was safely tucked in a blanket & was in no mood to join the troops on the wall.:)

We took the children to the park in Delta earlier in the week...

Note worthy for the evening was the fact that Sierra slept the whole time in her car seat!

She does not enjoy her car seat & this was a milestone for her.:)

Now I really need to feature Sierra's "nanny" [so named by Shane]

Briana is a wonderful help to me! She can take care of Sierra better then any of the other children. The nanny title came about one day when Shane told Briana that Sierra wants her real mom not her nanny.:)

Of course the rest of the siblings love to spend time with Sierra too...

Is this classic goofy Miller's or what?

I love the way my nephews enjoy holding Sierra too.:) Sean does really well with her. His patience with getting her to settle down amazes me.

Oh and I must tuck this picture in here...

Brit celebrated her 22nd birthday last week & I was honored to make her cake!

I forgot to get Sky to pose with his cake, there was one for him too. I feel so honored that they prefer these choc. layer cakes to bakery made birthday cakes!

Still not sure if she will end up sucking her thumb or not... She tries to get it in her mouth when she is half asleep but usually just gets mad at herself because she can't get it to do what it should.