There She Goes Again

Some people have yet to meet our silly puppy.

I can't call her little anymore.

She weighs a whopping 53 pounds and she's only six months old.

She's our moose.

She reminds us a lot of Rosie and we jokingly call her R2.

So we decided to post a movie or two of her goofy antics.

We don't call her a goofy dog for nothing!

Here she is with her newest blanket.

We laid it out on the porch to let her get used to it.

It didn't take her long to take it and run.
She loves to play.
She plays more than any of our other dogs combined.

"She's up again?"

This new blanket is one of those warming blankets that reflect body heat.

She hasn't figured that part out yet.

So we kept bringing the blanket back.

Eventually she'll figure it out, right?

In the mean time she's provided a lot of entertainment.

In case you were wondering where she's taking her blanket.

Eventually she figured out that it was good for lying on.

She still drags it around but now she will lay on it when she's done.

Goofy dog.

Six Months

Six months ago today I had my brain surgery.

It was an eight hour surgery, at least that's what they tell me.

I am amazed to have gone through that kind of surgery.

The surgeon viewed it as routine.

It was anything but routine for us.

We spent several weeks planning and preparing.

I think back to six months ago and it seems like a lifetime ago.

There are times that it seems like I never had surgery at all.

Most of the time the skin on the back of my head feels normal again.

God brought us through that long week in St. Louis.

He provided everything we needed.

Even things we hadn't thought of.

It took a while, but I slowly went back to my "normal" life.

I'm so thankful.

I'm thankful just to watch the kids play.

I'm thankful for these two.

I'm thankful for the ability to make attempts at things in the kitchen...

...even if they fail.

(Failure can taste good!)

I'm thankful for all the evidence of children in my house.

I'm thankful for all the gifts that God has

given us in each day, including each day.

MMM... Apple Dumplings

 We made apple dumplings over the weekend.

We haven't made these in years.

I wasn't sure if I could make them Connor safe and still taste good.

The recipe we have calls for canned biscuits which Connor cannot eat. 

I started out by making our homemade biscuits.

Each biscuit is rolled out and cinnamon sprinkled apples are place in the middle.

The edges are pinched closed and then the dumpling is placed in the pan.

Before they are placed in the oven a yummy sugar-butter concoction is poured over them.

Nolan helped with a few dumpling before becoming the photographer.

Not bad for a trial run of Connor safe apple dumplings.

Everyone knows you need ice cream to eat apple dumplings.

We were out but our neighbors had some.

We shared the dumplings and they shared the ice cream.

(Like grandma and grandpa would ever say "no" to giving their grandkids ice cream!)

Connor's first bite of apple dumplings.

 

He loved them so much he had two helpings!

Because-we-haven't-posted-in-a-long-time Post

Yes, it's been a terribly long time since I have posted anything.

We really haven't been doing too much.

School, work, and I was sick for a week and a half pretty

much sums up our month of November.

Fun times.

This is Pepper with her blanket.

She drags this thing everywhere!

She's like Linus.

Today she took one of my throw rugs and drug it to the front yard.

I knew as soon as I hung it outside that she would probably take it.

I had it hung on top of the porch swing.

She still got to it.

Our tomcat, Puppy-cat, came back for about 24 hours.

I think he thought Pepper was his new pillow.

This is the cat that slept on top of Rosie and Casey.

Pepper, however, wanted nothing to do with being a pillow.

She wanted to play with the cat.

The stupid stubborn cat stuffed his head under

the bottom railing and refused to move.

The cat stayed on the porch most of the afternoon.

Pepper kept barking and pawing at him.

He decided to leave by the time evening rolled around.

  

I spent most of Thanksgiving resting because I was still sick.

Dwayne and I enjoyed a Netflix marathon in the afternoon.

We were just thankful to be together.

~

Every year we take a picture of the boys and have an ornament made with it.

I decided to post some "outtakes".

Because everyone knows that kids like to

cooperate when it comes time to take pictures.

Nolan has started going to a writer's club.

He loves it.

Not sure what was going on here.

Oh yeah, we got a new Christmas tree this year.

We've had a 7 1/2 foot tall tree for years.

Now we have one that's shorter and I can put

the lights on all by me-self!

(Connor used to say me-self when he was little)

Every Christmas picture should include a choke hold.

We thought we'd try a picture with Pepper.

She didn't cooperate much either.

That's better, but it's still not what we were looking for.

This is the picture we ended up using.

First Snow

We've had some beautiful frosty mornings.

On Friday, Fall decided to dress up like Winter for Halloween.

It snowed hard several times during the day.

Giant flakes fell from the sky.

It covered the ground twice.

It was so thick you couldn't see the grass.

This pretty much sums up Pepper's reaction to seeing snow for the first time.

She would snap at the flakes as they fell past her face.

She would also lick the snow off the porch.

Goofy dog.

More Beautiful

There was this weather forecast that said Monday was going to be gorgeous.

I had a friend call the night before and ask me what we were doing Monday.

I had an "uhhh" moment.

She told me her idea and when I came to my senses, we planned our Monday.

I'm so glad friends can be there when you have "uh" and "duh" moments.

So Monday morning we packed lunches, threw the kids in the van and

headed for Happy Hollow Park in West Lafayette.

(That sounded a little violent, the kids put themselves in the van.)

If you were stuck inside Monday, or had bad weather where you are at,

let me tell you that here it was as beautiful a day as it could get.

God provided the perfect picnic-hooky weather day.

The nicely paved trail.

All the youngin's.

We played, picnicked, walked and had lots of fun.