(a few of the trees in the neighborhoods near our home)

Dear Austin,

Thanks so much for the Fall. You are a bit late, but whatever. It's all good.

Yours Truly,

Sandra

Just a Stinkin' Cute Picture

SHE wants to wish you a Merry Christmas. We are posting this in case you are one of the very few who did not hear her SCREAMING that song from the bathtub this evening.

The Purrfect Gift

See this?

It is a little piece of heaven. Don't believe me? Ask her.

For the last 6 months, she has been sharing a brush with the dog. The D-O-G for goodness sakes! Mom and Dad lost the old feline brush, and failed to remember to grab one at the market, so this poor soul shared a pet brush with the likes of a
K-9. Sheesh. Just don't tell the other cats in the neighborhood.
It was $1.99 at Walmart, and it the best Christmas present this drooling purr box will ever receive.
Merry Christmas, Avery. You are Welcome.

Riverdance....sort of.

Our daughter has started a holiday tradition of having a dance off with us each night before bed. Turn on the Christmas music and watch her go. Mom and Dad usually last about 30 seconds, but Kaelan...oh that Kaelan. Her batteries seemingly never run low. Look at the intensity in that face! The force in those moves! This is serious dancing. Seriously scary.

P.S. Though it appears I filmed this from inside a honey jar, the yellow hue is simply my inability to switch the settings on the camera. I was obviously too worn out from bustin' a move and competing with this crazed machine in a dance off. You will forgive me after you see her go.

Photo Sharing - Video Sharing - Photo Printing

This is only a test....

This is a blog test for Suzanne, Tricia and Jeana....just to make sure they are indeed keeping up with my blog. This is only a test. We will return to your regularly scheduled posting at a later time. Thank you for your cooperation.

Honey Bunches of Toes

Kaelan delights in picking out a special cereal each time we go to the grocery store. I find it quite comical that her parents sneak "healthy" boxes of Captain Crunch and Honey Smacks into the cart, while she is limited (and thrilled) to choose from items that actually contain some form nutritional supplement. A treat cereal to Kaelan is one with the word fiber in it....yuck. However, lately we have allowed her to get things such as Natural Oats or Honey Bunches of Oats. She is in hog heaven! We do tell her that when she grows up, she can get grown up cereal like us. Good parenting.





Recently, I left Kaelan to enjoy a heaping helping of her new box of Honey Bunches of Oats with Almonds....(I guess the big almond change up came as a walk on the wild side). After leaving the kitchen for few minutes, I came back to find her eating a way, but stopping every few bites to remove something from her mouth. She had that disgusted "qrissle in your meat" look as she pulled the foreign object from her mouth and placed it on the table, but she continued to eat. When I approached her, she immediately gave me the serious eyes.


"Mom, " she with the most concerning voice, "I have to talk to you about this cereal. We are NOT getting this again!"


Looking down, I noticed a little pile of almonds on the side of her dish.


"Mom.....they put toenails in this cereal!



Funny? Yes. But very disturbing to me that she continued to eat the cereal despite thinking this.

When You Wish Upon a Star

The other day Kaelan and I were playing games and lying around on the carpet listening to kid music. "When You Wish Upon A Star" began playing, and Kaelan sang along in her cute, little mousy voice.

"Mom", she asked, "Why do they say you should 'wish upon a star'? What does that mean?"

I went on to explain to here about how some say stars are lucky and that when you profess your heart's desire to them, some say those wishes come true. It sounded just as quacky to her. She made a tssk sound and seemed like she didn't buy that nonsense.

Later that evening, we were out on a sunset stroll when Kaelan noticed what appeared to be the first star of evening.

"Look! A very bright star!", she said pointing excitedly. I didn't have the heart to tell her it was Venus.

"I am going to wish," she said with a smile.

"Go for it!", I told her.

Kaelan went into a tangent of hopes, wishes, dreams.....some of which included candy, a baby sister, a cat that actually liked her, and future trips to Disneyland. But one reached its way clear up to heaven.
"I wish to have a beautiful garden and farm someday where Daddy can work with me to make pretty plants grow. And I wish my pumpkins would grow big a beautiful!"

There's need for a little back story here. I think I told you before that last year, during our Pumpkin Day carving, Kaelan took it upon herself to plant each and every seed she pulled from the inside of her pumpkins in our front yard. I joked that the following Halloween we would have our own pumpkin patch. The pumpkins actually DID grow, and in August, we found ourselves with a little patch of yellow balls happily growing around our trees. Kaelan was beyond thrilled, but then devastated when a possum or bird or some other hungry critter came and killed her patch in one foul swoop. The pumpkins never made it to the ripened stage, and being a novice pumpkin farmer, I figured that was our one shot at having pumpkins. This Halloween, Kaelan once again threw a few seeds in the ground, but she seemed a bit less hopeful that her patch would return and thrive. The vines from last year had shriveled to brown tangles, as the weather has cooled. That is, until this last week. It seemed the magic seeds Kaelan had placed in the ground revived the vines and they started to grow again...at a rapid rate. And then.........just days after the wish......this:

Have YOU ever seen a pumpkin plant do this? Me either.......but then, I never bought all that "wishing on a star" hogwash.....until now. I am expecting some pumpkins soon. Perhaps next year you can pick your pumpkin from our patch....you never know. Wishes can come true.