Zoran's sweet Christmas letters

Zoran came home with his pockets full of quickly written folded up Christmas notes.  (He writes so fast and sloppy most of the time! It surprises me because that doesn't really fit with his orderly personality.)

He started unfolding them and giving them to me. Mainly all sorts of good wishes for a happy Christmas from him––some with a few with little stick figure portraits of our family.

This one was my favorite I think-– he is going to buy us some good stuff for Christmas but "all I want for Chismis is you Mom and Dad."

Then again, maybe I like that one that said, "Dear Santa Clause, I have some beer and cookies for you on the back deck."

 

when Mom talks too long at school pickup. . .

iphone dump: thankful edition

Pretty thankful for my girl. I love the gang of crazy boys, but it's pretty nice to leave them all at home sometimes, too. Azia came to be my photo assistant last Sunday afternoon. We stopped for hot chocolate & chai on the way.

 --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---

Paintball. . . one of the kids new favorite winter pastimes. We're going to have to remember to do this in the spring and summer this coming year. A few of Israel's friends have their own guns (and Zoran has been letting them borrow his) so they've been into the paintball combat lately.

 I think I need to make a goal now to get Israel a good birthday cake next year. It seems like I only make something cool (beyond a basic box cake frosted) for one or two of the kids a year, but it's been a few years since Israel was one of the ones who got one.
Facetime has been a huge hit around here. I don't really get it. I don't even like talking on the phone, so I'm really not interested in adding video into the mix, but I guess it's pretty cool when you're a teenager and some of your closest friends don't live in the same town as you anymore.

  --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---

 Lex and Iyezk's Thanksgiving dinner at school: frybread and stew and all the kids' families eating at those miniature little tables with the tiny chairs .

 --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---

It was a very expensive week around here.

We bought a big new refrigerator, which we could almost afford. Then Dev's truck broke down. After towing it to the repair place we had to put a new alternator in it. Then last weekend I turned my car on to warm it up and after a few minutes it made bad noises and shut down all on it's own. Another tow trip and another bill– this time for a fuel pump. When I got back from work later that day the local building center was unloading huge replacement windows for the ones broken in our living room– and after  a few guys spent all the next morning installing them I had all new windows and hundreds of more dollars in bills. After I opened the credit card bill yesterday and saw expenses for Dev's month of fuel, recent travel and entertainment was about ten times what I was expecting, I realized that we spent more money in the last month than the price of an cheap car. (On the list, though further down now, to look into sometime in the future.) Also, I haven't started Christmas shopping. I don't usually spend much at all, but it's still an extra expense in December to figure in.

This could be really depressing, but I've decided to instead be thankful that at least we were able to immediately get both vehicles fixed, that our windows are all replaced before real winter hits and that at least we were able to spend most of this money locally. All our business went to local contractors,  the service station and tow company in town & building supply store here in the valley. As another added bonus, a few of these businesses are letting us pay them over the next couple months which makes the huge expenses a little less painful.

 --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---

 Randoms. . .

Kyle and KaNana watch their sisters in the church program, Zoran getting his equipment ready for the next morning (apparently he was hoping for snow), Dev hanging out at friends watching the Saturday night fights.

  --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---

Thanksgiving Dinner

Gwen giving the dress up crews posing tips. They catch on quickly.

  --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | ---

Black Friday Madness

Due to my lack of money and my general lack of enthusiasm for shopping, I wasn't really planning on doing the big Black Friday shopping thing, but I did want to go get some fabric at JoAnn's. Last year I got everything for my family of six for Christmas pjs for around $20.  So, I left at about 7:00am to head down there, and then discovered about a half hour into the trip that I was in the middle of a blizzard, driving on black ice. The storm only lasted for a few hours, but it was pretty white and slippery for a little bit.

I did make it to get my fabric. JoAnn's on Black Friday is absolutely insane (dozens of crazy fabric ladies with multiple carts filled with fabric, 100-person waits for getting anything cut, no carts, some shelves with no fabric because of the 100 people with it all in their carts waiting to get it cut. . .) but, at least they have an "express" line for people only getting a few things cut and that line is "only" about an hour long. Sort of annoying, but still worth the money I saved. Unfortunately I also ended up buying some new dishes.  Ours are about 8-9 years old and getting pretty chipped up and the ones we've been looking at for a few months were 60% off. So, a few boxes of dishes sort of negated some of my savings.

I'm going to have to get another extra winter job. . .

afternoon movie

Lex thought his cat might want to watch some afternoon cartoons.

Apparently he was right.

Our littlest lumberjacks

The whole gang went to find Christmas trees today.

These two went off on their own, hatchets in hand, to cut down their own trees. And they did.

That one they just cut down, drug through the trees, and loaded into the truck is Bryce's.  Zoran's is already loaded underneath.

IHF: Furry Faces

We thought we lost our crazy cat.

So, I told my sister we'd take one of her other ones since they were all outside cats who never came inside and I didn't want another cat living in my house anyway. I'm not a big pet person.

Then after a week or so, we found the cat living at a neighbor's and the boys went to bring it home, because Lex really missed his Yettie cat.

Meanwhile, Tiger forgot she was an outside cat so now I have two cats constantly fighting and playing in circles around me and running up curtains (or lately the Christmas tree) or just trying to sleep for large chunks of the day on my computer or in middle of papers I'm trying to grade or just anywhere on me they think they can balance.

One step closer to my crazy cat lady nightmare.

thankful this is the ordinary

The family all got together for Thanksgiving Thursday.

A big meal, a few dozen cousins all together to hang out, lots of good visiting.

