It's cold! The temp is actually 44* but it is dark, overcast, windy & damp. I am not a fan of cold rainy days. I would rather have it be 10*, sunny & dry any day. 

I am huddled on the couch, sharing a blanket with the Little Man while he watches "Spirit" for the 900th time. He is addicted to "Spirit" & "Babe".  He can quote from "Babe" .

Over this past week he has potty trained himself. It all started w/ pounding on the door while I was in the tub & he hasn't looked back from there. He has only had 2 or 3 'accidents' & they were all at night. He has even made it thru church & a trip to town w/out accidents. Wow. He's a pretty cute little underwear boy.

The pups are 7 weeks & the ad came out for them today. I hope & pray they sell quickly. (I am soooo sick of them & they smell ) Anybody in the market for a good hunting dog?

I am 32 weeks pregnant today. (or so they say) & am feeling huge. I look like Fred Mertz from "I Love Lucy".  There is no such thing as comfortable at this point. It is so fun to watch the baby move though. The other night there was this HARD round little poky thing right by my belly button. I think it was a heel. And it is so funny to poke & have the baby poke back! I do love this.

My husband is in Reno at some cattlemen's thing. He's been there all week & he won't be home until Saturday. (insert serious pouty face here) I can't sleep when he is gone & I am feeling pretty miserable about now.  And when he is at these things he is busy schmoozing customers  all day & late into the night so I hardly even get to talk to him. Sometimes I just hate his job. Sigh.

Just for fun & so my husband doesn't forget his family: Here are pics of everyone this morning.

Here are the kids making muffins. (please ignore pigsty)

Here's the Little Man (watching Spirit)

And here is something you will probably never see again

Blessings.

Here is our new stove:

This is stage 1 (out of about 3 million) in our proposed kitchen remodel.

This was actually an unplanned stage as our last stove was only 2 years old. Unfortunately it was a lemon from the start. So after continually dealing with all of it's issues my husband decided we should just buy a new one! No argument from me. We weren't after stainless steel initially but it was the only model that had all the features we wanted. And now that it is here, I really like it. We plan on getting a stainless fridge to go with it. But that will be a little later on, probably  when we get the new sink & countertops as we need to move the counter down a few inches to have room for a side-by-side fridge.

The only thing that would make this stove better would be if it were gas. But our house is all electric & the cost would be huge to put in gas connections & a tank & every else we would need. We even thought about going w/ a propane stove but thought that would just get to be a pain to have to continually replace propane bottles. So, for now, I am stuck w/ electric  but at least all the burners work.

I'm getting excited about our new pantry & I think we might get started on it in the next few  weeks. That will be so cool .

Blessings. 

Sunday night was another "Community Sing" for our local churches. My husband gave a short message & my daughter played the piano. I just love when she plays at these things. I don't have a musical bone in my body but I have always wanted to play beautiful music. So when she sits down & produces these wonderful sounds it gives me great pleasure.

She loves to dress up & this time she wanted to borrow one of my hats. I have several beautiful old hats from my grandmother & aunt. We picked the one that best matched her dress & she was all set.

And please notice: she is SITTING on her hair.  Her beautiful hair is down to her knees.

We met another homeschooling family while we were there. They have 10 children & their 8 yr old daughter sat in front of us during the sing. She kept turning around & watching us & smiling. As soon as it was over she was at my daughters side & they quickly became friends. It was fun to watch. My little girl is such a social butterfly! Very different from me .

I just read back thru this & I had misspelled "homeschooling"  Always a stellar example for those of us who teach our own when we can't even spell  Oops.

Blessings.

It seems like everywhere I read these days someone is talking about their grandma. My own grandma has been on my mind quite a bit lately.

We always called my grandma "Mimi". She has been gone almost 12 years now. My 2 youngest children (soon to be 3) never got to meet her. That makes me sad. I remember so many things about Mimi. When I was fairly young Mimi's husband (we called him Popo) had a falling out with my parents. He was a man to hold a grudge so he stopped talking to or visiting us. Since my grandma didn't drive that meant she had to take the bus to see us. As a result, for most of my life, I only saw her once a year. She always sat in the seat right behind the driver so he could watch out for her.

 My grandma was an excellent seamstress and my mom didn't sew at all. We would set aside all the mending & sewing projects & Mimi would take care of it all for us while she was visiting. I have some doll clothes she made for me and it wasn't until I was an adult that I realized they were HAND sewn. No machine. And the stitches were so tiny & perfect & even. She was born at the turn of the century & girls were still taught useful skills then.  She sewed all of her own clothes & over the years made many outfits for her 3 granddaughters.

I remember before the falling out, my grandparents used to come stay with us for long visits, bringing their camper & Mimi always had a bag of mini Milky Way candy bars in the freezer. Mmmm.

 In my early 20's my parents & Popo made up & my grandparents moved only a few hours from us, so we saw them much more often. My oldest son was able to have a close relationship with his great-grandma & they were good friends. I have many pictures of the 2 of them together.

I think I miss her most around the holidays but that is normal isn't it? She always gave wonderful gifts, usually books. And she always sent a 2 pound box of See's chocolate. I've only had See's a few times in the years since she died. The first Christmas my husband & I were dating he gave me a copy of Robert Frosts poetry. I showed Mimi & she noticed that he hadn't written anything in it. She called him on that & he tried to shrug it off but she grabbed him by the hand, dug into her ever-present 25 lb purse, pulled out a pen & handed it to him. "Here's a pen", she said, forcing it into his hand. He wrote a very sweet inscription which I will always be thankful to Mimi for.

I loved my grandma & I miss her very much. She was the only extended family I had. I look forward to seeing her again some day.

Blessings.

We believe in training them young.

The Little Man brought this all the way in from the road. (which at out house is a long way, over 150 ft)

And he was pretty pleased with himself too.

Blessings.