by Heather | 0 comments
This week we received a Christmas package from out of state friends. Among the goodies inside were snowflake shaped crayons made from candy molds. They were so pretty!
Ben loved holding them, stacking them and coloring with them. Andy even got in on the action!
by Heather | 1 Comment
I made Christmas cookies this weekend. Now they call my name every time I’m in the kitchen… :-/ So yummy though!
I always wondered why people wear makeup to the gym. I mean, it’s one thing if you’re there in the afternoon and you’ve been at work all day and put together and then you go work out. But the early morning classes before you’ve gotten dressed and done your hair for the day…won’t you just sweat it all off and need to shower afterwards anyway? I don’t understand…
It’s a super gloomy day today so I made my step mom’s “Cafe Mocha” recipe. Coffee, packet of hot cocoa, little bit of half and half and some coolwhip on top. So yummy, the day got a little happier.
I helped save a German Shepherd from getting run over last night. Andy was on the phone with his mom and thought he saw a deer outside, but then said it was actually a dog. A car had pulled over to try and round her up, but the dog was seriously scared of the big guy. I headed out, crouched down and she came over to me, again scared but more trusting of me than the big guy. We called the number on her collar and the owner came a few minutes later (he’d been out looking for her). Meanwhile, Andy was still on the phone inside and his mom asked “Aren’t you going to go out and help Heather.” Andy replied “But, it’s a BIG dog.” That’s ok honey, you can stick to your cats ;-) Happy the BIG dog got to her family safely though!
I have an app on my phone I use to jot down notes of cute things Ben says and does. It’s nice to have handy and everything is all in one spot. Thought I’d share a few Benisms with you:
– Pancakes are “Panpakes”
– Sometimes Fruit Loops are snacks at the Y and he calls them “Fruit Fruits.” Apple Jacks are called “Apple Fruit Fruits.”
– Ben knows he’s not supposed to touch the Christmas tree and he does pretty well this year so I didn’t put a gate around it. One day Colby was under the tree eyeing up ornaments and Ben goes “Uh oh Colby kissmas twee.” Little tattler ;-)
– Ben’s use of English is interesting, he kind of talks like Yoda sometimes. Words aren’t exactly in the right order. Case in point, the other night he’d climbed up onto the kitchen chair then wanted help getting down. He said “Mommy help. Chair sit all done Ben. Ben help.”
– Ben also asked “Colby play?” when he wanted Colby to play blocks with him. Too cute.
by Heather | 0 comments
…but I draw the line at cleaning meat out of the meat grinder.
You should be thankful I didn’t take a picture of the swirling meat collecting into a juicy clump at the end.
by Heather | 1 Comment
This year we had our Thanksgiving meal at Andy’s parents’ house.
Ben in his Thanksgiving getup. Somebody’s eyes are seriously changing from blue to a muddy blue brown.
Playing cars with grandpa.
Chatting over dessert.
We stayed with Andy’s parents for a few days. The weather was beautiful on Friday so Ben and Andy had a bit of fun outside.
This is very serious business.
He had so much fun riding around with daddy. Incidentally the gokart is WAY too small for Andy :)
Friday night we made gingerbread houses at my mom and Paul’s cottage.
Justin “helped” Andy decorate his monstrosity. It was all frosting by the time they were done.
Saturday we visited Andy’s aunt, uncle and cousins. I’d actually never met them before. There were three little boys for Ben to play with and they got along great.
Ben loved the train that went around their Christmas tree!
More trains!
Smooched by Aunt Judy (Andy’s mom).
Lots of little boys :)
by Heather | 1 Comment
…for posting pictures of dead animals. Well, the hide of an animal anyway.
Andy’s been hunting for a few years and finally got his first deer last week. A doe, the opening day of gun season. He bow hunts too and would have preferred getting one with the bow as he thinks it’s more sportsman like (somewhat more of an art than just blasting the thing). Actually, I have a compound bow too and target shoot in our backyard. I’m not sure I could ever hunt though. I don’t have any issues with it, we eat the venison and Andy does it respectfully and makes sure things are quick for the animal. I’m just not sure I could bring myself to do it.
