Of Snow and Pets and Projects

We have really enjoyed all the snow sprinkles this year. Seems like every other week there's a chance of another dusting, and we have played in all of it! Sometimes without our coats on, yet, even. After running some errands, we returned home to enough snow to make snowballs out of! Camten and Trinity got right to it, while I ran in the house for coats and socks and gloves.

Let me introduce our newest family member! :-)

This is Bumpity Bunny, a red-hair rabbit Jeremy surprised me with right before Christmas. He brought him home from a "Chili Feed" at the Burns Feed Store - a Boring specialty! I was SO surprised 'cause Jeremy showed me the water bottle he'd won first, and some other cool trinkets before plopping a cardboard box on the counter announcing he had an early Christmas gift for me! The best part is, Bumpity lives just outside my kitchen window and we visit all the time - yes, that's 3-way conversations, if we include the Fish in the Big Jar. (He's still just "fish".) More often we have a 4-way, 'cause Trinity's learned how to pull up a stool and play in the soap suds. Fun times!


Shad and Aidan both made experiments for the Science Fair at school this year. Aidan showed how these pencils he got from the local fire department change color with heat and cold. He demonstrated in cups of water. Shad created a marble chute and showed how heavier marbles fall faster. I let the boys take pictures of their experiments for their displays, and found this winner:

This is Aidan and Porky posing with Shad's experiment!

Porky has become a phenomenon this winter. He goes everywhere with Aidan and requires the smallest amount of food and drink. Aidan has made him into such a fun pet that everyone who meets him needs to have one just like him! So it is that Trinity has her puppies (and bears and ponies and bunnies... ok, so maybe SHE started it!), Shad has WaWi, a Chihuahua puppy, and Camten has a fluffy dog of some mysterious name.

My New Year's Resolution this year is to make a huge quilt! Here are my first 3 blocks nearly completed. I'm pretty excited. It's going to be a "Sampler" and have cool cars all over it - Chevy's, of course, with the Camaro in particular highlighted, 'cause it's for us! I got

the idea in a magazine that showed how easy it is to "Quilt a Sampler - the Prairie Girl Way!"

They had quotes from a book, The Prairie Girl's Guide to Life, that looked so fun and simple and DEEP - Like, going back to simple things. I took it pretty far and actually pulled out my Little House books and read thru them as I figured out how my sewing machine works (again) and picked out some material from my enthusiastic stash. So far I've spent $6 on batting and a thimble, that I still can't figure out how to use (if I poke myself, at least I know where the needle is!)

Naturally, we had one scare already where I LOST the needle and we turned the living room upside down before finding it - discovering how badly I was behind in some simple cleaning. The Quilting project was paused to vacuum and pick up and re-organize, etc, etc. I think I can confidently say this will be a year-long project (or more) at my pace.

Welcome, 2008!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!!!!

Our favorite tradition is making a BIG mess! Streamers and confetti everywhere!

We all normally go to bed somewhere between 8:30 and 10:00, so staying up 'til midnight is... well, something we may do in the future when the night life around here, well, when there is some. ha! So... we find the celebration of the ball dropping in New York on their time! And we do the countdown with New York and woop up our big mess at 9:00pm!!! hilarious!

So, everyone's a little sleepy and feeling funny being at such a late-night, noisy, mess-making celebration in the living room with everyone on TV. We feel like we really celebrated and welcomed the New Year in. Then everyone gets to bed. :-)

Sleep is one of those "priceless" things when kids are little. I mean, who knows when someone will get sick at some, odd hour. Actually.... I have only begun to sleep SOOOO hard, like catching up from 8 years of sleeping lightly for all those middle-of-the-night things. Nobody's interfering with even one hour of that precious stuff!!!! Although... it was fun (and freaky) to wake up to the fireworks at the real midnight. Being outside of town, there was more gunfire than fireworks, I think, and it definitely woke us up. So, "Welcome, 2008!"

December.... Christmas...

The Foundation was dug for the Maaco Build, the rebar was installed, ready for cement.

We picked out a great tree at a farm in Damascus. The Shad and Aidan found a busted soccer ball they kicked, dodging between all the trees. Camten ran fast to keep up. We decided a close-to-the-car tree would be perfect this year, and handy for not losing anybody, too.

Kristi came up for Christmas vacation!!! (She brought Dwight, too, wasn't that nice?) We visited and visited and snacked on Hickory Farms and visited. It's so fun emailing back and forth, but what a refreshing time it was to see each other!!!! Not to mention, she got to experience the Armstrong Household at full volume! Talk about a Treat!The Great Tradition of making Gingerbread Houses was not forgotten or overlooked in 2007. Shad wanted a Dog House again. I guess making what I could out of leftover dough last year was a hit! Dad helped Camten again, or visa versa. Aidan took on his very own creation and Trinity and I kept everyone supplied with decorating treats in a snacky sort of way. We made them so close to Christmas this year that they were actually delicious to eat, too!!! Bonus!

This was such a busy day... Dwight and Kristi came out to play (my way of putting it, not Dwight's, who spent the day under the van in the shop!) Jeremy got this homemade headboard from a client of a friend who couldn't use it... and it fit Trinity's bed perfectly! She loves displaying all her stuffed animal friends and blankey collection. Judy Gillock also came out with her brand new baby boy!!! What a GREAT day!!!! What a little cutie!!


Our very own A-Bear turned 7 years old on the 20th and the whole family came out to celebrate! Aidan designed a few individual cupcakes and was really wishing Mom would let him light them all.... I can't believe he was holding matches, let alone for a picture! I don't know, maybe in some places 7 is old enough to start fires, but not at our house! Maybe that's 'cause of all the firefighters in the family... Anyway.... there's our tree decorated. I kept adding lights to fill in holes and one string was just red - I didn't think anyone would notice. I guess it looked, well... who has to have a professional Christmas Tree?! I mean, seriously!

The Highlight of Christmas 2007 is going to be seeing Grandpa and Grandma at their house on Christmas Day. They are such wonderful, strong people with such a great legacy. On this occasion, their legacy filled their house so much, there was no more elbow room and walking accross the room was a mixture of tightrope walking and acrobatic hopping. The kids all opened their gifts, too, and then opened the toy boxes and tested out their new stuff. Then it was more like Human Tetris. I hope they felt the Love!!! :-)

On your marks, get set.... Here's our early morning fun right before we dived in! (There IS a baby Jesus in there somewhere!) Highlights? Wife bought stuff from Classic Industries. Didn't matter WHAT! Those are scateboards in front. Trinity got a kitchen! Camten got more cars than he could carry. :-) And a cool truck to carry them in! We got an Xbox!!!! Honey got JUST what wife "needed" and hid it in a BIG box - that's a craft organizer, of course. Everyone got a remote controlled vehicle! phew! And the kids got each other treasures which they really enjoyed watching each other open - oh, not to mention Dad's multiple tape measures, etc.

This year, some how (Jeremy), we got a family picture! There's a lot I can say, but most importantly...

MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE ARMSTRONG FAMILY!

Bonus...

On Christmas day it SNOWED! Here's a peak at our life on a snowy day...