And the best part? There was nothing really out of the ordinary about this all. We do this pretty much every week. Except the food was a little more extensive and impressive– three tables full. Mom cooked all day. Everyone else brought multiple dishes. Even I cooked. The ordinary gathering of the family plus amazing amounts of food makes for a pretty good holiday. 

KaNana, Gwen, and Valerie. . . last touches on the meal.

Israel and Azia cooking away.

Israel made fried ice cream.

Everyone brought food.

And Grandma and Lettie brought their wheels.

There was a lot of eating.

Zoran cautiously considered trying a little sushi. . . maybe next time.

Grandma was brave enough to try it (though her tastes are only about as exotic as Zoran's!)

Ahni, Lettie, and Dylan filling up their plates

Keilana and Azia making decisions

There was some visiting.

Keira and Lettie

Azia, Maysa, and Keilana

Eldon, Jenna, & Christina

Kylie & Azia

Grandma Elda gets a hug from Maysa

girls, girls

 There was a  little wrestling

 and a little dress up.

And of course, some Black Friday shopping preparation.

Deva and Christina formulate a plan.

And near the end of the evening, some gadget lessons.

Iyezk teaches his papa a few things.

Deva watching Michael facetime with Israel.

the girls do a little photo taking

and the boys introduce Yaya to Angry Birds

and then back to the dessert table. . . so many options.

Actually, the whole evening was sort of like dessert.

it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

The town has all the lights on the streetlights up!

And everyone seemed to put up their Christmas trees over the weekend. I guess we need to get organized and move into the holiday season.

Blizzardy Black Friday

I only wanted a few craft supplies and some cheap fabric so I didn't go shopping in the middle of the night. Instead, apparently I waited until there was a winter storm advisory and then drove 45 miles on black ice with snow blowing so thickly I couldn't see where I was going. (Okay, really I'd already driven half the way when this started, so it wasn't that bad. Also, visibility was so poor that I wasn't going very fast. This meant the slick roads weren't too bad because I didn't speed up enough to use the brakes anyway.)

Really I should start paying more attention to weather reports. I only knew about the storm advisory because I heard it on the radio as I was driving through the middle of the storm.  The weather wasn't bad when I left, but on the way the way I saw someone's garbage dumpster in the middle of the highway. A few miles later there was one of those huge orange barrels they were using to mark off construction zones on its side in the middle of the other lane. Apparently there had also been some wind with the snow.

But I did get my $90 of fabric for $13.

Paintball, Snow, Football, & Food: Israel turns 14

Israel's Birthday was today, but he had his party last weekend.



Having a birthday in the third week of November is just pretty bad timing if you want to hang out with your friends to celebrate. Really often his birthday is on Thanksgiving (or the big shopping day after like this year) or the last days of hunting season. It's usually weekend everyone is likely to be spending with their families. So, the weekend before works a little better.

brothers

We did paintball last year for his birthday and apparently it was a pretty good birthday activity because he wanted to do it again this year. (And then again today when one of his friends was back in town visiting.)

Exploding paintballs, wool socks and handwarmers to keep the CO2 tanks warm and a fire to keep the people warm. . . all  aspects of winter paintball. 

Dev getting Zoran all ready to go.

taking cover. . . avoiding the other team

warming up around the fire: Israel, Tyler, Beedo, Gage & Zoran

Azia was a bit more interested in target practice than combat at this point.

Zoran jumped right in with the big guys. (And he has a big welt/ bruise from one of the shots that got him to prove it!)

Paintball boys:

After the morning paint ball, everyone headed back to our house to watch the UM win the Cat-Griz football game.

We had food and cake and ice cream waiting for us back at the house.

(and I must get a double-my-current -sized crockpot if I want to feed groups of teenage boys in the fall/ winter!)

Aodhan was ready to help blow out the candles.


Him and Israel are birthday buddies. Their birthdays are 2 days (and 12 years) apart.

Israel got a new phone for his birthday. It is a little ridiculous that my teenager has a smart phone, but it's the only "toy" he's actually been excited about for years. (He didn't ask for one--having one wasn't even a possibility he considered. He was just pretty happy about it after we surprised him with it.) He loves researching things he might want and working toward getting them, but when he does, he quickly forgets about them. He's never really been big about possessions. But, this phone has a camera and an ipod (the things he does use all the time) and he has been using the facetime all week to talk with one of his best friends who moved away last year.  Also, if anyone else wanted to help me out as much as he does everyday, I would gladly pay for any iphone for them instead. He's sort of my handyman, babysitter, housekeeper, errand-runner and I need to be able to get ahold of him!

His phone also has his birthday movie loaded on it. This was the only real request Israel had for his party. He wanted to be sure I'd make him a movie of his year:

He chose his own music. Country songs about drinking and girls shaking it? Not probably what I would've chosen.  And last month, Lex chose Ozzy Osborne and ACDC for his. I don't know what this says about my children, but I'm pretty sure Dev is the musical influence behind those choices.

After watching the game the boys had a grand plan to build an igloo. Then they were going to sleep in it.  Unfortunately we only had about 3-4 inches of snow. That's not really enough if they wanted to build something big enough for them all to fit in so they began moving it from all other parts of the yard.

Pretty soon it got dark and they gave up (not sure which of those two happened first) and then they spent much of the night running around in the dark. Maybe they were sledding.

It was a pretty good day, though. I was out watching the fights later that night at saw Israel had updated his facebook status from his new phone: "Just had an ausome birthday."

(We'll focus on the birthday fun for the day and start working on spelling next week.)