But this post is about Andy, and his deer. The friend he hunts with taught Andy how to gut the deer and the guys process it themselves. It’s actually very cool, very “old world, self sufficient” like. If we were ever in an end of the planet, society as we know it is crumbling situation…I would want to be on Andy’s team. He can MacGyver his way through pretty much anything. They carve out the fat and other stuff and end up with fabulous cuts of meat. They’ll also grind some which we use to make burgers, jerky, in tacos and any other place you’d use ground beef. I should do a whole other post on how to get venison to taste yummy, when done correctly it’s actually really good.
So what’s left over after all the meat is cut up (besides icky innards and organs) is the hide. Have you ever seen a deer up close? They’re gorgeous animals, so graceful looking. The hide is really pretty too, softer than you think it’d be. Andy thought he’d try his hand at preserving the one from his first doe. I’m not sure what he plans to use it for (I will not be snuggling up under a deer blanket) but I’m curious to see how it turns out for him. He cleaned it all up last night and needs to start the next few steps which involve lots of salt and some chemicals. I’ll have to let you know how things work out for him and what we end up doing with it :) Yeah, we have some weird hobbies…
by Heather | 0 comments
When Ben gets super excited, sometimes he chews on things. Not a problem if it’s a stuffed animal, but it becomes a problem when he tries to take a chunk out of your leg. It’s not aggressive biting, it’s “oh my gosh I have all this pent up energy and need to get it out right now.” Whenever he does it I always say “No! Ouch that hurts” and without fail, every single time, he gets a big lip quiver and bursts into tears. And then I have to try not to laugh, it’s hysterical. He’s such a sensitive little guy, I only think I’ve yelled at him once in his two years…most of the time a firm word is enough to make him stop whatever he’s doing (and sometimes even makes him cry).
We’re working on one of the bedrooms downstairs right now (pictures in another post). Basically, that room will become Andy’s lair of computers, oscilloscopes, circuit boards and capacitor & resistor storage. The man cave. Then the bedroom his stuff is currently in now, will become our bedroom. There are two bedrooms upstairs and two downstairs, and we’re planning to move downstairs to take advantage of the bathroom we finished this year and have a little quiet adult space. This leaves two bedrooms upstairs, Ben’s and one that will be used for a future kiddo. I’m a little apprehensive about being on a different floor than kids, but it’s just the solution that will work best for this house.
Speaking of the house, I’m excited to see progress on the bedroom…but sometimes I get discouraged with all the work. I know it looks nice, and it’s an extreme improvement over what the house used to be. But at the same time sometimes I think it’s not even like we’re restoring an old period home that has character and class. It’s just a ranch house. We’re not really bringing anything back to its former glory, we’re just making a normal house that isn’t gross. And believe me, what we bought was kind of gross to start with ;-) That said, we have a house, we got a good price for the area, little bit of land and it isn’t a “boring” ranch. It does have character and a little bit of interesting architecture. And it’s ours.
We’ve been watching Burn Notice on Netflix and I’ve been having really weird dreams about espionage and smooth talking secret agents.
The other night over dinner, Andy and I were talking about what we did that day. I told him I’d run 4 miles at the Y. He said he walked to the bathroom from his cube. Way to go baby ;-)
Ben and I went on a Starbucks date today. I had coffee, he had a juice box (brought from home, because seriously I’m not paying $2 for one) and we shared a chunk of pumpkin bread. For the most part he’s pretty good in restaurants/public settings. I look forward to many more dates with my little man.
People keep asking what we want for Christmas and I’m struggling to come up with ideas. Remember when you were a kid and would circle all the toys you wanted? So much easier. Actually, if you must know this is what I really want. I’ve wanted one since I was 9. Seeing as nobody will plop down $1,000 for me though, I’ll just have to hope Andy comes up with some invention that makes him a millionaire one day.
