In my mind, my birthday continued today.  And tomorrow too!  After church today, the weather was amazing!  None of the wind that was forecast, and so we were outside.  We played in the backyard and took a walk with the dog at our favorite walking park.  We couldn’t go back on the trails (too muddy from the snow before Christmas) but it was so nice to be outside, soaking up the sun.  While the kids played at the playground, I got some training time with Clifford who has had a long winter already, inside and off leash so the few skills I helped him develop in the fall are gone.  And he’s that much larger, and stronger, and is not walking well on leash.  Silly puppy!

After dinner tonight, we finally had our movie night.  It has been way too long since we’ve had our family movie night.  I got the kids bathed and into pajamas, and then had the brilliant idea of getting movie popcorn!  Quite possibly the best part of our town is that the movie theater sells movie treats from the takeout door!  So we can have movie night at home, with real movie popcorn, even if it’s a big kid movie playing that night.  After the quick trip for popcorn, we watched Mr. Popper’s Penquins.  What a great movie!  Even daddy, who wasn’t going to watch with us, got sucked into the couch and cuddle time and really enjoyed the movie.  Very funny, lots of big belly laughs from the kids, which might be an entirely new movie rating system altogether.  By the end, despite how much Thing 2 was enjoying the movie, he fell asleep in my arms, with Lucy on his lap.  Does it get any better, really?

(I’ve got pictures and I’ll post them later —  still on the camera!)

Thing 1 has the day off from school tomorrow so I get one more day to enjoy my children.  We’ll miss daddy who has to work, but we’ll see him for lunch!

Happy Birthday mommy!!

The first night started with a ding and dash.  Daddy answered the door, and no one was there, just a can of pears and a note.

The poem says:

This glad Christmas season is so full of fun.

We’re happy to share with your family, then run.

How grateful we are that you’re playing our game.

You’ll now find that Christmas won’t be the same.

The song that we sing twelve days in a row

Won’t get tiresome with treats from friends you know.

But to keep up the mystery and the fun,

You won’t know who we are until we’re all done!

Each day we’ll bring something

Please don’t watch for us coming.

If you catch us too soon,

It will spoil the fun that’s coming!

The kids wanted to eat the pears right away so I had to save the label.

Day 2

I think our mysterious friends know us very well.  Look closely at the paragraph on this surprise.

Day 3

I really need this the way I’ve been feeling.

Day 4

So far, day 4 has been my favorite.  ”The calling birds flew South for the winter. Please accept this substitute.”

Day 5

The kids really want to dig into these pop rings, one of their favorites.  Maybe for church this morning.

I am having problems remembering to apply sunscreen to Thing 1′s face before school.  This is really inexcusable!  Her class had a field trip today to a local pumpkin patch and her face is now the color of her hot pink vest.  It’s remains quite warm here and the sun is still very strong.  I should not have such a hard time remembering sunscreen!  Every day!  They play outside three different times….I won’t repeat this failure.

2. Puppy Training!

For some reason, I thought I’d train Clifford to jump over my leg this morning (my right leg as it was extended from sitting on the couch to the ottoman).  You know, like the dogs do in agility courses, which we hope Thing 1 will one day be able to do with Clifford via 4H.

Only my other leg was in the sitting position, on Clifford’s starting side.  And he is still a very uncoordinated, gangly, bony puppy.  As he jumped the last time, his back legs hit my left knee.  Ouch!  I told daddy about this experience this evening, touched the spot and noticed it was sore.  He left a bruise!  Holy dog!!

Good heavens — that’s the worst sentence I’ve ever written!

What I meant to say is…”What amazes me is how precise he is with his teeth, and paws.”

Sorry for my abominable writing.  I’ll read all future posts at least 2 more times before posting.

Well maybe you did guess Clifford the dog puppy.  He’s been losing his baby teeth for at least a month, but it seems he’s still got a few left.

But the poor chicky is history, victim to the teeth.  He’s going through chew toys like they are paper.  What amazes me is how is he is precious with his teeth, and paws.  Without thumbs even!

Speaking of victims, here’s the list: (that I can remember right now)

2 boxes of tissues

1 paperback book

1 book jacket (not my own unfortunately)

a few single socks

at least 3 dog stuffed animals

kong rope (chewed the rope right off, kong still ok)

every squeaky in the dog toys (that’s the first thing to stop, he literally chews the squeaky part out)

Anyway…nap time.  Whew!  Thing 2 is at that stage, almost too old for naps, but not quite.  Not really.  On those no-nap days, he almost  becomes a terror in the evenings around dinner time or shortly thereafter.  So I still try for a nap, every day.

The first few weeks of school, Thing 2 found a new place to nap; big sister’s room!  With Thing 1 gone, he’s napped in her bed.  He really liked that — spending time in sister’s room.  He doesn’t get to do that much.  And he’s so damn cute sleeping in her big ol’ bed!  He also tried napping in our bed once.  I think he really liked that.

And you know me, I’ve got pictures of him napping!  Next post for those pictures.

I think (wait, I KNOW) I talked about the dinner before, but that was about a year ago.  So just a little refresher for you.  Our community hosts a Home Products Dinner, featuring a menu of items grown entirely in our county.  It started in 1941 by our State Representative, on a brag.  He claimed that he could make an entire dinner using only food grown and produced locally.  The meal continued until he retired from the Legislature, and the modern version of this dinner was revived in 1963.  This year’s dinner is the 49th annual dinner.  I am so proud to be part of such an amazing, long-standing, local tradition!

I am finishing the second of my four year commitment on the Home Products Dinner Committee.  I practically begged to be a part of this committee after we moved here.  Not only is it wonderful to be part of the tradition, but it also takes me back to my meeting-planning professional background (I was not a meeting planner in my previous, career-minded life, but I did work for an organization that planned many meetings, including a large annual conference and had many duties in planning those events).

The dinner also celebrates the self-sustaining nature of our rural community – an aspect of farming that I am learning to embrace.  While green is the new buzzword, I think sustainability is an important part of being green, and that is what this dinner is all about.

Back to dinner, tomorrow we will feast on barbecue beef, scalloped potatoes, baked pinto beans, candied squash, cherry tomatoes, sweet corn, whole wheat rolls, strawberry jam, watermelon, ice cream and milo donuts.  An amazing meal for the amazing price of $6!

We’ll be serving approximately 1,500 neighbors tomorrow evening and so we’ve been busy the past few days.  While the committee works all year on the planning, we really started harvesting the crops in August.  Many groups came together in August to harvest the corn, shuck it, clean it, cut it and cook it.  The potatoes were also harvested in early August and have been waiting for the dinner.  On Saturday, the committee gathered the cherry tomatoes, squash, watermelon, decorative pumpkins, gourds and hay bales.  This evening, the committee also started cooking 800 pounds of beef for tomorrow, yummy!

But it’s getting late, and I’m running on a bit.  I must get to bed, for I have another long day tomorrow.  But just a few pictures from last year’s dinner.

Blue Blankie is a very important member of the family.  He is one of those necessary loveys.  Thing 1 didn’t have a lovey quite like this; if Thing 2 is upset, he needs Blue Blankie.  When he’s tired, he needs Blue Blankie.  If he’s awake and moving, he needs Blue Blankie.

But Blue Blankie has seen better days.  After nearly 3 and a half years of tag chewing, and 1 previous repair to the tag, we were about to lose the tag, and the entire corner.  So momma performed an operation.

What do you think?  How’d I do?